Beyond compassion: Children of sex workers in Kolkata's Sonagachi

In 2005, children of sex workers from Kolkata's Sonagachi red-light district formed their own collective, Amra Padatik ('We are Foot Soldiers'), to work for gaining dignity for their mothers and claiming their own rights as children of sex workers. In this article the authors speak to AP's founder members to demystify the culture of fear associated with their lives - perpetuated through popular representations - not to underplay their acute experiences of disadvantage, but to foreground them as politically astute citizens and decision-makers in policies that concern and affect them - to replace the compassion-driven traditional 3Rs of raid, rescue, rehabilitation with 3 counter-Rs: resilience, reworking and resistance.