Selling sex, seeking respect: Life in India’s red-light districts

Few stories are as old – and as fiercely contested – as those of women who sell sex to survive. In India, sex work exists in a paradox: it is both hyper-visible and invisible at the same time. It is entrenched in history, hidden in back alleys and constantly controlled by law, morality and stigma. 

Sex workers are rendered invisible in public discourse even as they are hyper-exposed to a societal gaze that reduces them to stereotypes. This contested terrain has divided feminist politics for decades. Sex work is alternately met with silence, framed as harm and violence or defended as a matter of choice and agency. Sex workers are subjected to verbal, physical, emotional and psychological abuse, as well as to paid and unpaid violence and explicit and tacit coercion.

Formal and informal state institutions have exacerbated the situation. The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act of 1986 defines prostitution as “sexual exploitation or abuse (…) for commercial purposes.” On paper, the law criminalises brothel-keeping, pimping and public solicitation – but not the act of selling sex itself. In practice, enforcement is inconsistent and often cruel. Police raids routinely target sex workers, while clients, traffickers and brothel owners go unpunished. 

Across India’s red-light districts – from New Delhi’s Garstin Bastion (GB) Road to Kolkata’s Sonagachi – sex workers live in overcrowded brothels, sharing tiny rooms and enduring harassment from police, clients and sometimes their own families. Many did not choose this work freely but were pushed into it by poverty, domestic violence or abandonment. And yet, many also say that sex work – difficult and stigmatised as it is – has offered them financial autonomy and a fragile sense of dignity. For many sex workers, selling sex is less degrading than enduring an abusive marriage or starvation wages.

One woman in GB Road put it bluntly: “This is the only work that feeds my children. Even if I quit, society will never forgive me.” Others echoed her, recalling attempts at factory or domestic work where the pay was worse, the harassment equal and the security non-existent. 

Ancient roots, modern battles

Prostitution’s roots in India run deep. In Vedic times, concubines and courtesans – often slaves – were presented as gifts to kings. Kautilya’s treatise Arthashastra laid down rules for prostitutes, and Vatsyayana’s Kamasutra classified them by status, rank and skills. Under the Mughals, tawaifs were highly trained performers and cultural icons. But colonial policies and economic upheavals pushed the trade into marginal, criminalised spaces. What was once patronised by royal courts and other centres of power became associated with crime, disease and moral decay.

Today’s debate is not limited to India and is sharply polarised between radical and liberal feminists (see box). At its heart lies a single question: should prostitution be abolished as a system of sexual slavery, or should it be recognised as legitimate work, to be regulated and protected like any other occupation? 

Radical feminists like Andrea Dworkin and Carole Pateman argue that prostitution amounts to sexual slavery – a system built on inequality in which men buy women’s degradation. To them, consent under economic coercion is not real consent, and legalisation would only hide exploitation. Dworkin states: “In prostitution, no woman stays whole.”

Liberal feminists, on the other hand – like Martha Nussbaum and Prabha Kotiswaran – see sex work as labour that, if decriminalised and regulated, could offer safer conditions and bargaining power. They emphasise the agency of women navigating harsh economic realities and argue that selling sexual services is not so different from other forms of bodily labour and that moral panic does little to address structural poverty or gender inequality.

How India’s laws fail sex workers

The debate around sex work in India is also shaped by long-standing tensions in law and policy. Three conflicting views dominate: the moralist position, which sees prostitution as violating moral sensibilities and demands its eradication; the institutionalist view, which treats prostitution as the “oldest profession” that the state can marginally control; and the aforementioned feminist perspectives, which frame prostitution as one aspect of unequal gender relations. 

In India, laws on commercial sex work are scattered across the Constitution, the Indian Penal Code and the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act of 1986. Yet cultural misrepresentations of women, colonial moral policing and elitist assumptions are embedded in these frameworks. 

While caste stratification existed in early South Asian societies, its boundaries and associated sexual norms were not fixed. Early texts such as the Arthashastra and Kamasutra reflect a social world in which prostitution was regulated and, in some contexts, socially recognised. Over time, however, caste hierarchy and Brahmanical patriarchy hardened, producing more restrictive sexual norms. Colonial rule intensified this shift by introducing Victorian moral logics and criminal law that recast consensual sex work as social deviance. Post-independence, little changed. 

The legal framework in India has contributed to sex workers being treated as criminals rather than citizens, forcing many underground. Although prostitution per se is not unlawful, the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act criminalises key aspects of the trade: Sections 3(1) and 3(2) penalise brothel-keeping and the renting or letting of premises for brothel use, while Sections 7 and 8 prohibit prostitution near public places and penalise solicitation. By criminalising workplaces and visible forms of exchange, these provisions have pushed sex work into unsafe environments and deepened many workers’ dependence on brothel owners or intermediaries. 

The state’s neglect has left sex workers vulnerable to harassment, detention and exclusion. Courts have occasionally intervened to uphold rights – most notably the Supreme Court’s May 2022 judgement (Criminal Appeal No. 135/2010), which recognised sex work as a legitimate profession. The ruling affirmed sex workers’ entitlement to dignity and protection from violence, cautioned against routine police interference, underscored the right to privacy and laid down guidelines for responsible media reporting.

Voices from Mumbai’s red-light district

In Mumbai’s Kamathipura – the city’s oldest and most infamous red-light district – these legal abstractions are lived realities. Here, the state’s neglect and society’s disdain shape sex workers’ daily efforts to survive. Ranjana (38) shared: “Most of my family has been in sex work and all of them had to hide it. We can never proudly say that we work as sex workers because the state and society have always seen us as dirty, and our work is seen as a crime.”

Nima (31) reflected: “Even our shadows are dirty. You know why? Because we are not like you or your mother who has a ‘decent’ job, is married and lives with her husband and children. But nobody imagines that we too have families and that we are not trafficked.”

Despite their invisibility in policymaking, Kamathipura’s women navigate complex identities: they are breadwinners, caregivers and community organisers. Many follow legal developments, hoping for relief. Chaya (29) explained: “We follow the courts closely. When the police fail to register our complaints, everyone tells us that we should go to the court. We trust it to protect our rights.”

For many, the recognition of sex work as work offers a glimmer of dignity amid decades of criminalisation. Rani (36) summarised: “Sex work is neither good nor bad. The laws have failed to see this. Our demand has been to not criminalise but rather make provisions for health, education and sanitation. The court highlighted the need for these too.”

Sex work in India is not an isolated social ill but a mirror that reflects our discomfort with sexuality, our economic inequalities and our unwillingness to grant dignity to the marginalised. To confront sex work honestly is to confront these deeper injustices. The question is not whether prostitution should exist – it always has – but how society chooses to treat those who engage in it. 

Khushboo Srivastava is a political scientist and works at the intersection of gender and politics.  
krsrivastava29@gmail.com