India's Call Center Girls: Living a Sinful Life?

I just came across a call center article published last year about a misconception of call center life in India.

According to the article, working in a call center makes one lose their morals and sense of life balance. This angle of a call center life is mirrored in India’s media. To quote:

The devil-may-care lifestyle of the young call centre employees is becoming folklore, and writers, Bollywood and TV commercials are reflecting it.

Why is this happening in India? I don’t know. I hope our readers in India who work in call centers can share their opinion about this.

On the other hand, this has been denied by some call center workers there, telling that there’s more work to do in the office than focus on sexual activities.

Ms Srilekha Bhattacharya, 27, who works in the sales section of the call centre of a multinational company in Delhi, says their high-pressure jobs leave them little time for anything else.

We have daily and monthly targets to achieve. This is a high-pressure job and there is a strict code of conduct for the employees. We even have a dress code. Revealing and indecent dresses are out.

The floors are monitored by CCTV. There is 24-hour monitoring and employees are not allowed to take in their personal belongings, including mobile phones.

Why is this a matter of concern to them?

Let’s take a look at India’s statistics. According to the article India has the third-highest number of HIV cases – 2.4 million – after South Africa and Nigeria. But this statistics doesn’t only comprise of people working in a call center.

In my opinion, it is unfair to single out call center workers with this ‘image’ in India. The workplace is out of the issue, living someone’s life depends on the choices they make.

How about your take on this issue?