Children Of Sex Workers Research Articles

Beyond compassion: Children of sex workers in Kolkata’s Sonagachi

In 2005, children of sex workers from Kolkata’s Sonagachi red-light district formed their own collective, Amra Padatik (‘We are Foot Soldiers’), to work for gaining dignity for their mothers and claiming their own rights as children of sex workers. In this article the authors speak to AP’s founder members to demystify the culture of fear associated with their lives — perpetuated through popular representations — not to underplay their acute experiences of disadvantage, but to foreground them as politically astute citizens and decision-makers in policies that concern and affect them — to replace the compassion-driven traditional 3Rs of raid, rescue, rehabilitation with 3 counter-Rs: resilience, reworking and resistance.

Child Prostitute or Victim of Trafficking?

Is child prostitution a crime committed by minors, or against them? Federal laws on trafficking consider child prostitution to be akin to the crime of human trafficking, which raises questions about how states categorize child prostitution. At present, many jurisdictions' prostitution statutes fail to distinguish between adult and child prostitutes. Given the recent rise in state legislation geared toward punishing traffickers and protecting child victims of trafficking, it appears counterintuitive to retain state statutes that punish minors who are prostitutes when those same minors might be protected victims under the federal anti-trafficking statutes. Highlighting the dichotomy between criminal and protected treatment of child prostitutes, this article identifies gaps in both the law and social services, and assesses public policy solutions designed to aid this vulnerable and growing population of child sex workers. The article argues that state legislation criminalizing child prostitution should change in light of trafficking legislation that treats child prostitutes as victims of crime. Moreover, states should divert available anti-trafficking resources toward the rehabilitation and care of child prostitutes regardless of their immigration status.

Contemporary slavery in the UK: Overview and key issues

The article focuses on a report which examines contemporary slavery in Great Britain. It cites that the report offers a sobering account of human exploitation in Great Britain. It notes that the study determines the most significant forms of slavery and human trafficking, such as bonded labour, serfdom and child labour. According to UNICEF, there are at any one time nearly 5,000 child sex workers in Great Britain. Keywords: Human trafficking Language: en

Protecting the Rights of Sex Workers: The Indian Experience

Although India is a signatory to numerous international agreements on the rights of women and has a constitution that prohibits discrimination and exploitation by gender, as well as a plethora of related legislation, it has failed to satisfactorily protect the human rights of women, particularly those of sex workers. This is manifested in high levels of violence in the sex industry, child sex workers, lack of access to health care, and high levels of HIV infection. Policies that revolve around rescue and rehabilitation, or are based on the premise that sex work is immoral, are unlikely to effectively promote the well-being of sex workers. An alternative paradigm, which revolves around an explicit recognition of the human rights of sex workers together with an activist approach to achieve them, involving a collaboration between NGOs and collectives of sex workers, has worked well to protect the human rights and health of sex workers in India.