In the essay The Point Is to (Ex)Change It: Reading ‘Capital’ Rhetorically, Keenan (1997) states that in capitalism, individual singularities and uniqueness is suppressed and a commonality in the form of labour power is imposed on them. It is the process of converting singular traits and skills into ubiquitous labour power, which capitalism carries out. Value of an individual is determined by the value of her labour power which may be ‘exchanged’ in the market. In capitalism, therefore, rights are aimed at ensuring that every individual has equal opportunities to ‘exchange’ her valuables, including her labour power.

My critique of the current human rights discourse, within the capitalist system of production, therefore, is that it strives to ensure equal opportunities for all, without examining the nature of ‘equality’ and the desirability of opportunities. The human rights discourse and liberal feminism is an outcome of liberalism. When liberal feminists demand equal opportunities for women in the public sphere, the demand may be criticised for not examining the structure of the public sphere and its institutions which perpetuate unjust hierarchies and exclusions in the first place. For instance, when feminists demand ‘right to work’ and ‘right to equal remuneration’ for women, it is a progressive demand surely, but efficacy of this demand for the right to equal participation in the workforce for women remains weak so long as the patriarchal nature of the social institutions of work and family remains unexamined. One ought to ask what is the point of demanding right to work for women if the workplace does not grant them entitlements such as maternity benefits, crèche facilities and a gender-sensitive work environment, or does not take into account the ‘double shift’ women have to perform within family?

In the case of sex work, likewise, liberal feminists who take up the cause of sex workers are no doubt justified in demanding rights to minimum wages, safe working conditions, health and education facilities, association and collective bargaining for them, but the problem is that they do not attempt to deconstruct the nature of sex work itself. So long as sex work exists in society, its practitioners should of course be granted the rights of workers, but does it mean sex work is like any other form of work?

According to Irigaray (1985), prostitution entails ‘exchange of use value’ by men. Miriam (2005) points out that liberal feminists who believe in the ‘proprietary’ notion of body and assert that a woman can use her body in whichever manner she wishes to – including for commercial sex – so long as she is not coerced into it, do not take into account that this right to use one’s body as a property to be used for commercial sex, is also a right afforded by patriarchy and that preceding the right is the male prerogative to access women’s bodies for sex in exchange of money. They do not examine how unjust this prerogative is in the first place.

This paper examines sex workers’ demand of rights by examining the nature of sex work and conditions of patriarchy which render sex work possible and engage in a textual analysis of sex workers’ manifestos, particularly in South Asia and India. The more specific goal is to understand and comment upon the strategic use of the human rights discourse within the feminist debates on sex work so that two questions are answered:

1. What is the nature of the human rights discourse and its compatibility with feminism as well as feminist conceptualisation of sexuality and erotic labour?
2. What are the specificities of the debate around sex work and of the demand for the recognition of the right to sex work as a human right, in South Asia, particularly India?

The paper will use ethnographic data in the form interviews of various functionaries of nongovernmental organisations, government agencies and women rescued from conditions of commercial sexual exploitation to make linkages between sex work and human rights, more precise.

References

Irigaray, L. 1985, ‘Woman on the Market’, in This Sex which is not One, Cornell University Press, New York, USA.

Keenan, T. 1997, ‘The Point is to (Ex)change it: Reading Capital Rhetorically’ in Fables of Responsibility: Aberrations and Predicaments in Ethics and Politics, Stanford University Press, Stanford, USA.

Miriam, K. 2005, ‘Stopping the Traffic in Woman: Power, Agency and Abolition in Feminist Debates over Sex Trafficking’, Journal of Social Philosophy, vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 1-15.