Sold

Ama is Lakshmi’s mother. Like Lakshmi, Ama is hard-working, resourceful, and loyal; she will do almost anything in her power to provide for Lakshmi and her baby brother. Although the stepfather routinely gambles away all the family’s money, Ama often comes up with ideas for how to earn more, even when it means selling earrings or making other sacrifices. Ama is usually very practical, but she also allows herself and Lakshmi to hope and fantasize about a better future. This habit sticks with Lakshmi and is one of the things that allows her to escape. Whereas many of the other girls lose all hope, Lakshmi knows that hope costs nothing and is also the only thing that lets people endure.

However, Ama’s hope and faith at times goes too far. She is very devoted to the goddess after whom Lakshmi is named, but sadly, this faith does not magically fix the family’s financial problems. Ama’s fatal flaw is that she places too much trust and faith in her husband, Lakshmi’s stepfather. Although she recognizes his faults from the first page, she continues to argue that having any man around is better than having none. She also does whatever he says, including allowing him to sell her daughter off (although she is distraught about it). It’s unclear whether or not Ama knows where her daughter will be taken, but the fact that she simply allows this to occur without investigating it more deeply shows the extent to which the village norms are patriarchal and also the extent to which the folkloric idea of seeking fortune in a foreign land has taken hold there.

Lakshmi’s stepfather is one of the novel’s principal antagonists, although he is not actually a human trafficker himself. However, he is the reason that Lakshmi’s family is struggling financially, and he is also the one who actually sells her into commercial sexual exploitation. The narration makes it clear that he does so knowingly, and thus the questionable nature of his character is further emphasized by his willingness to deceive Lakshmi and claim that she is being sent away to become a maid. His deception thus ensures her obedience to the captors that lead her to her fate at the brothel, for she does not know enough to try to escape while on the journey.

Lakshmi’s stepfather is lazy, selfish, and has an addictive personality. Having lost function in one arm, he claims to be unable to work or even to help with chores around the house. Instead, he gambles away all the family’s money and spends what little he earns on unnecessary treats for himself, instead of buying supplies or fixing the leaking roof. At the beginning of the novel, Lakshmi’s mother claims that the family is lucky that any man would accept them after Lakshmi’s father died. However, far from protecting Lakshmi, the stepfather plays a central role in ruining her life. Despite his many flaws, Lakshmi always remains polite and obedient to him out of respect for her mother, further emphasizing the subservient role that girls and women are forced to play in this society.

The stepfather has many flaws that are immediately evident, but perhaps the one that is most fatal to him personally is his own naivete (which is partially a result of his gambling addiction). He strikes a deal and sells Lakshmi off, but only receives half of the agreed price until she proves herself. Lakshmi later learns that Mumtaz does not send any money to her family at all. The stepfather is thus cheated out of money even as he sells off his stepdaughter, making the exchange even more pointless.

Mumtaz is the woman who runs the “Happiness House,” or brothel, in the big Indian city. Whereas some of the women working there are adults who “choose” to be there, many are children who were kidnapped or sold into commercial sexual exploitation against their will. Mumtaz is power-hungry, money-hungry, abusive, and indulgent. She seems to enjoy luxury, which is why she does this job: She enjoys excessive amounts of cake, TV, and other empty indulgences. It is clear that she is corrupt beyond redemption since she has no qualms about running an establishment that promotes rape and sexual exploitation while also cheating everyone out of their earnings, nor does she have a problem with throwing children or sick women out on the street to die.

Her background is never clarified, nor is the reason for her lack of empathy, and thus her lack of a backstory renders her a pure, unalloyed villain in the tale, with no redeeming traits. Indeed, she proves herself capable of committing a variety of heinous acts with no emotional response besides anger. Lakshmi reasons that Mumtaz must be a “monster,” rather than a normal person, if she’s willing to do these things to innocent girls. By characterizing Mumtaz as a one-dimensional villain, the story shows how truly heinous the child sex trafficking industry is. It implies that nobody with any sort of depth or complexity would be able to stomach the job of being an “Auntie” and enabling the sexual exploitation of children.

Shahanna is another girl from Nepal whom Lakshmi meets at the brothel. Shahanna is kind and empathetic, so she gives Lakshmi practical advice and knowledge, such as how condoms work and where to hide her tips and personal belongings. She introduces her to television, which is how most of the women and girls relax before seeing customers. Also, Shahanna is important because she introduces Lakshmi to the idea that she actually can make some friends and trust some people in this place. By talking through the rumors about Americans with Shahanna, both girls are able to reason that maybe some of them do want to help after all.

Shahanna gets taken by the local police during a raid. However, her ultimate fate, like most characters in the book, is left unclear. The local police actually know about Mumtaz’s brothel but ignore it as long as she pays them each week. Whenever she’s late, they come and take one girl away to devastate her business, but no one knows what happens to them after that. Although some police might rescue her and take her home, these particular police take bribes to ignore child sex trafficking, so there is no guarantee that Shahanna has escaped her situation. Despite the lack of certainty around her fate, she still plays a major role in giving Lakshmi some of the tools she needs to escape and to free the remaining girls.

Shilpa is an adult woman who willingly works at Mumtaz’s brothel. In addition to having sex with customers, she is also a “spy” for Mumtaz and helps to keep the others in line. She also works a servant, helping Mumtaz with miscellaneous duties like making beds, drugging people, and holding children down to be raped. She appears to be jaded, mean, and corrupt like Mumtaz; she doesn’t empathize with the young girls’ problems and often calls them stupid. Sometimes, she does not respond at all when people talk to her, as if she doesn’t care about anything. She is usually drunk and does not seem to have any family.

