Another woman broke down while speaking to PTI, “Every month I send money to my two sons, who live with their grandparents near Pokhara. This month, I don’t know if I will be able to send anything. If they don’t get money, how will my children eat?”

The immediate concern is the survival of their families back home. The remittances from Kolkata, though meagre, often form a lifeline for households in rural Nepal.

The sudden disruption has not only created financial stress but also aggravated their sense of helplessness.

“Even if we want to go home, there is no way,” said another Nepalese woman in Sonagachi. “The border is closed, flights are cancelled. We are stuck here and our families are stuck there. We are helpless.”

Activists who work with sex workers echoed these fears.

“They are entirely cut off,” said Mahasweta Mukhopadhyay of Amra Padatik, an organisation that supports the children of sex workers.

“It is natural for these women to be in distress. They cannot contact their families, nor can they be sure if remittances will reach them,” she said.

“We will hold a meeting with some of the sex workers and officials of our NGO and try to find a way so that they can speak with their families and send money back home,” Mukhopadhyay said.

The red-light district Sonagachi has around 200 Nepalese sex workers.

For decades, Nepalese women have been a visible presence in Kolkata’s red-light belts, often trafficked across the open border and ending up in the trade under dire circumstances.