Rescue and Rehabilitation
A Critical Analysis of Sex Workers’ Antitrafficking Response in India
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11119727 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Veronica Magar (Research for Action, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 37 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 619-644 |
| Publication date | 2012-03-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0097-9740 • E-ISSN: 1545-6943 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/662698 |
| OpenAlex | W2174758021 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 18 |
| References cited | 12 |
Sex worker–run community-based organizations (CBOs) in India have worked to curb violence, stigma, and poverty as an effective way to address HIV vulnerability. In addition to preventing and mitigating the impacts of HIV through structural interventions, many CBOs are now leading antitrafficking efforts. As this study explores, inconsistencies between antitrafficking and HIV prevention mandates inhibit sex workers in their efforts to prevent underage sex work while minimizing prospective harms. Within the Indian sociopolitical context, HIV prevention and antitrafficking response programs not only overlap but are often at odds with each other. This article highlights two dominant feminist arguments—advanced by anti–sex work and sex work feminists—that have influenced feminist practice related to sex workers. This study examines forty-one case studies of underage sex workers who were removed from brothels and case-managed by sex worker CBOs in Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal, India. The findings reveal that, even when executed by sex workers themselves, rescue models do not address structural barriers, thus providing unsatisfactory solutions. Not only are HIV programs compromised, sex workers (both the rescued and rescuer) are potentially exposed to excessive harm. Through the antitrafficking cases observed in the study, sex workers are neither victims nor resilient and effective change agents. An effective model requires that sex workers engage in structural interventions by reexamining the criminal codes that affect them, holding police and protective facilities accountable, and challenging social norms related to gender and sexuality
Computer security · Context (archaeology · Criminology · Family medicine · Geography · Harm · Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV · Political science · Poverty · Psychiatry · Psychological intervention · Sex work · Stigma (botany · Vulnerability (computing · HIV, Drug Use, Sexual Risk · Law · Medicine · Nursing · Psychology · Sex work and related issues · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology · Social Psychology
Human rights violations against sex workers
Covid-19 and female sex workers in India
Structural Violence in Health Care
The Homo Sacer
Sex Trafficking’ as Epistemic Violence
Of Raids and Returns
Community-Led Economic Initiatives with Sex Workers
Migrant sex work beyond slavery and trafficking
Economic Considerations of Migrant Female Sex Workers in India
Diversity in Sex Work in India
Influence of Survivors’ Entrapment Factors and Traffickers’ Characteristics on Perceptions of Interpersonal Social Power During Exit
Whose property is this? Exploring dynamics between property relations, housing precarity, and working conditions in Pune's red-light district, India
We Fight with God's Weapons
Structural interventions and social suffering
Transnational responses to commercial sexual exploitation
A study of public establishment-based and private network commercial sexual exploitation in Kolkata and Mumbai, India
Human Trafficking
Gender and Sexual Practice in Structural Context
Structural barriers and facilitators in HIV prevention
Identity, Culture and Politics
Structural Interventions
Trafficking in Women
Who gets to choose? Coercion, consent, and the UN Trafficking Protocol
Prostitution, Sex Work and Violence
Streetwalkers Show the Way’
Structural and Environmental Barriers to Condom Use Negotiation With Clients Among Female Sex Workers
Qualitative Data Analysis
Searching for Justice for Body and Self in a Coercive Environment
Ouch
| Citations per year | 1.64 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2015 - 2026 (12) |
| Highly cited | No |