There's always this problem in society where people know they need these places for social peace, but the fundamentalists want to shut them down. Sometimes that's for economic reasons, because they want to build a supermarket there. The imam will hold a prayer and say let's get rid of the girls, but on the other hand they're all going there.

I think beauty is the splendor of truth, so if the people I portray think they're beautiful, they're beautiful. I don't make them that way.

On one hand, they [prostitutes] don't struggle because it's simply their life. In Mexico and elsewhere, once they get out of these places [brothels] they have a pretty square life.

If you're a prostitute, this is your day: You party, you have customers until four or six in the morning, then you sleep. You wake at noon, watch soaps on TV, take two or three hours to fancy up yourself, and then you start waiting for customers. That's your life. And some days no customers come. There's no party. There's nothing. You sit there and wait. If you're educated you can read books, but in Bangladesh and most other places you watch TV or listen to music or cook.

A young man in Bangladesh can't even hold hands with a young woman. Without marriage there is no kissing, no holding hands, no going anywhere. So young boys can only go to the brothels for sex before marriage.

Sometimes the presence of a camera is like opening a door, because many people want what Andy Warhol called "15 minutes of fame." But prostitutes don't want that.

I had to first convince them [prostitutes] that I wasn't a journalist who would yet again put out a notion about them they wouldn't necessarily care for or who would victimize them. You know, journalists come and go. If they come twice, it's a lot. But I come 10 times and hang out with them and share stuff. If you connect with someone just once, that's something. But if you can connect twice, that's something else.