Rescue sex workers & at-risk children in India

Thanlk you so much for your support of our sex workers and their children. As well as offering practical support such as shelter, free condoms and sexual health treatments a large part of the work you help us with is advocating for the rights of women who have been trafficked or forced into sex work and their innocent children.

We were therefore very happy when in May, the bench of three Judges of the Supreme Court of India (SC) issued a historical acknowledgement that prostitution is a profession. The SC gave directions for recognising prostitution as a profession and emphasising that sex workers or prostitution like any other professionals, are entitled to dignity and constitutional rights. This decision was based on article 21 of Indian Constitution States Right to Live with Dignity to every citizen.

Snehalaya (with few other NGOs in India) has fought a long battle for three decades. The intention of our fight was to make the law enforcement machinery act according to the fundamental rights in our constitution which believes in dignity of life of every citizen according to article 21.

Prostitution is not illegal in India according to the Indian Penal Code (IPC), however, several activities under prostitution is punishable by law. They include pimping, renting out property for running brothels, etc. In 1956, the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act emphasised that sex workers can practice their profession, but any person who makes an earning from prostitution is to be punished. This involves procuring. abducting or inducing a person for prostitution; a move significant enough to ensure trafficking for the sex trade was under check. The Act also states that to lawfully participate in prostitution, prostitutes have to maintain a distance of at least 200 metres from any public place, preferably in an isolated area with no public institutions in sight. This means the prostitution is to be done in secrecy, away from the eye of the larger society. This isolation works into othering prostitutes, putting the legality of their profession in ambiguity.

There are approximately 3 million women are in prostitution in India. The majority of them in between the age group of 15 and 35.

15 countries, including New Zealand, Denmark and Germany have passed the regulations related to sex work, mostly legalising and safeguarding women in prostitution.

Despite regulations and degrees of bans, it is imperative to identify that prostitution exists as a promising industry, especially in situations of poverty and social inequalities. In India, it is nowhere close to becoming extinct. The problem, however, is not in the work per se. It is in the way the work is perceived. The major issues that prostitutes in India face stem from the fact that despite not being illegal, the secretive nature of prostitution presents an illusion of it being a crime. The police and the legal system contribute to prostitutes being seen more as the perpetrators of crime than being at the receiving end of it. The possibilities of rape, violence and trauma that clients can cause to sex workers have been neglected. Moreover, since the work is seen as “immoral” or “dirty”, any disease caused by poor sexual hygiene and menstrual hygiene — most significantly HIV-AIDS and cervical cancer — does not receive proper medical attention.

The directions of the SC constitute only the first step towards removing some of the limitations that prostitutes have long faced. In a country like India, which is severely marred by poverty, destitution, hunger and inequalities, survival is the top priority.

Snehalaya has shared suggestions to the Department of Social Justice and Women's Commission of India in the limelight of SC judgement: