Community-Based Strategies for Harm Reduction Among Sex Workers in Kolkata, India

Abstract

Research conducted with diverse groups of sex workers in India as well as around the globe have shown that decriminalizing sex work can promote the health, safety, and security of sex workers. Nonetheless, in many countries, including India, legislations criminalizing buying of sex—that is punishing clients of sex workers—have gained momentum with the accompanying rationale of rescuing/saving women trapped in sex work. Such legislations ignore the reality that sex work is an economically viable vocation for a majority of women, men, and transgender people in India—especially when compared to low-paying jobs with long, fixed hours of work. Consequently, such legislations have also not deterred people from choosing sex work as a livelihood option. In addition, little information is available about the community-based harm reduction responses. We as scholars—who have separately conducted field-based ethnographic research with diverse groups of brothel- and non-brothel-based sex workers in Kolkata India between 2009 and 2016–-share our findings about the impact of criminalization on varied groups of sex workers in India. In addition, we provide a critical analysis of the several community-based strategies—ranging from self-regulatory boards, stakeholders-NGOs negotiations, NGO-police partnership, and drop-in-centers—adopted by the sex worker organizations to mitigate the harms associated with sex work in Kolkata, India.