Unlike Mumtaz, parts of Shilpa’s backstory are revealed, explaining to some extent why she has come to be this way. Shilpa’s mother also worked in a brothel and trained Shilpa to do the same when she was still a child. To ease Shilpa’s physical and emotional pain at being raped repeatedly, her mother gave her alcohol at a young age, causing her life-long addiction. Shilpa is desensitized to the world of commercial sexual exploitation of children because she has never known anything else. Although her background does not excuse her behavior, it does explain her emotional detachment from the crimes she helps to perpetuate.

Even though Shilpa is mostly an antagonist, she still does one thing for Lakshmi, which is probably the most generous thing she is capable of doing: destroying the girl’s illusions. Near the novel’s end, Shilpa shares the actual truth with Lakshmi: Mumtaz never sends money home to anyone’s family, and the “debts” the girls owe are all fake. Mumtaz simply keeps people until they are too sick to work, then kicks them out to die in the street. Although this information causes Lakshmi immense pain, it also helps her gain the courage and resolve to escape once and for all. Prior to learning the truth, Lakshmi governed her actions based on the idea that sleeping with more men would mean either more money for her family or a faster return home. After learning that this is a lie designed to keep her trapped, she stops worrying about customers and focuses on getting the Americans to come and shut the brothel down, thus escaping this life of sexual exploitation. 

Pushpa is an adult woman who semi-willingly works at Mumtaz’s brothel. She is not a child, nor was she kidnapped or sold by someone else into commercial sexual exploitation; however, she only started working at the brothel after her husband died, leaving her with two children and no other way to provide for them. Pushpa loves her children and wants to protect them from having to do the same sort of work. They are the reason she started working there in the first place, and although it is not the best home, she initially feels that it is better than being without any home at all. Pushpa is also kind to the young girls who work there, although she is not able to save them.

Pushpa contracts a “coughing disease” while working at the brothel. Although there is an occupational hazard of sexually transmitted diseases (and other diseases), Mumtaz forbids the women from using condoms, and most customers refuse anyway. However, once someone gets sick enough that they can no longer work, Mumtaz disposes of them. This is about to happen to Pushpa when Mumtaz offers to purchase her toddler, Jeena. Faced with this gut-twisting threat to her children, Pushpa promptly decides to leave. The whole point of her being there was to protect her children somewhat from the harshness of the world. Faced with a new threat to her children’s safety, she has no further reason to stay at the brothel.

Pushpa’s development is also unclear because Patricia McCormick doesn’t reveal what happens to her or her children after they leave the brothel. However, there is hope for the kids at least, because her son has a teacher who seems to want to help survivors of the brothels. However, it is unclear whether Pushpa will be able to recover from her illness. Thus, although she has the freedom to leave, her time at the brothel renders both her and her children permanently scarred.

Harish is Pushpa’s eight-year-old son who lives at the brothel with her and attends school during the day. At first, Lakshmi resents him because as a boy, he enjoys a relative degree of freedom, privilege, and safety. He doesn’t get raped, he’s allowed to leave the brothel, he attends school, and he has his mother with him. However, over time, Lakshmi realizes that his life isn’t easy after all; he gets physically abused (although not sexually), he doesn’t get enough sleep, he is bullied, and his family is always at risk of being kicked out on the street if his mother gets too sick.

Harish is one of the most important friends Lakshmi makes. First, he inadvertently teaches her that people are not always what they seem and that friends can be found in unlikely places. Second, he teaches her the local languages and also partially debunks some of the myths she’s heard about Americans (scare tactics that Mumtaz makes up to discourage girls from attempting to escape). His own fate is unclear because he and his family get kicked out, but Harish is resourceful enough and has a kind teacher who may be able to help his family, offering some hope.

Monica is another young woman or girl (her precise age isn’t stated) that Lakshmi meets at the brothel. At first, Monica comes across as standoffish, but she also gets the most customers out of anyone, meaning she’s also the closest to paying off her debt. When Lakshmi still believes that paying off her debt is possible, she observes Monica to learn tricks to help her earn extra money more quickly. However, more importantly, through Monica, Lakshmi sees that people are complex, for she sleeps with a doll despite her “tough girl” attitude. She also doesn’t talk about it with everyone, but the reason she works so hard is to return to her daughter at home, and also to provide for her. She is driven to help her family and believes that the ends will justify the means, and that her family will understand that and honor her.

Monica’s experience is tragic. Although she does gain her freedom and return home, her family rejects her, shames her, beats her, and tells her that her daughter believes her to be dead. After this, she returns to the brothel, only to be rejected by Mumtaz as well, since she is now discovered to have HIV. The stories of Monica and others show that even those who enter the profession semi-willingly, and even those who escape it eventually, are still irreparably harmed in the process.

Anita is another friend that Lakshmi makes at the brothel—another girl from Nepal. At first, Lakshmi doesn’t bond with her specifically because Anita seems to always be frowning and is very suspicious of Americans, a fact that confuses Lakshmi, who is not quite sure how to feel about them. However, Lakshmi learns that Anita only frowns because guards beat her so badly that they permanently damaged her face after she tried to escape. Anita believes that Americans were involved in that beating and is also afraid of the police in general. She believes that any subsequent disobedience or escape attempts will just earn her even worse abuse. She tries to ease her pain by watching TV and enjoying other small moments of pleasure.

Anita and Lakshmi become closer once all their other friends leave or get kicked out. Although Anita has been extensively gaslighted, Lakshmi is able to eventually convince her to have enough faith and hope to not hide in the closet when the American and Indian men finally come to rescue them at the end.