FROM MARGINS TO MAINSTREAM: OVERCOMING EDUCATIONAL AND SOCIAL BARRIERS FOR CHILDREN OF SEX WORKERS IN INDIA
THE LAWWAY WITH LAWYERS JOURNAL VOLUME:-29 ISSUE NO:- 29 , NOVEMBER 5, 2025 ISSN (ONLINE):- 2584-1106 Website: www.the lawway with lawyers.com Email: thelawwaywithelawyers@gmail.com Digital Number : 2025-23534643 CC BY-NC-SA Authored By :- Ms. Anusuya B, II LL.M (IPR), St. Joseph’s College of Law Bangalore FROM MARGINS TO MAINSTREAM OVERCOMING EDUCATIONAL AND SOCIAL BARRIERS FOR CHILDREN OF SEX WORKERS IN INDIA Abstract: The Children born to sex workers in India occupy vulnerable social and educational positions in society. They are victims of structural discrimination, legal ambiguity, and economic destitution, they are often even denied access to basic rights, particularly education. While Indian Constitution provides for equality before law (Article 14), free and compulsory education (Article 21A), and the protection of children and weaker sections (Articles 15(3), 39(e)-(f) and 46), but these guarantees remain largely unfulfilled in practice. This paper combats the educational and social exclusions of such children with an interdisciplinary approach of constitutional analysis and empirical evidence from field studies, NGO reports, and jurisprudence. It also examines how stigmas, institutional exclusions, and the absence of affirmative policies make the group marginalised. The paper provides for solutions through enforcement of constitution articles, case precedents, case studies of red-light areas and policies, challenging state agents, teachers, and civil society to envision each child’s dignity, irrespective of their parentage. Key Words: Marginalisation, Inclusion, Equality, Social Barriers and Enforcement. (Article 15(3)), the right to education (Article 21A), and directives for uplifting weaker sections (Article 46), these children continue to be excluded from the very systems which was designed to empower them.1 The scale of this issue is urgent, with Conservative estimates suggesting India has over three million sex workers.2 A research by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in 2017 established that children of red-light areas have greater school dropouts, are humiliated at school, and frequently face police harassment or custodial violences.3 They even lack basic documents such as birth certificates or Aadhaar cards, depriving them of their education, health, and government schemes.4 Teachers and peers are often seen treating these children as ‘contaminated’ by a presumed immorality of their mothers’ profession.5 As a result, many of these children either conceal their identities or drop out early to avoid being ridiculed, particularly from urban slums.6 The law, while being progressive in letter, remains conservative in implementation. Despite the presences of several acts like the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, and the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, children of sex workers are rarely recognized as a vulnerable group in policies. They fall through the cracks of schemes aimed at the urban poor or Scheduled Castes/Tribes, because their primary marker of being born to a sex worker, is neither documented nor institutionally recognized.7 1 The Constitution of India, Articles 14, 15(3), 21A, 39(e)-(f), 46. Government of India. 2 National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO). India HIV Estimations 2020: Technical Report. Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, 2021. 3 National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). A Study on the Situation of Children of Sex Workers in India. New Delhi: NHRC, 2017. 4 Apne Aap Women Worldwide. Invisible Lives: Education and Access to Services for Children of Sex Workers. Field Report, 2020. 5 Sharma, R. “Stigma in Schools: Children of Marginalized Communities in Urban India.” Journal of Education and Society, vol. 11, no. 2, 2018, pp. 47–63. 6 Prerana. Barriers to Education for Children in Red-Light Areas. Mumbai: Prerana Trust, 2019. 7 National Commission for Women. Status of Women and Children in Red Light Areas of India. NCW Report, 2018. This paper addresses this silence. It seeks to map the lived experiences of children of sex workers through a legal-empirical lens and raise critical questions: How can India’s constitutional promise of justice and dignity be extended to these children? What are the challenges facing the implementation of inclusive education policies? What community- based models are already emerging as successful? What is the state, judiciary, and civil society’s role to play? In answering these questions, this report aims not simply to prescribe the problem but to invoke a transformation of the system—one that recognizes that all children, regardless of heritage, are owed equal dignity, educational possibility, and full citizenship rights. 