Negotiating Stigma: How Adolescents of Sex Workers Growing Up in Red-light Areas of Kolkata Understand Stigma

Abstract

Adolescents growing up in red-light areas contend with a large set of challenges ranging from their physical safety to the way they are socialised and consequently how it leads to their identity formation. This study finds that adolescents of sex workers negotiate not only with the stigma of their mothers’ profession but also with the stigma attached to the location of the red-light area in which they grow up. The adolescents also discuss a multitude of stigmas attached to their identity, ranging from the unconventional family structures to the stigmas within the sex work community. The study concludes by analysing how these adolescents manage stigma and how it weaves into their identity formation.