INTRODUCTION

When lawyers, politician and doctors leave the office, they

may assume roles as husbands or wives, mothers or
fathers and members of the community. Prostitutes on the
other hand, are viewed as whores, drug addicts, and
victims no matter where they are or what they are doing.
Sex work is not just one of a number of jobs a person may
hold. Rather it is a way of life- an identity that a person can
never escape.
Peninah Nyambura’s battered and lifeless body was
discovered in the twilight months of 2012 stuffed in a
drainage ditch in Thika, a small industrial town twenty-five
miles outside of Nairobi, Kenya’s capital. Peninah was a
Kenyan sex worker and the mother of a thirteen-year-old
daughter. She was only thirty years old. Hers was the
fourth murder of a sex worker in Thika in two years, but
police turned a blind eye to the killings haunting the
community.[1]
Women are trafficked into prostitution, and therefore
prostitution is violence. This is an understanding shared by
people across the political divide.
In India, the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1986 which
in its earlier form was the Suppression of Immoral Traffic
Act, 1956 deals essentially with prostitution and not
trafficking. Incidentally, the term sex work finds no place in
any law in the region. Instead, prostitute and prostitution
are the vocabulary of law, terms that have gained
centuries' worth of negative connotations. It is common
knowledge that trafficking takes place not only for the
purposes of sex work but also for begging, domestic work
and marriage to name a few. Trafficking has to be looked
at as an issue separate from sex work or prostitution. Sex
workers' organisations have argued against trafficking and
see it not only as a human rights violation, but also as a
threat to their own work and credibility.[2]

Sex workers all over the world face a constant risk of

abuse. This is not news. Nor is it news that they are an
extremely marginalized group of people, frequently forced
to live outside the law. No one would be surprised to learn
that they face discrimination, beatings, rape and
harassment – sometimes on a daily basis – or that they
are often denied access to basic health or housing
services. Sex workers are particularly vulnerable to sexual
violence on the job, but have few good option to report it.
Sex workers of colour and transgender sex workers are
though to be at even greater risk for experiencing
violence, according to the Sex Workers Outreach Project.
Around the world prostitutes, exotic dancers, and other
sex labourers are organising for their rights. They are
fighting to keep their brothels open, challenging stigma
and stereotypes, and exposing corruption within the sex
industry
When advocates use the term “sex workers”, they
referring to people who choose to participate in a range of
sex-based work including prostitutes, escorts, strippers,
pornography actors, erotic massage therapist, phone sex
operates and nude webcam models, among other jobs.
Consensual sex work should not be confused with sex
trafficking, when people are forced into sex work by
violence, threats or other forms of coercion.
Sex workers say they have often been marginalized by
mainstream feminists movements. Current and former sex
workers, including activist Janet Mock, criticised the
Women’s March organizers last year for erasing it’s
statement of support for consensual sex's workers right
from its national platform after it was initially released. The
statement was later added back and Mock spoke at the
March in Washington.
“ Women’s March has been very intentional over the past
year about trying to rebuild trust with the Sex worker
community,” a spokesperson for the Women’s March
organization said in a statement to TIME. “Sex workers
rights are women’s rights plain and simple. That’s part of
our platform and it needs to be a part of our movement.”
[3]

INTERNATIONAL AND FEMINISTS VIEWS ON

PROSTITUTION
There exists a diversity of feminist views on
prostitution. Many of these positions can be loosely
arranged into an overarching standpoint that is generally
either critical or supportive of prostitution and sex work.[4]
Based on studies done on the effects of prostitution in
countries where it is legalized, many proponents of
criminalization of prostitution states that prostitution
promotes sex trafficking and increases child prostitution.
Anti-prostitution feminists hold that prostitution is a form of
exploitation of women and male dominance over women
and a practice which is the result of the existing patriarchal
societal order. These feminists argue that prostitution has
a very negative effect, both on the prostitutes themselves
and on society as a whole, as it reinforces stereotypical
views about women, who are seen as sex objects which
can be used and abused by men.
Pro-prostitution feminists hold that prostitution and other
forms of sex work can be valid choices for women and
men who choose to engage in it. In this view, prostitution
must be differentiated from forced prostitution, and
feminists should support sex worker activism against
abuses by both the sex industry and the legal system.[5]

