Continuities of Control: Colonial Legacies and the Contemporary Regulation of Commercial Sex Work in India

This paper interrogates the enduring legacies of colonial governance in shaping the legal and social regulation of commercial sex work (CSW) in contemporary India. Drawing on a qualitative survey of 75 sex workers—including female, male, and transgender individuals—across four North Indian cities, the study employs a participant-centred, conversational methodology to foreground the lived experiences of those engaged in sex work. It argues that despite the ostensible legality of sex work in India, the persistence of colonial-era legal frameworks—most notably the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act (ITPA)—has entrenched a regime of surveillance, criminalisation, and moral regulation that disproportionately targets sex workers while absolving clients and intermediaries. The paper traces the genealogy of prostitution laws from the Contagious Diseases Acts and Suppression of Immoral Traffic Acts (SITAs) under British rule to their postcolonial avatars, revealing a continuity of carceral and moralistic logics. It critically examines the role of Indian feminist legal discourse, particularly the National Commission for Women, in reinforcing victim-centric narratives that obscure sex workers’ agency and labour rights. Through detailed case studies, the paper highlights the structural violence, legal precarity, and social stigma faced by CSWs, while also illuminating their strategies of resistance, community formation, and self-articulation. By situating contemporary sex work within a longue durée historical framework, the study challenges dominant binaries of victimhood and agency, and calls for a rights-based, decriminalized approach that recognises sex work as labour. It concludes by advocating for legal reform, inclusive policy frameworks, and a reorientation of feminist and state discourses to centre the voices and rights of sex workers themselves