The newly appointed Chairperson
of the National Commission for Women has proposing the legalization of
prostitution in India to our Supreme Court. The majority of the 3 million girls
and women trapped in prostitution are low-caste, female, poor , and teenagers.
They are the least and most marginalized citizens of our country
and deserve Uplift by regaining control of their destiny as Mahatma
Gandhi would say. Legalizing prostitution would make them
lose control of their destiny by shifting power to their perpetrators-
pimps, recruiters, brothel-keepers, owners, landlords and organized crime
networks that run the sex industry. It would makes legalization of sexual
exploitation and the exploiters may misunderstand that, now onward rapes
also (sex with minor girls below 18 years) will be legal and therefore
they are correct.
Why the NCW proposing to
legalize prostitution in India ?
National Commission
for Women (NCW) Chairperson Smt. Lalita Kumarmangalam’s proposal to legalise prostitution and the comments
thereon have a thing in common, inaccurate understanding of the problem and its
solution. Her medicine is deadlier than the disease, especially when the
civilised world is fighting human trafficking and sexual
exploitation. Naïve supporters of the policy appear to be misled by the magical
term ‘legal’ (like ‘development'). Tomorrow they may also support legalisation
of rape believing that now onwards rapes will be legal and therefore proper.
A person above the age
of 18 years, selling his/her body for sex against money or kind to another person of the
opposite sex (the uncertainty on IPC Section-377 is temporarily over, with the
Supreme court upholding it.) in his/her private premises (a privately-owned
premise is not necessarily private), 200 meters away from a place of religious
worship, a hospital, an educational institution or any place notified by the
government (Sec-7) is not a crime under any Indian laws including The Indian
Penal Code-1860 or The Immoral Traffic Prevention Act- 1956. The Indian law
bans the acts of trafficking, procuring, detaining, pimping, lending a premise
for carrying on prostitution for
running a brothel. Soliciting in public places for prostitution is punishable
(Sec-8) but a woman arrested under Sec-7 or Sec-8 is not to be punished but to
be given a chance of rehabilitation at
the state’s cost (Sec-10). In short, the Indian law aims to punish the
exploiters like madams, pimps, traffickers, customers, and other partners
aiding the exploitative sex trade but not the prostitute woman. By legalising
the trade, would the state decriminalise the offences of trafficking, procuring
and detaining girls and young women, brothel-keeping or pimping? If the offence
of soliciting in public is scrapped from the lawbook, then there will be pimps
and madams approaching young boys and girls right outside the gates of schools
and colleges, luring them with money, expensive electronic gadgets or foreign
tours to join the sex trade. Parents and teachers will helplessly witness this
as they will be arrested for not allowing the pimp to carry out their legal
business. Should this legal position be rejected?
If the government
wishes to serve the victims of prostitution, what stops it from doing what the
small civil society organisations have done best? Aren’t these women the
citizens of this country? Haven’t the High Courts and the Supreme Court from
time to time upheld the prostituted women’s constitutional legal and human
rights? Does the NCW think that to assist a rape victim, the rape must first be
licensed?
The origins of the
women’s emancipation movement is aptly attributed to the struggle of Josephine
Butler against the draconian British law ‘Dangerous Diseases Act 1865’ which
was the main expression of legalisation. It caused public outcry in Britain and
its colonies between 1865 and 1885 when it was finally repealed as it was seen
as an anti-women instrument leading to excessive power abuse by the health
officials and police. An indispensable component of legalisation is compulsory
periodic medical testing (CPMT) justified to curb sexually transmitted
infections. Clinically speaking, initial tests for a person with such an
infection may turn out to be negative, if his infection is fresh. This is
because of the window period. So a person holding a certificate of negativity
could still spread the infection. The CPMT creates a false sense of security in
the client who throws caution to the wind and indulges in unsafe sex. STIs/HIV infections actually increase under legalization.
Under legalisation,
would the state issue licenses to the children (currently > 40% of the
victims), the HIV positive victims (> 50% of the victims), the illegal
migrants and trafficked aliens, mostly the Bangladeshis? If not, where will
they all go if not underground? If the government wants to rehabilitate them,
then who has stopped the government from doing so right away? Everyone in the
country except the police knows
where to find these women. In countries that have legalized the sex trade, two
layers of prostitution have emerged - a very thin slice of registered legal
activities and a huge chunk of illegal activities where women become more
vulnerable and suffer extreme exploitation as they are forced to go
underground.
Men’s confidence in
assaulting any woman goes up when they experience that buying the sexuality of
some women is legally supported and risk-free. All they need to do is create
vulnerabilities and keep the money ready. If in spite of the law, millions are
getting trafficked and over 40 million are currently living the life of sex
slaves, why would the crime go down with liberalisation of the law? It is like
saying no one will fail if the exams are scrapped.
As legalization will
mean keeping many registers, filing returns, paying taxes and greasing 10 more
palms, the sex traders have rejected legalization. Only the pharmaceuticals and
government health babus still demand legalization, even after knowing its
futility in accordance with the opinion of Mr. Praveen Patkar – Prerana.
