Sex Work, Marginalization, and Activism in India

Understanding the Diversity of People in Sex Work: Views from Leaders in Sex Worker Organizations

“…Intersectionality shows how sex and gender intersect with Indigeneity, social class, race, and other influences that collectively cause varying health and social outcomes across time and place, including how individuals access protective and healthcare services and how they are treated by service providers (Hawkes and Buse 2020). Therefore, intersectionality problematizes the biases invisibilized by feminist governance, namely the stigmatization experienced across multiple social inequalities (Benoit et al 2019;Foley 2019;Kotiswaran 2011;McMillan and Worth 2019;Vijayakumar et al 2019).…”

“…The thematic interpretation of the data was then organized into master themes (i.e., intersections of diversity in sex work, creating safe spaces for diversity at the local level, and mobilizing the diversity of sex workers at multiple levels). Theoretical insights from the perspectives of intersectionality and sex work (Bauer 2014;Foley 2019;Hankivsky and Christoffersen 2008;McMillan and Worth 2019;Vijayakumar et al 2019), the sociology of stigma (Goffman 1963;Hatzenbuehler et al 2013;Link and Phelan 2014), and capabilities (Nussbaum 2003) were employed during our analysis of the participants' detailed responses to questions about how to mobilize diversity among sex workers and organizations and about constraints faced in doing so. These verification techniques were employed to help increase rigor in the qualitative analysis and interpretation.…”

“…Two key roles of SWOs are reducing the social isolation of the spectrum of people who sell sexual services and bringing them to available services and programs (Argento et al 2011;Azhar et al 2020;Vijayakumar et al 2019). Access to health and social services for people in sex work in their communities is challenged by the stigma of their work; their disadvantaged social locations, which are due to poverty, racial, sexual minority, and disability statuses; their economic marginalization; and the criminalized frameworks that surround their occupation (Benoit et al 2018;Benoit and Unsworth 2022;Foley 2019;Vijayakumar et al 2019). The role of SWOs in supporting the inclusion of sex workers from diverse backgrounds has been shown to effectively address social and health inequities, improve quality of life, and enhance sex workers' wellbeing (Belle-Isle et al 2014;Benoit and Unsworth 2022;Swendeman et al 2015;West et al 2021).…”

“…This "whore-archy" detracts attention from the most marginalized workers and strengthens horizontal stigmatizing attitudes within the sex worker community, preventing access to supports (Graceyswer 2020). This social stratification extends beyond the realm of sex work policy (Vijayakumar et al 2019) and may replicate and/or strengthen inequities that already marginalize and isolate workers (Fuentes 2022;Kotiswaran 2011).…”

Decriminalization and What Else? Alternative Structural Interventions to Promote the Health, Safety, and Rights of Sex Workers

“…Structural interventions refer to public health and other macro-and meso-level strategies that bridge rights and policies and promote health, well-being, and dignity for marginalized groups by altering the structural context within which their health, safety, and well-being are produced and reproduced (Blankenship et al 2000). In addition to negative moral judgment and punitive measures governing their work, many sex workers have a history of complexity in their lives that predisposes them to comparatively high degrees of food insecurity and other forms of economic hardship, low educational achievement, inadequate housing, poor physical and mental health, high levels of long-term disability and unmet health needs, and elevated rates of assault and victimization (McCarthy et al 2014;Benoit and Unsworth 2021;Benoit et al 2021a;Benoit et al 2016;Hardy and Sanders 2015;McMillan and Worth 2017;Vijayakumar et al 2019;Vijayakumar 2018). In our call for empirical papers, we encouraged submissions reporting research findings on the structural factors, such as material hardship, poverty, insecure housing, the multi-generational impacts of colonization, and stigma that play a key role in predisposing sex workers to an elevated risk of experiencing social disadvantages (Hardy and Sanders 2015;Lanau and Matolcsi 2022).…”