01/02/2013
The last fortnight of 2012 woke up Delhi and India to the country’s callous attitude towards women. The gang-rape of a 23 year old medical student that shook the sensibilities of Indians across the globe, made apparent the lack of respect for women in the Indian society.
Reasons debated can be broadly categorised under: systemic failures , psychology of male dominance and socio economic changes ( including urbanisation, younger demograph and growing income divide) . Motives be what they may, we cannot however deny that the act of rape itself involves sexual violation. In situations like this what role do those who use sex as a livelihood play ?
Rape is India’s fastest growing crime, reported cases of which have doubled over the last decade. With 572 cases recorded, the capital itself reports a rape every fifteen hours. What’s worse is that only one in every ten rape cases are reported. Social stigma and police harassment are responsible. Social stigma attached to rape actually makes it a ‘safe’ crime, as proving a rape to the judiciary amounts to reliving the experience over and over again.
This is happening at a time young India is getting sexually aware and active. Rise in abortions (again rarely reported) and exponential rise in contraceptives testifies to this. Live-in relations are becoming near normal. The trend is bolstered by gay activism, mms scandals, pornographic websites, sexually bold films and social media. In the absence of sex education and thereby better understanding this trend threatens to be counter productive. Even several divorce cases filed today are on account of sexual dissatisfaction. All this only encourages the sex trade.
India’s prostitution business is assessed at 40,000 cr annually. A tenth of this is earned by exploiting children. Out of the 10 million sex workers ,Mumbai , Asia’s largest sex industry centre accounts for a 100,000, Bangalore, along with five major cities, together house 80% of child prostitutes in the country. Unfortunately, women involved in it are the highest victims of sexual violence , yet find no legal recourse. To address the issue, a Supreme Court bench comprising Justices Dalveer Bhandari and A K Patnaik asked the Centre whether it can legalise prostitution if it is not practically possible to curb the world’s oldest profession with punitive measures. Globally, prostitution is legal with some restrictions in Canada, almost all of Europe including England, France, Wales and Denmark, most of South America including most of Mexico (often in special zones), Brazil, Israel (Tel Aviv is known as the brothel capital of the world), Australia, and many other countries. In 2003, New Zealand passed one of the most comprehensive decriminalisation acts, which even made street hookers legal.
Reactions in India to the suggestion have been largely mixed . Those in favour state that sex trade is physically and emotionally safer in countries where prostitution is legal, in comparison with countries where it is illegal. This helps in reducing crime rates, rapes, and human sex trafficking due to more easily available legal alternatives. It seems to be beneficial from a health perspective as well. With legalisation, prostitutes can get better access to sex education and preventive measures to check the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. In addition to physical, emotional and health reasons, legalising prostitution makes sense also from an economic point of view, as it can contribute to lowering the unemployment rate. Prostitutes are often uneducated and have few choices in terms of career. With careful regulation and monitoring, prostitution can be controlled with efficiency, if brought within the purview of law.
Activists strongly feel otherwise. They argue that licensing and monitoring may not help sex workers live and work with dignity. They feel that regulation leads to a division between legal and illegal sex workers, leading to further marginalisation of the latter. Besides, it may result in increasing the atrocities against which sex work was legalized in the first place. If prostitution flourishes as an industry, there will be private entrants coming in to business. This will lead to an exponential rise in brothels and ‘massage-parlours’ indulging in illegal crimes like child prostitution.
In fact, countries which have legalised prostitution, like Australia and the Netherlands, have witnessed a sharp rise in trafficking, assault and rape.
It is important to note that prostitution per-se is not illegal in India. Only commercialisation of the profession is criminal, as per the Immoral Traffic (Suppression) Act, 1956. There is nothing to suggest that legalising prostitution can control the issues of sex trafficking and sexual violence against women. Sex education,better policing, and efficient legal system and initiatives to change the mindset about women in society shall be more effective. Immoral as it may seem, we cannot over look that India is a free country with high unemployment and, there is a case to allow adult citizens to pursue the profession, should they want to, strictly by choice. For this, proper registration, better awareness, designated places and regular health checks would need to be in place.