ABSTRACT
The chapter critically examines the arguments around prostitution in India by dissecting the approach regarding prostitution as work and lays down the basic premises of work as dignity and self-respect. It delves into the contested terrain of the rights discourse and gender equality in the context of bodily rights, especially sexual and reproductive rights of ‘women in prostitution’. More specifically, it looks at Ronald Dworkin’s theory of ‘rights as trumps’ as a theoretical framework to critically assess the debates and dilemmas in the rights discourse in the Indian context. The ways in which women’s bodies are constituted in relation to men thereby define their notion of ‘ownership’ of their own ‘bodies’, which to my understanding is at the centre of body-gender politics. Thus, the chapter aims to critically engage with the concept of self-ownership that defines the relationship between a woman and her body and the implications of this relationship on her agency to exercise and make sense of her bodily rights.
