ABSTRACT
Studies on sex work in South Asia view sex workers as a subaltern, marginalised group devoid of dignity and incapable of making informed decisions about their lives. Sex worker groups are often excluded from shaping discourses that inform policies that affect their lives at many levels. The dominant discourses are usually framed by people and organisations that are external to their environment. This chapter details how such discourses are challenged by peer network groups and how alternative narratives are enacted by sex workers themselves through the formation of self-serving mechanisms such as credit and savings schemes, shelter homes for children, and a union for women and girls working in the sex and informal entertainment sector. In this chapter, a culture-centred approach is used to analyse how the locally formed narratives serve as a knowledge-sharing platform, as well as providing critical support to women and girls on many fronts such as health and violence. In the culture-centred approach, the narrative of the cultural participants (in this case, the women working in the sex and informal entertainment industry) is used to reconstitute discourses that contextualise the cultural meanings and structures of their living conditions. The chapter also examines the role of the union of sex workers at the global level, including the services it provides to the women who work in the sex and informal entertainment sector in Kathmandu.
