28/02/2024 

By Radhika Hettiarachchi, Paba Deshapriya and King Ratnam

This limited series podcast enters the world of sex work during Sri Lanka's civil war. Over six episodes that share real-life experiences of women sex workers and interviews with people that are working with them as allies, this series focuses on the struggles of women sex workers to create safer working environments and find ways to access justice for sexual violence on the job. 

The Cost of Sex podacst, is a part of a series of exhibitions, workshops, trainings and public discussions working with sex workers to make their livelihoods safer, address some of the challenges that they face by amplifying their voice together with allies, to find ways to highlight and seek redress for gender based violence, and to engage the general public in a deeper understanding of sex work and sex workers in Sri Lanka. 

It follows closed-door workshops with sex workers over a year and across Sri Lanka, that focused on their health and wellbeing, legal environment and basic training on how to engage with the police as well as the legal and court systems. The project continues to work with sex worker organisations to strengthen their capacities, provide financial support and stand with them as allies. 

Episode list: 

1. Dangerous Sex: A conversation between Radhika Hettiarachchi and Paba Deshapriya on how women enter and remain in sex work, and what dangers they are vulnerable to when they work. (English language) 

2.Blind Justice: A conversation between Radhika Hettiarachchi and former commissioner of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, Ambika Satkunanathan on what legal options exist for women sex workers that have suffered sexual abuse in Sri Lanka, and what needs to be done in order for them to access justice. (English language) 

3. Safety nets - where are they? Paba Deshapriya talks to Indrani Kusumalatha from Praja Diriya Padanama about the challenges that are unaddressed due to lack of social safety nets available to sex workers. (Sinhala language) 

සමාජ ආරක්ෂණය - ඔබ කොහේද? - සමාජ ආරක්ෂණය නොමැති තැන ලිංගික ශ්‍රමික ප්‍රජාව මුහුණ දෙන අභියෝග පිළිබදව පුත්තලම ප්‍රජා දිරිය පදනමේ ඉන්ද්‍රානි කුසුමලතා සමග කතා බහක්.

4. Decriminalise - A conversation between Paba Deshapriya and Ashila Dandeniya from the Stand-Up Movement Sri Lanka about placing sex work in the world and framework of 'work and labour rights' to demand decriminalisation. (Sinhala language)

නිරපරාධකරණය -  වැඩ ලොව තුළ ලිංගික ශ්‍රමිකත්වය ගොනු කරන්නේ කෙසේද යන්න පිළිබදව කටුනායක ස්ටෑන්ඩ්අ ප් මූව්මන්ට් ලංකා ආයතනයේ  අශිලා දන්දෙණිය සමග කතා බහක්