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This article provides an introduction to the Development special issue on Sexuality and Development. The articles in the issue are based on discussions held at a workshop on Sexuality and the Development Industry at the Institute of Development Studies in April 2008. The aim of the journal is to examine international development's connections with sexuality and look for more creative and constructive means of engagement. It sets out why sexuality is an important issue to address and explores why the development industry has failed to constructively take on the issue in the past as well as to propose how to do it better. …

What does sexuality have to do with women’s empowerment? Research from the Pathways of Women’s Empowerment RPC shows that sexuality affects women’s political and economic empowerment in a number of important ways. For example, in the ways that women experience seeking election to political office, how women are treated and respected (or disrespected) in the workplace and in public, and how families and communities place expectations on how women should behave. Being exposed to sexual harassment and sexual violence and not being able to exercise choice in their sexual relationships affects women’s well-being and ultimately undermines political, social and economic empowerment. …

Current debates on sexuality and development need to be seen in relation to a longer historical cycle. This contribution provides a pictorial overview of the last three decades, laying out the diverse influences from the 1970s, which produced both the Washington Consensus and Foucault’s History of Sexuality, through to the current paradoxes of the 1990s and 2000s, with advances in sexual rights struggles pitted against the rise in conservatisms and fundamentalisms. This time line roots current sexual rights struggles in recent history, showing how the same themes resurface and gain new meanings over time. Throughout this history, how does development deal with sexuality? Development language regarding sexuality is far from transparent. …

In August 2008, the Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Societies (CSBR) organized the CSBR Sexuality Institute, the first international Institute on sexuality and sexual rights in Muslim societies in Malaysia. Liz Amado presents how the Institute expanded the discourse, knowledge and thinking around sexuality in Muslim societies, as well as providing a unique space for the much needed exchange of information and experience among sexual rights advocates. …

A Chinese lesbian activist shows photos from her three way fake ‘wedding’, held in a Beijing restaurant to open up discussion on restrictive social and sexual norms; a Nicaraguan consultant tells the tale of how he was told the sexual and reproductive strategy he’d been commissioned to write contained ‘too much sex’; two Indian sex worker rights activists trade stories of hapless NGO efforts to ‘rehabilitate’ sex workers; and a Nigerian activist explains how she used discussions of multiple orgasms as a means to spark discussions on sex, pleasure, relationships, intimacy, polygamy and female genital mutilation with married couples in the northern Nigerian state of Minna, where Sharia law has been in place since 2000. These and other conversations brought together over 70 activists, academics, donors and development practitioners from more than 25 countries at a workshop at the Institute of Development Studies, in April 2008. The workshop was hosted by the IDS Sexuality and Development programme and co-sponsored by the Pathways of Women’s Empowerment Research Programme Consortium, both of which are funded by the UK’s Department for International Development. It sought to explore the linkages between sexuality and the development industry. …

Drawing on grassroots activism by the women’s rights NGO GAMCOTRAP, this article considers contested forms of sexuality in the Gambia. Among these are polygamy, early marriage, sexual abuse, female genital mutilation, marital/statutory rape, forced retirement by spouse from sex due to menopause, trafficking in women, and lesbianism. Arguments relating to Gambian culture and Islam are central to the contestations around these issues. For example, some men cite articles in the Koran as justifying polygamy, and many women accept this as their right. …

Images of women as victims are rampant in gender and development. This is particularly the case in discussions of sexuality, where the world is portrayed as so fraught with danger, it seems almost impossible to imagine women enjoying themselves. This focus on the negative can be paralysing – both in terms of ease with one’s own body, and in terms of mobilising around women’s wants and desires. And such narratives dovetail with religious right agendas to protect women’s chastity. …

In 1995, sexual rights were articulated in the Beijing Platform for Action. Now, however, principles agreed many years ago are being deemed too radical to be cited in new texts. In the face of these roll-backs, and at a time when activists are being silenced by funding restrictions, what possibility is there of progress? Drawing on examples from the Commission on Human Rights, the 49th Commission on the Status of Women (Beijing Plus Ten) and the Commission on Population and Development, this article examines the obstacles to progress, the challenges to and of maintaining the status quo and the opportunities we must seize if we are to realize the potential of sexual rights. We must not lose the hard-won gains from the International Conference on Population and Development, the Fourth World Conference on Women and other for a. …

In 1999, the government of Bangladesh forcefully evicted sex workers from a large cluster of brothels just outside Dhaka. Members of the sex worker organisation, Ulka, immediately sought support from Naripokkho, a country-wide women’s NGO. The Naripokkho office was transformed into an impromptu shelter with over 40 women sleeping there, and a few more staying with staff in their homes. This led to a new set of relationships and alliances between the sex workers and staff. …

How do young married women fare in an urban slum in Bangladesh? This article is based on in-depth ethnographic fieldwork among 153 married adolescent girls, aged 15–19, in a Dhaka slum, carried out from December 2001–January 2003. The author finds a shift away from the traditional arranged marriage practices, with 81 out of 153 young women having “love” marriages. Young women now have greater mobility and freedom to choose their own partners, but at the same time, face greater instability in marital relations. The lived experiences of engaging in sexual relations with their spouses are fraught with contradictions. …

Since the restoration of democracy to Uruguay in 1985, every year has seen initiatives to decriminalize abortions. Strong support and public awareness focussing on women’s rights and personal freedom by advocacy groups has bolstered public opinion in support of woman’s choice from 25 per cent to 65 per cent, between 1985 and 2007. Despite this wave of grassroots support, powerful politicians remain wedded to more conservative values, managing to defeat every decriminalization bill presented to date. But the increasing environment of democratization and support for rights and choice, buttressed by a wide range of civil society actors, including advocacy groups, CBOs, academics and politicians, may provide sufficient pressure that the government accepts the newest bill on the Defence on the Right to Sexual and Reproductive Health. …

There is a wide spectrum of sexual acts, practices and identities worldwide. The existing language of sexual rights has emerged largely in relation to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. In turn, this language seems to cater primarily to LGBT or similar such identities. Heterosexuals may be excluded, as well as indigenous same sex practising or transgender people who do not identify as LGB or T, such as the Hijras of South Asia. …

The paper analyses the discourses on women’s empowerment among the three main political parties in Bangladesh: the Awami League (AL), Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat ‐e‐ Islami. It argues that the Islamist party, Jamaat, has taken a more comprehensive view of women’s empowerment compared to the centrist parties, AL and BNP, who have an instrumentalist approach to women’s empowerment. This divergence is partly a result of the need for Jamaat to ideologically convince supporters that they have been able to deal with the challenge raised by women’s movement successfully. The centrist parties are able to disregard this pressure, and are perhaps reluctant to antagonize potential voters by appearing too ‘un‐Islamic. …

Samia Rahim recounts the Digital Storytelling workshop held in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh, from the process of making the stories and the major themes that emerged, to the emotional viewing at the end of all the Digital Stories made by the participants. …

The aim of this paper is to introduce and analyse the “Stories/Storytelling for Change” Project by the “I am the Story” Group that was held under the auspices of the Pathways of Women's Empowerment Project. The paper describes the methodologies used in holding two re/writing workshops using social and anthropological research as raw material for the writing. Another aim of this methodology paper is to propose that creative writing and storytelling can be effectively used as advocacy tools in gender training workshops. Works of art are maintained to help participants in gender training workshops to acquire gender knowledge and to write gender sensitive stories in the most subtle of ways. …