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If it is unable to curb prostitution, the government should consider legalising it so that it can monitor the trade and rehabilitate workers, says the Supreme Court
The Supreme Court, on December 9, 2009, told the government to consider legalising prostitution if it was unable to curb it effectively. The court’s remarks came while dealing with a public interest litigation (PIL) regarding child trafficking, filed by the NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan and an intervention application moved by Childline. “When you say it is the world’s oldest profession and you are not able to curb it by laws, why don’t you legalise it?” Judges Dalveer Bhandari and A K Patnaik asked Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam. “You can then monitor the trade and rehabilitate and provide medical aid to those involved.” The judges noted that sex workers have been operating in one way or the other, and that nowhere in the world have they been able to curb prostitution by legislation. The court added that legalising prostitution would help monitor the trade and rehabilitate sex workers. The act of prostitution per se is not illegal in India. But selling, procuring and exploiting any person for commercial sex as well as profiteering from it is. An estimated 2-3 million sex workers, many of them under age, work in India’s thriving sex industry. Sex workers have been demanding legalisation for some time, but the opinion of activists and NGOs who work in the field are divided over the merits of such a move. Those in favour see it as a way of regulating the trade and ensuring that sex workers get the same health and other welfare benefits as others. AIDS activists point to the success of Brazil’s AIDS programme after prostitution was legalised in that country. Anti-legalisation groups say that the move will mean giving legal and social sanction to human rights violations. They doubt whether any welfare benefits would accrue to the women concerned and believe that legalising prostitution would only provide greater scope for abuse and exploitation. Social activist Madhu Kishwar says: “Does it (legalising) mean that parents who offer their girls to touts for the sex trade should be allowed to do so?” There are also fears that legalising prostitution will increase the number of women trafficked into the industry as has happened in Victoria, Australia, and in the Netherlands that saw a huge influx of women trafficked from South East Asian and central European countries. Source: www.ibnlive.com, December 14, 2009
www.indiatoday.in, December 13, 2009
www.expressindia.com, December 9, 2009
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