European Research Council funded project analysing the regulation of women’s reproductive labour in India
3rd March is International Sex Workers’ Rights Day. This day’s history goes back to 2001, when over 25,000 sex workers of India gathered in Kolkata for a sex worker festival organised by Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, despite efforts from prohibitionist groups who tried to… Continue Reading “International Sex Workers’ Rights Day 2022”
In May 2020, a controversial study entitled ‘Modelling the Effect of Continued Closure of Red-Light Areas on COVID-19 Transmission in India’ was released without being peer-reviewed, and quickly went viral on Indian media outlets. It recommends that shutting down red-light areas in Mumbai, New… Continue Reading “Researchers at Harvard Medical School and Yale School of Public Health: stop scapegoating sex workers for the spread of COVID-19 in India!”
In the effort to contain COVID-19, “red light areas” are in danger of becoming a fantasy backdrop for the state to perform grand, empty gestures of “pandemic control.” This distracts from the fact that persons doing sex work in India, whether in brothels, homes,… Continue Reading “Closing red-light areas to contain COVID-19: a misguided fantasy of containment”