Protecting the Rights of Sex Workers: The Indian Experience

Abstract

Although India is a signatory to numerous international agreements on the rights of women and has a constitution that prohibits discrimination and exploitation by gender, as well as a plethora of related legislation, it has failed to satisfactorily protect the human rights of women, particularly those of sex workers. This is manifested in high levels of violence in the sex industry, child sex workers, lack of access to health care, and high levels of HIV infection. Policies that revolve around rescue and rehabilitation, or are based on the premise that sex work is immoral, are unlikely to effectively promote the well-being of sex workers. An alternative paradigm, which revolves around an explicit recognition of the human rights of sex workers together with an activist approach to achieve them, involving a collaboration between NGOs and collectives of sex workers, has worked well to protect the human rights and health of sex workers in India.

Circumstances, experiences and processes surrounding women's entry into sex work in India

“…The majority of girls entering traditional sex work experience a first sex/first client ceremony, typically occurring some time after the dedication ceremony (Misra et al 2000;O'Neil et al 2004;Orchard 2007aOrchard , 2007bSivaramayya et al 2002). A first client ceremony always takes place after a girl has reached menarche, but may occur anywhere from one to three years after her first menstruation (Orchard 2007a).…”

Survivors of Sex Trafficking in Andhra Pradesh

“…In practice however, state policy has been influenced by the dominant view that sex work is immoral, since its purpose is to inhibit or abolish commercialised vice which the ITPA defines as 'trafficking in women for the purpose of prostitution as an organised means of living' (Misra et al, 2000).…”

Born unto Brothels—Toward a Legal Ethnography of Sex Work in an Indian Red-Light Area

“…In Sonagachi itself, DMSC has intervened at three levels—to change sexual practices by increasing condom usage amongst sex workers and their customers, to transform norms by countering physical abuse from internal or external stakeholders against sex workers, and to transform institutions by creating DMSC‐run branch committees and self‐regulatory boards that regulate the entry of new sex workers and their conditions of work. These efforts have substantially altered the bargaining endowments of sex workers (Misra, Mahal, and Shah 2005) in those areas where change is consonant with the market logic of the sex industry (such as condom usage 21 ) or where change is relatively uncontroversial (physical violence from brothel keepers 22 ) rather than, for instance, the abolition of adhiya .…”