Below: Resources, agency, and achievements among sex workers in durbar intervention
This article investigated the complex interplay of choice,
socioeconomic structural factors, and empowerment influencing engagement in sex
work. The analysis was focused on pathways into and reasons for staying in sex
work from in-depth qualitative interviews with participants (n=37) recruited
from the Durbar community-led structural intervention in Kolkata, India.
Kabeer’s theory of empowerment focused on resources, agency, and achievements
was utilized to interpret the results. Results identified that contexts of
disempowerment constraining resources and agency set the stage for initiating
sex work, typically due to familial poverty, loss of a father or husband as a
breadwinner, and lack of economic opportunities for women in India. Labor force
participation in informal sectors was common, specifically in domestic,
construction, and manufacturing work, but was typically insufficient to provide
for families and also often contingent on sexual favors. The availability of an
urban market for sex work served as a catalyst or resource, in conjunction with
Durbar’s programmatic resources, for women to find and exercise agency and
achieve financial and personal autonomy not possible in other work or as
dependents on male partners. Resources lost in becoming a sex worker due to stigma,
discrimination, and rejection by family and communities were compensated for by
achievements in gaining financial and social resources, personal autonomy and
independence, and the ability to support children and extended family. Durbar’s
programs and activities (e.g., savings and lending cooperative, community
mobilization, advocacy) function as empowering resources that are tightly
linked to sex workers’ agency, achievements, and sex work pathways.
Read more at (PDF): http://goo.gl/M91kfC HT https://twitter.com/UCLA
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