india

Sex workers in India have had enough and are fighting back - literally.  The world's oldest profession is still illegal in many countries.  This leaves sex workers vulneralbe to attack from customers and police. 

There is a vast difference between the lives and daily existences of voluntary sex workers and those that are forced into sex work.  I choose to support the rights of consenting sex workers to make that choice.  I also support the rights of the human beings trapped in sex work to a life of dignity and equality.  I want people trapped in poverty to have other choices besides sex work to begin with and a way out for those seeking it.  Even those inside involuntary sex work deserve health care, freedom from persecution and violence and the protection from police from the crimes committed against them.

Jason Overdorf reports in The Global Post on the change in strategy for sex workers in Chennai, India. 

NEW DELHI (Dhananjay Mahapatra, Times of India): The Manmohan Singh government is all set to break another gender barrier that existed in the Supreme Court for nearly six decades.

After choosing Meira Kumar as the first woman Speaker of Lok Sabha, the UPA government has decided to reserve one post of additional solicitor general (ASG) for a senior woman advocate.

The ASGs play an important role in the higher judiciary as they represent the Centre before the Supreme Court and the High Courts in important cases or those involving constitutional questions.

This path-breaking decision will go a long way in initiating a process to reverse the trend of light representation of women in important posts connected to the judiciary, especially the higher tiers. Take for example the number of women judges in the SC, it had just three in the last 60 years — Justices Fatima Beevi, Sujata Manohar and Ruma Pal. 

Though the think tank in the Congress-led coalition government had little debate in taking this important decision, there appears to be a mad scramble for the remaining posts of ASGs among noted senior advocates, barring a few who are virtually sure of making it.

After getting back with a thumping mandate, the Congress-led government had decided not to continue with its previous term's `ally quota' system for distribution of ASG posts that in 2004 had seen nominees of NCP, DMK and even CPM get into the elite panel.

Having got wind of the decision, the allies started exerting pressure on law minister Veerappa Moily for accommodation of their nominees as ASGs. Adapt at handling such pressures, Moily is running a tight ship giving little away even as he has been holding consultations for finalisation of the list of ASGs.

With the top slots already filled — G E Vahanvati as attorney general and Gopal Subramaniam set to be appointed as solicitor general — the government is not in any undue haste as it has almost three weeks to complete the process of appointment ASGs, for the SC reopens only on July 6 after the summer break.

dhananjay.mahapatra@timesgroup.com

Here is a good, solid report on sex-workers in India.  It can be found online here.  There are many sides to the topic of sex work.  For every sex worker there is a unique story of that life, their sex and their experiences.  This article says more about the economic realities of a woman's value in a society than it does about sex. 

For these women in poverty working in the sex trade, sex itself is not the violation. 

Being dehumanized, brutalized, infected, neglected and reviled because they are women is the great violation.

(Image courtesy of Boston Globe)

Authors: Rakhi Dandona, Lalit Dandona, Anil Kumar, Juan Pablo Gutierrez, Sam McPherson, Fiona Samuels, Stefano M Bertozzi, and the ASCI FPP Study Team