Treating with dignity

The Supreme Court has said that police should neither interfere nor take criminal action against adult and consenting sex workers.

• Despite several amendments and awareness about human trafficking, it remains a significant issue for women and children of all ages. 
• Out of an estimated 20 million commercial prostitutes in India, 16 million women and girls are victims of sex trafficking.
• According to Legal Services in India, every hour, four girls in India enter into prostitution, three of them against their will and consent.
• The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956 (ITPA), is the premier legislation to prevent trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation. 

What is the present legal protection status for sex workers?

• Suppression of Immoral Traffic in Women and Girls Act, 1956 (SITA): India, after ratifying the legislation introduced by the United Nations International Convention for the Suppression of Women in Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation in Others in New York on May 09 1950, introduced a legislative action to give effect to the international legislation.
• Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1986: SITA was amended in the 1986, and was reframed as Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, stating the legality of prostitution and punishment of owning such institution. The act has also criminalized the activities involving recruiting, transporting, transferring, harbouring, or receiving of people for the purpose of prostitution.
• Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Amendment Bill, 2006: A revised version of the previous act which includes:
  • Deleted the provision to penalize prostitutes for soliciting client.
  • Criminalized the visit to brothel with the motive of sexual exploitation to the trafficked victims.
  • Offences listed in the Bill will tried under camera with the exclusion of public during trial.
  • Criminilased trafficking for the purpose of prostitution.
  • Constitutes authorities at the centre and state level to combat trafficking.
• National Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking and Commercial Sexual Exploitation of women and Children was formulated in 1988.
• Dedicated cell for prevention of trafficking by Ministry of Home Affairs.
• Ministry of Women and Child Development along with NIPCCD and UNICEF has developed three manuals to combat Trafficking of Women and Children for Commercial Sexual Exploitation.
• Ministry of Women and Child Development and Ministry of External Affairs has endeavoured to create special task force to combat cross border trafficking.
• Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 substituted Section 370 of IPC with Section 370 and 370A to provide a comprehensive measure to counter the menace of human trafficking including trafficking of children for exploitation in any form including physical exploitation or any form of sexual exploitation, slavery, servitude, or the forced removal of organs.
• Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, is a law to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation.

• Violence: Sex workers are especially vulnerable to violence because their status, which may be unlawful, tends to marginalize them. They need equal protection of laws against rape and other forms of violence.
• Criminalisation, stigma, social exclusion and climate of impunity: For sex workers, the State is an instrument of violence; feared, rather than seen as protectors of rights.
• Conflation of trafficking and migration, leading to denial of labour rights: No proper legislative structure tends to arbitrary actions by the executives, resulting to violation of rights and equal protection under law.
  • Conflation with trafficking and resulting rights violations
  • Raids - A human rights violation of sex workers.
• Rescue, rehabilitation and Social Security: Social stigma and exclusion provides a potential barrier to rescue and rehabilitation process of sexual workers, which further hinders the social security measures and supports for them.
• Medico-health care and sanitation: The work place remains unhygienic with negligible sanitation facility.
• Unsafe Intercourse: Sex workers due to lack of proper sanitation measures and preventive measures are prone to unsafe sexual intercourse, thus, resulting to various sexually transmitted diseases.
• Flesh Trade: Trafficking of Children and indulging them in the activities like prostitution and forced labour are one of the major concerns in India.

• Physical Violence:

Source: tbinternet.ohchr.org

• Police Violence:

Source: tbinternet.ohchr.org

• Pradip Ghosh Committee: In the 2011 , SC had ordered setting up of a panel headed by Senior Advocate Pradip Ghosh to suggest measures to prevent:
• • Trafficking
  • Rehabilitate sex workers who wish to leave
  • Conducive working condition
  • Treating with dignity
• In the recent observation of the Supreme Court, it has issues series of direction on rehabilitation, including for sensitizing police to treat sex workers with dignity and to avoid abusing them or subjecting them to violence.
• SC has also observed:
  • Every individual in this country has a right to dignified right under Article 21, which needs to be protected irrespective of the occupation.
  • Equal treatment of Law: Sex workers are entitled to equal protection of the law. Criminal law must apply in all cases, on the basis of ‘age’ and ‘consent’.
  • Police must refrain from interfering or taking any criminal action, in case of consented participation of an adult sex worker.
  • Child of sex worker should not be separated from the mother merely on the ground that she is in the sex trade.
  • Sex workers who are victim of sexual assault should be provided every facility including immediate medico-legal care.

• Avoid conflation of sex work with trafficking.
• Decriminalize consented sex work and all related activities.
• Ensure participation of sex workers in policy making.
• Develop mechanisms to recognize and act against violence faced by women in sex work.
• Strengthen sex workers’ access to justice.
• Implement Supreme Court recommendations on social entitlements, identification documents.
• Involvement of Civil Societies and NGOs for the welfare program.

Despite increasing efforts to combat human trafficking and related crimes against human beings, there is a rise in the number of victims of human trafficking and flesh trading each year. This shows that the existing laws need proper enforcement and need not just law and order but even society to come together and end this problem in our country. Social security and protect is very much required for their rehabilitation and providing dignity in the society.