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The breakdown of the agents by sex were as follows: 76% of the agents were female and 24% were males. Over 80% of the agents bring young women into the profession were known people and not traffickers: neighbors, relatives, etc.
The breakdown of the agents by sex were as follows: 76% of the agents were female and 24% were males. Over 80% of the agents bring young women into the profession were known people and not traffickers: neighbors, relatives, etc.


Also prevalent in Indian prostitution is the [[Chukri System]], whereby a female is coerced into prostitution to pay off debts, as a form of [[bonded labour]]. In this system, the prostitute generally works without pay for one year or longer to repay a supposed debt to the brothel owner for food, clothes, make-up and living expenses. In India, the Government's "central sponsored scheme" provides financial or in-kind grants to released bonded labourers and their family members, the report noted, adding over 2,850,000 people have benefited to date. Almost 5,000 prosecutions have been recorded so far under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act of 1976.
Also prevalent in Indian prostitution is the [[Chukri System]], whereby a female is coerced into prostitution to pay off debts, as a form of [[bonded labour]]. In this system, the prostitute generally works without pay for one year or longer to repay a supposed debt to the brothel owner for food, clothes, make-up and living expenses. In India, the Government's "central sponsored scheme" provides financial or in-kind grants to released bonded labourers and their family members, the report noted, adding over 2,850,000 people have benefited to date. Almost 5,000 prosecutions have been recorded so far under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act of 1976 <ref>{{Cite web | url = http://www.advocatekhoj.com/library/bareacts/boundedlabor/index.php?Title=Bonded%20Labor%20System%20%28Abolition%29%20Act,%201976 | title = ''Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act'', 1976}}</ref>.


Some women and girls are by tradition born into prostitution to support the family. The [[Bachara]], for example, follow this tradition with eldest daughters often expected to be prostitutes.
Some women and girls are by tradition born into prostitution to support the family. The [[Bachara]], for example, follow this tradition with eldest daughters often expected to be prostitutes.

Revision as of 09:27, 13 February 2011

  Prostitution legal and regulated
  Prostitution (the exchange of sex for money) legal, but brothels are illegal; prostitution is not regulated
  Prostitution illegal
  No data

In India, prostitution itself (the exchange of sexual services for money) is legal but related activities such as soliciting sex in a public place, kerb crawling, keeping a brothel, pimping and pandering are illegal.[1][2]

Prostitution is currently a contentious issue in India. In 2007, the Ministry of Women and Child Development reported the presence of 2.8 million sex workers in India, with 35.47 percent of them entering the trade before the age of 18 years.[3][4] The number of prostitutes has doubled in the last decade.[5]

According to a Human Rights Watch report, Indian anti-trafficking laws are designed to combat commercialized vice; prostitution, as such, is not illegal. A sex worker can be punished for soliciting or seducing in public, while clients can be punished for sexual activity in proximity to a public place, and the organization puts the figure of sex workers in India at around 20 million, with Mumbai alone being home to 200,000 sex workers, the largest sex industry centre in Asia.[6] Over the years, India has seen a growing mandate to legalize prostitution, to avoid exploitation of sex workers and their children by middlemen and in the wake of growing HIV/AIDS menace.[7]

Normally, female prostitutes are categorized as common prostitutes, singers and dancers, call girls, religious prostitutes (or devadasi), and caged brothel prostitutes. Districts bordering Maharashtra and Karnataka, known as the ‘devadasi belt’, have trafficking structures operating at various levels.[6] Brothels are illegal de jure but in practice are restricted in location to certain areas of any given town. Though the profession does not have official sanction, little effort is made to eradicate or impede it.

The largest and best-known red-light districts are Sonagachi in Kolkata, Kamathipura in Mumbai, G. B. Road in New Delhi, Reshampura in Gwalior and Budhwar Peth in Pune host thousands of sex workers. In recent years red-light centers across various parts of India are common place for international sex tourism. Earlier, there were other centres such as Dal Mandi in Varanasi, Naqqasa Bazaar in Saharanpur, Chaturbhuj Sthan in Muzaffarpur, Peddapuram and Gudivada in Andhra Pradesh. Meerganj Allahabad Ganga Jamuna Nagpur. kabadi bazar of Meerut is a strange place where public life goes on normally with brothels quietly working of the roofs of the busy market.

History

In ancient India, there was a practice of having Nagarvadhus, "brides of the town". Famous examples include Amrapali, state courtesan and Buddhist disciple, described in Vaishali Ki Nagarvadhu by Acharya Chatursen and Vasantasena, a character in the classic Sanskrit story of Mricchakatika, written in the 2nd century BC by Sudraka. The Devadasis, who performed in temples, were described as "temple prostitutes". Kanhopatra is venerated as a saint in the Varkari sect of Hinduism, despite spending most of her life as a courtesan. Binodini Dasi started her career as a courtesan, later to become a Bengali theatre actress.

