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Prostitution and Beyond
— An Analysis of Sex Work in India
The paper by Geetanjali Gangoli sets aside some trends within feminist analysis on prostitution in India and depicts that the issue of prostitution has been addressed at least in three distinct ways—silence, as hurt and violence and as potential choice, liberation and identity. This chapter is followed by a panel discussion on why women’s movement in India did not consider sex work or sex workers as an integral aspect of women’s movement? Why the problems faced by a sex worker in red light area with respect to human rights, police harassment, safety, sanitation, literacy, health, drinking water, congested nature of live in place of work is not given due attention by the mainstream group? The paper highlights opinions and responses on issues related to women’s movements and their attitudes towards concerns for sex workers. Swati Ghosh, a feminist, describes the sex worker’s manifesto (1997), a product of organised struggle by brothel-based sex workers of Sonagachi in Kolkota and compares it with communist manifesto of 1848. The manifesto addresses several questions about the social structure and relations, inter-linkages between class, gender and sexuality, about politico-moral ethics of Indian society, and proposes to outline the likely changes, look for answers and generate further questions regarding sexual ethics at large. The second section includes a historical background by Rekha Pande how ritualised prostitution emerged from traditional devadasis or temple girls of the past to jogins of today in Andhra Pradesh. She cites a few case studies how these jogins were later converted to sex workers. The section also includes two ethnographic studies, one of community-based sex work among Nats, a nomadic community by R.C. Swankar and second the ethnographic profile of sex workers of Dharwar by Kowgli and Hugar. Both the papers list the socio-cultural and economic profile of these communities and illustrate the possible role of economic factors as contributing factor to this trade. Related to these is a study by Majumdar and Panja on modern-day call girls of Kolkata which are non-brothel based, highly mobile and often invisible. In addition, this section contains a paper by Bindumadhav Khire on male sex workers, where ‘pleasure’ forms an additional criterion for trade, even if it is not equal to money. The third section examines the economic, social, legal and health perspective of sex workers which inter alia demonstrates that the sex workers were at a receiving end. Being in prostitution, women get cornered into a caste-class of their own which occupies the lowest rung in the hierarchy is structured outside the hierarchy. Meenu Seshu points out that the stigmatisation connected with sex work is so strong that it denies most of the fundamental rights to the sex workers, including right to education and information, health care, social security and welfare services. The papers by Harshad Barde and Puja Yadav shows how defects and shortcomings in the legislation such as Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act 1956 and Immoral Traffic Prevention Act 1986, allows exploitation of sex workers at the hands of pimps, police officers, traffickers and others who stand to gain from their exploitation. This section ends with an interview with Dr Nitin Bora, a medical practitioner working in the red-light area, which sheds some light on the health concerns of sex workers. The last section discusses the cultural impacts of prostitution on language, theatre, cinema and media. This volume is admirable with a mix of research, literature, discussions, interviews, case studies, examples and illustrations. It appears to have lessened the negativity associated with the mention of sex work and seems to be useful for professionals and academicians working on the subject
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THIS volume voices the
concern of sex workers which is a non-homogenous community in terms of
their ethnic or religious backgrounds, marital status and age among
other factors. It contains 23 papers classified under four different
sections. The first section discusses different theoretical positions on
sex work, and the way they have developed independent voices in the
Indian context.