Dr Jana: A Public Health Worker Who Dedicated His Life to Sex Workers’ Rights

Dr Smarajit Jana was an epidemiologist who curbed the spread of HIV through sex work at the height of the epidemic in the 90’s. He realised that combating HIV was not a question of information but of empowerment, and led a structural change fighting for sex workers’ rights. He helped the country’s administration understand the sex work community and flipped the HIV control programme’s disease-centric perspective to a rights based one.

Dr Jana passed away earlier this month on May 8 due to COVID-19. He was also a member of the National Task Force on COVID-19. On this episode of The Suno India Show, reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee explores Dr Jana’s legacy. She speaks to K Sujatha Rao, former Secretary of Health and Family Welfare, and Bharati Dey, head of sex workers’ collective Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee. We look back at how a public health worker began a fight for sex workers in Asia’s largest red light district, Sonagachi, that reverberated across the world.

The Sonagachi project: a sustainable community intervention program
Dr. Smarajit Jana – The DMSS project with sex workers in Kolkata: challenges and achievements