Disrupting the ‘life-cycle’ of violence in social relations: recommendations for anti-trafficking interventions from an analysis of pathways out of sex work for women in Eastern India

ABSTRACT

This article argues for the need to change the ways in which anti-human trafficking (AT) non-government organisations (NGOs) and their interventions in India frame and address violence in sex work. The article asserts that AT NGOs need to move beyond their ideological allegiances and infuse their interventions with a better understanding of the lived realities of women who are coerced into sex work. This argument is based on an analysis of women's pathways out of sex work in Eastern India, which include both finding independent routes, and also reliance on AT interventions. The research suggests that AT interventions need to acknowledge the centrality of social relationships in women's lives and experiences of violence. Social relations influence women's entry into sex work, affect their experiences within it, and shape their pathways out of sex work.

Cet article soutient la nécessité de modifier les manières dont les ONG de lutte contre la traite des êtres humains (ONG anti-traite) et leurs interventions en Inde abordent et combattent la violence dans le travail sexuel. Cet article affirme que les ONG anti-traite doivent aller au-delà de leurs allégeances idéologiques et introduire dans leurs interventions une meilleure compréhension des réalités vécues des femmes qui sont forcées à prendre part au travail sexuel. Cet argument se base sur une analyse des voies empruntées par les femmes pour sortir du travail sexuel dans l’est de l’Inde, y compris trouver des voies indépendantes et compter sur les interventions anti-traite. Les recherches suggèrent que les interventions anti-traite doivent reconnaître le caractère central des rapports sociaux dans la vie et les expériences des femmes concernant la violence. Les rapports sociaux influent sur l’entrée des femmes dans le travail sexuel, ont une incidence sur leurs expériences dans le cadre de ce travail et façonnent les voies qu’elles empruntent pour sortir du travail sexuel.

El presente artículo sostiene que es necesario transformar las maneras de enmarcar y abordar la violencia en el trabajo sexual, y las intervenciones que realizan aquellas ong que combaten el tráfico de personas en India. Asimismo, afirma que dichas ong deben superar sus vinculaciones ideológicas para infundir a su trabajo una mejor comprensión de las realidades experimentadas por las mujeres obligadas a realizar trabajo sexual. Estos planteamientos se fundamentan en un análisis de las vías que existen en India oriental para que dichas mujeres abandonen este tipo de trabajo, lo que incluye la búsqueda de caminos independientes o de apoyos derivados de las intervenciones contra la trata. Las investigaciones sugieren que las intervenciones deben reconocer la importancia que revisten las relaciones sociales en la vida de las mujeres y sus vivencias de violencia. Las relaciones sociales influyen en su ingreso al trabajo sexual, afectan sus vivencias en este ámbito e inciden en los caminos seguidos para salir de él.

KEYWORDS:

• Sex work
• anti-trafficking
• violence
• social relations
• exit pathways
• India

Notes on contributor

Mirna Guha is a lecturer in Sociology at Anglia Ruskin University (Cambridge). Postal address: Helmore 204, Anglia Ruskin University, East Road, Cambridge CB1 1PT, UK. Email: [email protected]

Notes

1 The sample size within the PhD research was 52. The remaining ten respondents included two pimps, four peer workers affiliated with an HIV/AIDS NGO in Kolkata which identifies as a ‘sex workers’ organisation’, and four adolescents categorised as ‘child marriage victims’ who were living in a shelter home alongside women rescued from sex work in Kolkata.

2 I met Rahima and other ‘survivors’ of human trafficking through a micro-finance rehabilitation programme in 2011. My role in this intervention was of research and documentation, and to map the impact of the programme on these women's immediate lives. Preceding this, I had worked on programme co-ordination and communication strategies with grassroots AT organisations in South Asia, through a Kolkata-based technical resource organisation.

3 Even when other forms of employment, such as domestic labour, are entered into, lower levels of income compared to sex work, the inability to keep children in the workplace, and prevalence of sexual harassment drive re-entry into sex work. Sex work also provides women opportunities to meet and initiate romantic relations with men without scrutiny. These relations are perceived as symbols of economic and social security in a patriarchal society.