'Trafficking and consensual work of adults not synonymous': Sex workers launch self-led rights platform

By A Representative 

In what rights advocates are calling a defining moment for India's sex workers' movement, representatives from six states gathered at the Calcutta Press Club to launch the Yaunkarmi Adhikar Manch — a national platform led by sex workers themselves to defend their rights, dignity and freedom.

The launch comes barely three months after the Supreme Court's May 29, 2026 Prajwala judgment established consent-based rehabilitation as a constitutional right, and four years after the Court's 2022 Karmaskar ruling affirmed that sex workers are entitled to dignity and equal protection under Article 21.

The Manch's founding statement, released at the Kolkata Press Club, directly addresses the core tension running through both judgments — the conflation of voluntary adult sex work with trafficking:

"We do not want decisions about our lives to be made without us. We are not merely people to be rescued or rehabilitated. We are citizens with rights, voices and the ability to decide our own lives."

Organizers emphasized that the platform does not oppose anti-trafficking efforts. Rather, it draws what the Supreme Court itself articulated in May: a clear distinction between trafficking and exploitation on one hand, and the consensual work of adults on the other. The Manch states it is committed to combating human trafficking, violence and exploitation — while resisting coercive practices that treat all sex workers as victims regardless of their own wishes.

Four-Point Agenda

According to the press release, the Yaunkarmi Adhikar Manch will focus on:

- Strengthening sex workers' rights as citizens and workers

- Challenging coercive and discriminatory practices, including arbitrary detention and police harassment

- Promoting access to justice and social protection, long denied to a population excluded from formal welfare systems

- Ensuring anti-trafficking measures protect the vulnerable without violating the rights of adult sex workers who have chosen the trade

Led by Bishakha Laskar, Mona Mishra and Rachna Mudraboyina, the platform describes itself as an alliance of sex workers and feminist activists — explicitly led by sex workers, a framing that distinguishes it from the many rehabilitation and rescue organizations that have historically spoken on the community's behalf.

Context: Rights on Paper, Reality on the Ground

The launch is claimed to have begun at a pivotal moment. The May 2026 ruling mandated that magistrates conduct threshold enquiries into whether women detained in raids consider their work voluntary — a direct response to decades of "rescue industry" practices in which women were mechanically sent to protective homes for up to three years without consent. It also recommended that the government reconsider the detention-based model altogether, citing chronic underfunding of protective homes.

Sex worker collectives have long warned that judgments change little without organized pressure on the ground. The backlash feared after the 2022 Karmaskar order — police seeking "any kinds of arguments not to follow the Supreme Court" — remains a live concern, and the Court's September 2026 compliance review will test whether states are actually implementing the new framework.

The Manch's formation four months after the Supreme Court's 297-page judgment in Prajwala ruling  — the longest-running public interest litigation in the country's anti-trafficking history — comes even as the lives of the estimated three million women engaged in sex work in India remain caught between expanding constitutional protections and deeply entrenched ground realities: police harassment, economic exclusion, and a two-decade wait for a comprehensive anti-trafficking law.

Meanwhile, the central tension remains unresolved: experts assert that India's legal framework still refuses to decide whether sex work is work. Until Parliament acts — on either a labour-rights framework or a comprehensive anti-trafficking statute — the rights of millions will continue to be defined, and redefined, in the courtroom.