Prostitution Laws and Rehabilitation
Legal vs illegal debate
A recent international bulletin states that “prostitution and trafficking of women and children is the third largest income-earner globally”—drug trafficking and arms sales being the first two money-spinners.
In countries like Amsterdam prostitution is perfectly legal. The profession is well organized, government-regulated and consequently, even socially acceptable. At the other end of the spectrum are some Muslim countries, especially Saudi Arabia where prostitutes are still lashed in public or stoned to death. The Legal Tangle: SITA
The stated objectives of laws passed in India in 1956 and 1986 regarding prostitution, were 'suppression' and 'prevention’ of prostitution. The 1956 Suppression of Immoral Trafficking Act (SITA) “assumed that prostitution was a 'necessary evil' and prohibited a prostitute from soliciting clients in public places and forced her to work in certain areas known as red-light areas.”Though the SITA did not aim to punish prostitutes unless they solicited, it exposed them to exploitation by pimps and policemen in that it gave enough powers to police and other government agencies to terrorize, harass and financially exploit a prostitute.
The 1986 Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act (ITPA) provides “marginal benefits to prostitutes by prohibiting male police officers from searching them unless accompanied by two female police officers; and also by seeking to draw women away from prostitution through rehabilitation in Protective Homes.”
A landmark judgment highlighting the importance of educational rights for the children of Commercial sex worker (CSWs) was passed in January1993. It granted permission for the admission of CSWs’ children in schools without stating the father’s name, which is the customary procedure in school admission.
Rehabilitation
The social stigma attached to this trade makes rehabilitation of commercial sex workers tricky. People who were willing to donate for different social causes were reluctant to donate to rehabilitate these hapless women until organizations like CRY (Child Relief and You) undertook to educate children of CSWs. Government rehabilitation measures are not comprehensive and practical.
Remand houses or the protective houses where the rescued women are housed are usually overcrowded, mismanaged, without facilities or vocational training. The wardens treat the girls with utmost contempt because of their shoddy past and most often the girls conclude that life before was better and so when the pimp comes to claim them posing as a brother/sister /uncle/aunt, they readily go with them to resume her sex work.