1. Understanding the Ground Reality The children of sex workers in India are not merely socio-economically disadvantaged; they are institutionally invisible. Despite occupying a demographic that is acutely vulnerable, they seldom figure in national surveys or government databases, resulting in the erasure of their needs from mainstream education policy. To understand their exclusion, one has to begin by studying the empirical facts which mark their day-to-day life. 1.1 Demographic and Educational Landscape India is estimated to have over 3 million sex workers, concentrated in major urban red-light districts such as Mumbai’s Kamathipura, Delhi’s GB Road, and Kolkata’s Sonagachi.8 Many of these women are migrants, trafficked persons, or individuals pushed into sex work due to poverty and abandonment. Their children numbering in hundreds of thousands lived either in brothels, makeshift lodgings nearby, or shelters managed by NGOs. A 2019 Prerana Trust 8 National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO). India HIV Estimations 2020. Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, 2021. report in Mumbai places the estimate that over 70% of kids in red-light districts do not complete secondary school.9 Admission is generally marred with documentation gaps of their birth certificates, residency proof, or parents’ identification making normal admission requirements for schools were absent for the majority of children. As per a survey done by Apne Aap Women Worldwide in Bihar and Delhi, 62% of sex workers’ children had no official identification and therefore did not qualify for RTE Act benefits or midday meals.10 1.2 School-Based Exclusion and Stigma Even when they are enrolled, such children undergo institutionalized discrimination at school. Teachers, unaware or biased, are bound to treat them as morally “stained” because of their mothers’ vocation. Stigma comes in insidious modes—seating assignments separating them, hesitation to involve them in group tasks, and fewer amounts of teacher attention.11 Peer bullying encouraged by social stigmas, creates an environment that is psychologically hostile. A 2018 ethnographic survey in Kolkata’s red-light districts found that sex workers children were 3.5 times more likely to be expelled or suspended from school due to alleged behavioural issues, despite similar academic performance compared to other students.12 1.3 Domestic Instability and Economic Pressures 9 Prerana. Barriers to Education for Children in Red-Light Areas. Mumbai: Prerana Trust, 2019. 10 Apne Aap Women Worldwide. Invisible Lives: Education and Access to Services for Children of Sex Workers. Field Report, 2020. 11 Sharma, R. “Stigma in Schools: Children of Marginalized Communities in Urban India.” Journal of Education and Society, vol. 11, no. 2, 2018, pp. 47–63. 12 Basu, P. “Shadow Learners: Exclusion and Resilience in Kolkata’s Red-Light Areas.” Indian Journal of Child Development, vol. 6, no. 1, 2018, pp. 19–34. School attendance is further disrupted by unstable and unsafe home conditions. The majority of children develop in tiny brothel rooms shared with clients, and they are exposed to sexualized environments at an early age. For adolescent girls, the chance of being coerced into the trade is remarkably high. Save the Children (2017) indicated that nearly 45% of 13– 18-year-old girls in red-light districts were exposed to pressure to generate income for the family, which pushed them to begin work or trafficking early.13 Economic insecurity also forces the majority of boys from school to get into informal work— street vending, mechanic workshops, or drug selling. Early entry into the labor market truncates their schooling and traps them in poverty cycles. 1.4 Health, Nutrition, and Identity Barriers Malnutrition, poor sanitation, and lack of access to medical care are common in red-light areas. Kids in brothel settlements are 2.8 times more likely to have chronic malnourishment than urban slum peers, a UNESCO report (2014) indicates.14 This immediately affects cognitive ability and school performance. The absence of any registration of birth—a right under both the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (Article 7) and India’s Civil Registration System—is to disown citizenship to numerous children. To deny citizenship is to deprive them of Aadhaar, ration cards, school admission, scholarship, and even admission into juvenile justice guarantees.15 1.5 Psychological Toll and Aspirational Collapse 13 Save the Children India. Vulnerability Mapping in Red Light Areas of India. New Delhi: SC India, 2017. 14 UNESCO. Teaching and Learning: Achieving Quality for All – EFA Global Monitoring Report 2014. Paris: UNESCO Publishing. 15 National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR). Children Without Identity: A Study of Birth Registration in Marginalized Areas, 2019. Aside from material deprivation, the worst is its psychological impact. Chronic exposure to violence, stigma, and monitoring results in what psychologists would term “aspirational collapse”—loss of hope that there might be something better. A qualitative survey by the Centre for Equity Studies (2020) reported that over 60% of adolescent girls residing in brothel households had suicidal tendencies or clinical depression but less than 2% had ever accessed mental