NON-FICTION to better their situation. “As a human and as a woman, I think there must be legalization,” says Sharmila Shrestha, social activist and president of the Kathmandu- and Butwalbased Non-Governmental Organization, Women Acting Together for Change. Like others she discusses the significant rise in sex workers over the past few years—both street-based and otherwise—due to the demographic and economic upheavals of conflict. On legalization, she adds, “Without this first step, police treatment will not change and individuals will continue to interpret the law as they will. Legalization will minimize violence committed against sex workers.” At the same time, she warns that legalization alone cannot change social norms about sex and sex workers. A host of additional short- and long-term reforms would be needed to truly secure the safety of these women. She also worries about what women would be able to make of their status once legalization set in. “It is not the right of NGOs and INGOs to speak on the behalf of sex workers,” she says, qualifying her view. “Our education system needs to head in a direction such that legalization doesn’t cause damage to others. It’s all very well to talk about income generation schemes, but if one is not educated about how to spend such money, or of one’s rights with respect to work, we cannot hope to progress.” The possibility for increased exploitation of uneducated or unprepared sex workers forms Tulasa Amatya’s perspective on the issue of legalization. As head of Community Action Centre Nepal, a pioneer group in advocating against domestic violence and child abuse, and for mothers’ rights, she believes that this is not the right time for legalization. “If we legalize sex work now,” she says, “brothel owners and pimps will benefit—even more will be exploited.” Like Shrestha, she states that she cannot speak on behalf of the sex workers, but she maintains, “What we really need to do is work on poverty alleviation, education, and income generation programs.” Legalization aims to minimize unpunished violence towards sex workers and ideally would be coupled with efforts to decrease the pressures forcing individuals into this line of work. But in Nepal’s current political environment, it remains unclear whether even these basic regulatory functions of legalization could be effectively implemented. Beyond
Image via Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonhurd/2338998536/ Sex workers in a red-light district
this, legalization of sex work, if properly written and implemented, would change societal attitudes about and pressures on sex and sex workers and the nature of the work itself—but how that change would manifest is uncertain as well. The sex workers themselves share the trepidation of their NGO counterparts. Rita hesitates before addressing the issue of legalization; like the others, she has repeated the story of how her economic circumstances forced her into sex work. Her belief, it seems, is that the government should not merely legalize sex work, but that it must work harder in areas of poverty reduction and economic development so nobody is involved in sex work out of necessity. Anita, who recently became a co-coordinator in a newly established organization to prevent HIV/AIDS in sex workers, jumps in. “Of course,” she says. “Unless our work is legal, our sisters and we will be treated as badly as we are today. We have to recognize our rights, stand up for them, and be supported by the state—only then will there be change.” Anita expresses a great deal of faith in rightsbased education and poverty alleviation programs, which she believes must go hand-in-hand with legalization. The potential of legalization in Nepal to change social mores, rather than using law to reflect the interpretations of conservative values, is a promising prospect for these women. Whether the state and the law can manufacture such far-reaching changes in values when it is currently so fragile, though, remains to be seen. But silence, and the harm to these women it entails, whether on the part of the law or reformers, cannot continue. Kabita Parajuli graduated from Columbia University in 2010 with a degree in Comparative Literature and Society and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. She can be reached at kabita.parla@gmail.com.
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