Sankat Mocan is a leprosy colony in Varanasi (Benares) and was established thirty years ago. It is a walled compound of about thirty single-room buildings that often house families with up to ten members. People in the colony live in great poverty. Many are forced to beg on the streets of Varanasi, while family members who are not yet visibly scared by the diseas work as rubbish collectors, garbage separators or rickshaw drivers. Some have found jobs as paper-boys and unskilled labourers.
