--Women's Work, Stigma, Shelter
--Sujata Gothoskar
The growing number of women trying to run away from state-run shelter homes has led to investigations into the living conditions which have been found to be inhuman. Many women, especially sex workers and those who were working in bars, have been detained for prolonged periods, raising questions about choice, coercion, violence and stigma in women's work.
"In the view of people who denigrate women in sex work or even in the entertainment industry, broadly speaking, sex work per se is so demeaning that women involved in it are either victims, mostly of trafficking, needing to be "saved", "protected" or "rehabilitated" or, alternatively, they are loose women who need to be taught their place in society, paid less, beaten up, violated and denied any freedom whatsoever. These two images are likely to coalesce, overlap and permeate each other. In this context, it is ironic that society, and to some extent the legal framework insists that all sex work is coerced all the time, while all sex in marital relationships is of the woman's volition. Hence, the non-existence of the category "marital rape", and at the same time, the equation of sex work with trafficking."
"The present structure of sexual morality is not challenged in their continuation; in fact structural inequality continues and there is no question of challenging it. There is no question of choice or agency; there is no transgression of spaces; there is no competition; there is no fear that one of "your own" will be contaminated or polluted by this crossing over, even to access the services of "the other". Could this be the reason why there is so much contempt for women who are involved in sex work or even the larger entertainment industry? This has been brought out vividly in the last decade in connection with women working in the so-called dance bars."
It is time that we look at these structures and revamp them before more hapless women are implicated in this brutality. In this entire process, it is necessary to focus on the dignity and human rights of women.
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