Prostitution and the Law: Charting the Indian Course

The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956, no doubt is an improvisation over the Suppression of Immoral Traffic in Women and Girls Act, 1956 but still a lot is to be achieved, particularly with reference to the abuse and social ostracism that sex-workers face despite the fact that prostitution per se is not illegal in India. Prostitutes cannot be seen as individuals with half-rights or no-rights; the Constitution of India guarantees them all rights as are available to all other citizens of the country; the crowning glory of them all being the “right to self-determination”. Because prostitution per se is not illegal in India, the contention or the moot point of argument should not be, whether or not to legalise activities of sex-workers, but as to how to regulate prostitution in India? Necessary fetters are required to be imposed on the exercise of police powers of the State, particularly in respect of raids that are carried out in the abode of the sex-workers, in the bid of terming them as ‘brothels’. Rehabilitation of sex-workers is too academic a proposition much because of the social hypocrisy we are surrounded with, and due to the attitude of social denial, we live in. Despite the fact that flesh trade is an $8.4 billion industry in India, hardly any affirmative steps have been taken to regulate prostitution and to improvise the living conditions of sex-workers in India. Prostitutes in India face “identity crises”, their existence is acknowledged only when brothels are raided and surveys are conducted by the Government and other agencies/authorities.The only good that can be done to uplift the prostitutes from their situation of crises is to acknowledge them as human beings, not only of ‘flesh’ but also of emotions; rights; privileges and liberties; and to make them realize that the Constitution of India shields them, protects them and embraces them, as it does to all other citizens of the country.