Prostitution is known to be the world’s oldest profession. In earlier times, the kings used to indulge in sexual activities with other women for exchange of money. It has been recognized by our Hindu Mythology as well. It is legal in India. A number of related activities including soliciting in a public place, kerb crawling, owning or managing a brothel, prostitution in a hotel, child prostitution, pimping and pandering are illegal. It is an industry with an earning of over $8 Billion annually with more than 275,000 brothels. According to Ministry of Women and Child Development, there are 3 million sex workers in India with 35.47 percent of them entering the trade before the age of 18 years. Surveys show that there are 1.2 million children involved in prostitution. The first major survey on prostitution was performed by Centre for Advocacy on Stigma and Marginalisation (CASAM) in 2011. Girls from Arabia, Japan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Russia, Sri Lanka and from other origins have been noted as working as prostitutes in India. Most of these workers are treated very inhumanly at the early stage of their stay at the brothel, they are beaten up frequently in order to create fear in their mind. Once they reach the age of entertaining the customers they are physically forced to do so. Having achieved what the brothel owner wants, these workers virtually remain under house arrest to prevent their possible escape. Whatever they earn only a small part is given to them. Most of them are not only HIV affected but are suffering from various other diseases, they don’t have a proper access to medical facilities as well. The law is very vague when it comes to prostitution, the primary law dealing with the status of sex workers is the 1986 law referred to as The Immoral Traffic Prevention Act (ITPA). According to this law, prostitutes can practise their trade privately but cannot legally solicit customers in public. As long as it is done individually and voluntarily, a woman can use her body in exchange for material benefit. India is one of the biggest markets for prostitution in Asia with Mumbai alone accommodating 2,00,000 prostitutes. There are several causes why women enter into this world, but the foremost cause remains Poverty, an estimated 40% of India’s population lives in poverty. This means that almost 400 million people cannot meet basic survival needs like food, clothing, and shelter. Every hour, four women and girls in India enter prostitution, three of them against their will. But the major problem which prostitution is causing is Human Trafficking. Women and girls are trafficked within the country for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced marriage, thousands of unregulated work placement agencies reportedly lure adults and children under false promises of employment into sex trafficking. Men and boys are trafficked for the purposes of labour, and may be sexually exploited by traffickers to serve as gigolos, massage experts, escorts. It is very difficult for these people to escape from this vicious circle as they are stuck in this loop and getting out is not an option. Even if they manage to escape, they are seen with such bad eyes in society like ours and have been given no rights and respect. Possible solutions to this whole problem are if we rehabilitate prostitutes. Rehabilitation is both physical and psychological. Physical rehabilitation is essentially economic whereas psychological rehabilitation has to be built up through a process of assurance and reassurance. The two most go side by side. The first pre-requisite of psychological rehabilitation is that the freed prostitutes must be wrenched away from the old habitat and be rehabilated at a place where they will no longer subject to the of the pimps or owner of the brothels. Unless they are psychologically assured that after their release their overall conditions will improve, there is every possibility that they may slide back to their old environment. In order to ensure rehabilitation, it is very necessary that the Government with the NGOs must imbibe awareness among the sex workers about their legal status and rights. It can also be minimised if the children of the prostitutes are given respectable future. Prostitution in the India requires no specific remedy, per se, in the form of criminalization, decriminalization or legalization. It will be only remedied when women and men in this culture can celebrate their sexuality and their unique identities. It will be remedied only when women and men are economically and politically the same.
ForeSight 