Author Description

An alternative title befitting the book would be "All You Wanted To Know about Sex Workers in India". It provides comprehensive coverage of eight categories of sex workers, prostitution among women, men, and children, profiles of sex workers' clients and legal aspects of prostitution in addition to the history of prostitution in India and traditions surrounding it. Two chapters are devoted to poor communities among whom some women are oriented from their childhood to practice prostitution and do so as a hereditary profession or in the guise of a Devadasi religious institution. All the sex workers belonging to these two categories and many others are the main sources of their families' livelihood. Sex trade in brothels and on the streets as well as call girls, male sex workers and transsexual including (hijra) sex workers in other settings are discussed. The book describes the sex workers as the most unfortunate victims of AIDS but also shows how the HIV/AIDS intervention projects among them have provided them an opportunity to mobilize themselves and struggle for protection of their health and gaining their basic human rights.