India’s sex workers seek decriminalization of prostitution

Sex workers from all over the world gather to participate the Sex Workers’ Freedom Festival in Calcutta, July 22, 2012. (Xinhua/Tumpa Mondal)

Soliciting, running a brothel and pimping is illegal in India but the law is vague on prostitution itself.

Sex workers are hoping the Supreme Court’s ruling will force the government to decriminalize the industry, as they say they are tired of being randomly targeted by police.

According to the latest figures by the government, some 2,800 women and 4,800 men were arrested in 2013, but cases continue to languish in courts for years.

“Don’t look at us as if we are criminals and please don’t arrest our clients,” said Devi, a prostitute who was sold by her boyfriend she eloped with for 50,000 Indian rupees (around $800) to a man who in turn struck a deal with a brothel pimp.

Devi chose to stay on at the brothel, where she could earn “a good 500 rupees ($8) a day or more” without having to “work too hard”.

India has nearly three million sex workers, according to Havocscope, an information platform which focuses on black market industries worldwide.

Activists argue many are selling sex by choice, neither having been trafficked nor held against their will, and should have the same rights as other workers.

“The law is very ambiguous. Who is exploiting whom? The woman who gets paid or the one seeking pleasure?” asked Tripti Tandon of the Lawyers Collective advocacy group.

“The law assumes that all sex workers are victims and fails to recognize their right to a livelihood. The sex workers don’t consider themselves as victims so why impose it (the law) on them?“

Public health workers want decriminalization, saying women and clients are forced underground for fear of arrest, making it difficult to limit the spread of HIV and other diseases. But anti-trafficking campaigners argue any kind of legitimacy would fuel the industry, leading to a jump in smuggling of mainly poor and uneducated women from rural areas as well as children into brothels, a major problem in India.

According to the Walk Free Foundation’s 2014 Global Slavery Index, just over 14 million adults and children are trapped in modern slavery in India, the most in any country in the world.

Acting on a public interest petition four years ago, the Supreme Court formed a panel to investigate the industry and possibly consider amendments to the law.

It also asked the state governments to conduct an ongoing survey to determine how many sex workers, given a choice, wanted to be rehabilitated and retrained in other professions and how many wanted to stay put.

A number of sex workers choose this profession as the money is better than other low-paid labor such as domestic servants or seamstresses.

“We have a lot of freedom here and the income is good,” said Kusum, who earns around 20,000 rupees ($317) a month for her husband and three children living in a village in Uttar Pradesh state of India.

“I can afford a better life for my children back home with the money that I make here. I think my job is less strenuous than many others,” said the 36-year-old, who entered the trade on the advice of a friend, also a prostitute. While she works, her husband cares for the children who think she is a nurse in Delhi.

Although most sex workers want decriminalization, they are wary of suggestions to license sex work as in other countries.

Under such a scheme, they would be issued identity cards stating their stigmatized profession and also forced to pay taxes.

“Licensing might work in the West but here in India where sex work is looked down upon and prostitutes ostracized, it is a long shot,” said Amit Kumar, national coordinator of the All India Network of Sex Workers.

The National Commission of Women, a federal body, briefly backed legalizing the trade last year, only to reverse its stance after a fierce backlash in socially conservative India.

But Kumar said the courts and government groups needed to understand that keeping sex work in the shadows was a waste of time.

“Our politicians and courts have been fence sitting for too long. Sex work is the oldest profession and it’s not going to end ever.”