Lahore's mosques and brothels

Lahore has been enchanting and very sad. You can find anything you want in this city: art and beauty, filth and depravity.


We met a family of prostitutes that depends heavily on one of its youngest and prettiest members in order to keep its home and lifestyle. She's 17 years old, and her client list includes some of the most elite public figures in the country. Her family pushed her into prostitution when she was 12.



From the fourth-floor roof of Cooco's Den, a 300-year-old brothel that has since been converted into a restaurant, you can look into the courtyard area of the Badshahi Mosque, which is roughly the same age. Heera Mandi, Lahore's red light district, begins just outside the red gates of the mosque and extends to another, much smaller mosque several blocks away. Imams over dueling loudspeakers in the mosques blast the call to prayer five times a day while sex workers earn their living in the squalid conditions below. Iqbal Hussain, self-proclaimed son of a prostitute and owner of Cooco's Den, reflects the neighborhood's juxtaposition of holy fervor and earthly vice by mixing religious icons with his paintings of local prostitutes throughout the building.