These feminists point out that women from the lowest

socioeconomic classes—impoverished women, women
with a low level of education, women from the most
disadvantaged racial and ethnic minorities—are
overrepresented in prostitution all over the world; as stated
by Catherine MacKinnon: "If prostitution is a free choice,
why are the women with the fewest choices the ones most
often found doing it?".[10] 
MacKinnon, Catharine A. (2007). Women's Lives, Men's
Laws.
The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women ( CATW),
defines prostitution as a form of sexual exploitation and
the Global Reliance Against Trafficking in Women
(GAATW), which advocates for the inclusion of a right to
self- determination in anti- trafficking legislation.
Legalization or decriminalization proponents, on the other
hand, believe that the selling and buying of sex exchange
will continue no matter what. Therefore, the only way to
effectively prevent violence is to acknowledge this and for
government to build policies and laws that deal with the
issue through regulation of the business.
[22] Legalization/Decriminalization proponents believe that
a system that prohibits prostitution creates
an oppressive environment for prostitutes.[27] Proponents
of this view also recommend that policies are built that
places restrictions on trafficking and exploitation of sex
workers.[28]MOVEMENTS AND ACTIVISTS
SUPPORTING SEX WORK.
Jo Doemeza in Forced to Choose: Beyond the Voluntary
v. Forced Prostitution, notes that the international
discourse has shifted from primarily an abolitionist view of
prostitution to one that distinguishes between free and
forced prostitution.
1. Prostitution is a transaction where no one is harmed, and
the persons involved are consenting adults.
2. Prostitution is a free choice.
3. Sex work is no more moral or immoral than other jobs.
4. Sex trafficking and coercion into the industry can be
effectively reduced if sex work is legalized or
decriminalized.
5. Decriminalization or legalization can protect sex workers
from violence most effectively.
6. The spread of diseases can be hindered through the
legalization or decriminalization of prostitution.
7. The rates of rape could decrease if prostitution were
legalized or decriminalized.
8. Sex work could become a legal business, and human
rights and worker's rights could be enforced by effective
regulation.
9. Prostitution is a career option in which the free market is
being taken advantage of and women's claims over their
own bodies.
10. The criminalization of sex workers only exacerbates
problems that they are already facing. Therefore, the
decriminalization or legalization can be a starting point to
addressing these issues.[29]
Decriminalization is supported by academics, human
rights organizations, such as Amnesty
International, Human Rights Watch and the American Civil
Liberties Union, UN agencies, such as UNAIDS, WHO,
and UNDP, LGBT organizations such
as ILGA and Lambda Legal, and anti-trafficking
organizations such as the Global Alliance Against Traffic
in Women, La Strada International, and the Freedom
Network USA.[30]X

SEX WORKERS ORGANIZATION AND MOVEMENT IN

INDIA
The KSWU is a union of women, men, and transgender
sex workers who live in the southern state of Karnataka,
India. Currently, at least 2,500 people have registered with
KSWU. The union’s first organized public action was a
rally on May 1, 2006, as an affiliate of the New Trade
Union Initiative (NTUI). 
https://newlaborforum.cuny.edu/2015/06/08/sex-workers-
join-the-indian-labor-movement/
KSWU strives to get sex work recognised as dignified
labour, campaigns of decriminalization of sex work, and
demands labour rights that are guaranteed to all other
workers.
unlike many other sex worker organizations in India,
KSWU does not receive funding from international donors
and has applied for official state registration as a trade
union. Members pay a joining fee and then a monthly
subscription. Although KSWU has not yet been officially
recognized by the state as a trade union, its insistence on
registering as a trade union is central to its organizational
ideology. As one leader explained, “We want sex work to
be considered a profession. Like how there are clear
identities for auto drivers, lorry drivers. The same way, our
profession has to be respected.”
https://newlaborforum.cuny.edu/2015/06/08/sex-workers-
join-the-indian-labor-movement/ [Accessed on 19.2.20]
In Kolkata, the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee
(DMSC) which claims over sixty- five thousand members
began as an HIV prevention project but, from the
beginning drew on an occupational health and labour
rights framework. India has two active national sex worker
advocacy networks of community-based sex worker
organizations. The relationship between these networks
and labour activism in India has been uneven, but invoking
the labour movement plays an important symbolic role in
affirming sex work's position as labour and beginning to
make links with other workers in the informal sector.
https://newlaborforum.cuny.edu/2015/06/08/sex-workers-
join-the-indian-labor-movement/ [Accessed on 19.2.2020]
ENDNOTES
1. Mgbako, Chi Adanna. In To Live Freely in This
World: Sex Worker Activism in Africa, 1-18. NYU
Press, 2016
2. https://www.himalmag.com/legislating-morality/
[Accessed on 19.2.20]
3. https://www.google.com/amp/s/time.com/5104951/
sex-workers-me-too-movement/%3famp=true
[Accessed on 19.2.20]
4. O'Neill, Maggie (2001) Prostitution and Feminism.
Cambridge : Polity Press pp 14 – 16
5. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Feminist_views_on_prostitution#cite_ref-1 [Accessed
on 19.2.20]
6.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
https://www.himalmag.com/legislating-morality/