Local actions

The struggle for rights emerged out of the countless violations that women in prostitution and sex work face everyday. When the health system refused to treat them, women in prostitution and sex work who were part of VAMP refused to take it lying down any longer. Using their newfound knowledge of STDs and HIV, the women started negotiating with the health system. They also expressed a sense of being violated in refusing to go to the public hospital for free treatment since they were treated badly by the staff. As they articulated and started negotiating their ‘right to treatment’, the collective began to assert its rights.

The most basic of all is the denial of the right to practice the ‘business of making money from sex’. “We protest against a society that deems us immoral and illegal mainly because we do not accept its mores, rules and governance. We protest against the various forces of mainstream society that deny us the right to liberty, security, fair administration of justice, respect for our lives, discrimination, freedom of expression and association” declares the VAMP statement succinctly.

SANGRAM and VAMP currently use the paradigm of rights at two levels:

Over the years, VAMP has started using the paradigm of rights to deal with violence from clients, local thugs, the police – and society at large. The collective has addressed violence in many ways. First and foremost, it has made women in prostitution and sex work understand that they do not automatically deserve violence because they make money of sex. As women, human beings and citizens, they have the right to lead lives free of violence. Instilling this understanding in the mind of a woman who believes that her life is of no value, is the first step in the struggle against violence.

While violence has not stopped, it has gone down. The police, who used to drag women by their hair when arresting them, now lead them away in a more dignified manner. They are more ready to accept complaints filed by women in prostitution and sex work. And there is a greater understanding of the role that collective strength can play. “If they don’t take your complaint then call 100 women and we will all come,” says Shabana Kazi. “We will take out a morcha [protest demonstration] at the police station. Then they will write down your complaint.”

Unfortunately, the empowerment of sex workers is often taken to mean the development of them as peer educators in order to achieve 100 per cent condom use, in brothels. Most NGOs use such a peer educator approach and their empowerment strategies tend to be more about providing the sea workers with ways to access health services and become the via media for condom distribution. Rarely do these strategies consider the sex workers’ overall socio-economic situation in order to facilitate the realization of their rights. As a consequence, empowerment strategies for sex workers do not necessarily address the issues of exploitation, oppression and other human rights abuses in brothels, or make sex workers aware of their rights, particularly their health and other socio-economic rights.