In Goa, a Portuguese colony in India, during the late 16th and 17th centuries, there was a community of Japanese slaves, who were usually young Japanese women and girls brought or captured as sexual slaves by Portuguese traders and their South Asian lascar crewmembers from Japan.[8]

During the British East India Company's rule in India in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, it was initially fairly common for British soldiers to frequently visit local Indian nautch dancers. Likewise, Indian lascar seamen taken to the United Kingdom frequently visited the local British prostitutes there.[9][10] In the 19th and early 20th centuries, thousands or even millions of women and girls from continental Europe and Japan were trafficked into British India, where they worked as prostitutes servicing British soldiers and local Indian men.[11][12][13]

The primary law dealing with the status of sex workers is the 1956 law referred to as The Immoral Traffic (Suppression) Act (SITA). According to this law, prostitutes can practice their trade privately but cannot legally solicit customers in public. Organized prostitution (brothels, prostitution rings, pimping, etc.) is illegal. As long as it is done individually and voluntarily, a woman (male prostitution is not recognized in the Indian constitution) can use her body's attributes in exchange for material benefit. In particular, the law forbids a sex worker to carry on her profession within 200 yards of a public place. Unlike as is the case with other professions, sex workers are not protected under normal labour laws, but they possess the right to rescue and rehabilitation if they desire and possess all the rights of other citizens.

In practice SITA is not commonly used. The Indian Penal Code (IPC) which predates the SITA is often used to charge sex workers with vague crimes such as "public indecency" or being a "public nuisance" without explicitly defining what these consist of. Recently the old law has been amended as The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act or PITA. Attempts to amend this to criminalise clients [14] have been opposed by the Health Ministry,[15] and has encountered considerable opposition.[16] In an interesting and positive development in the improvement of the lives of female sex workers in Calcutta, a state-owned insurance company has provided life insurance to 250 individuals.[17]

Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act

The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act or PITA is a 1986 amendment of legislation passed in 1956 as a result of the signing by India of the United Nations' declaration in 1950 in New York on the suppression of trafficking.[18] The act, then called the All India Suppression of Immoral Traffic Act (SITA), was amended to the current law. The laws were intended as a means of limiting and eventually abolishing prostitution in India by gradually criminalizing various aspects of sex work. The main points of the PITA are as follows:[19]

  • Sex Workers: A prostitute who seduces or solicits shall be prosecuted. Similarly, call girls can not publish phone numbers to the public. (imprisonment up to 6 months with fine, point 8)
    Sex worker also punished for prostitution near any public place or notified area. (Imprisonment of up to 3 months with fine, point 7)
  • Clients: A client is guilty of consorting with prostitutes and can be charged if he engages in sex acts with a sex worker within 200 yards of a public place or "notified area". (Imprisonment of up to 3 months, point 7) The client may also be punished if the sex worker is below 18 years of age. (From 7 to 10 years of imprisonment, whether with a child or a minor, point 7)
  • Pimps and Babus: Babus or pimps or live-in lovers who live off a prostitute's earnings are guilty of a crime. Any adult male living with a prostitute is assumed to be guilty unless he can prove otherwise. (Imprisonment of up to 2 years with fine, point 4)
  • Brothel: Landlords and brothel-keepers can be prosecuted, maintaining a brothel is illegal. (From 1 to 3 years imprisonment with fine for first offence, point 3) Detaining someone at a brothel for the purpose of sexual exploitation can lead to prosecution. (Imprisonment of more than 7 years, point 6)
  • Procuring and trafficking: A person procures or attempts to procure anybody is liable to be punished. Also a person who moves a person from one place to another, (human trafficking), can be prosecuted similarly. (From 3 to 7 years imprisonment with fine, point 5)
  • Rescued Women: The government is legally obligated to provide rescue and rehabilitation in a "protective home" for any sex worker requesting assistance. (Point 21)

Public place in context of this law includes places of public religious worship, educational institutions, hostels, hospitals etc. A "notified area" is a place which is declared to be "prostitution-free" by the state government under the PITA. Brothel in context of this law, is a place which has two or more sex workers (2a). Prostitution itself is not an offence under this law, but soliciting, brothels and pimps are illegal.

Causes

Most of the research done by Sanlaap indicates that the majority of sex workers in India work as prostitutes due to lacking resources to support themselves or their children. Most do not choose this profession out of preference, but out of necessity, often after the breakup of a marriage or after being disowned and thrown out of their homes by their families. The children of sex workers are much more likely to get involved in this kind of work as well. A survey completed in 1988 by the All Bengal Women's Union interviewed a random sample of 160 sex workers in Calcutta and, of those, 23 claimed that they had come of their own accord, whereas the remaining 137 women claimed to have been introduced into the sex trade by agents of various sorts. The breakdown was as follows:

  • Neighbour in connivance with parents: 7
  • Neighbours as pimps (guardians not knowing): 19
  • Aged sex workers from same village or locality: 31
  • Unknown person/accidental meeting with pimp: 32
  • Mother/sister/near relative in the profession: 18
  • Lover giving false hope of marriage or job and selling to brothel: 14
  • Close acquaintance giving false hope of marriage or job: 11
  • "Husband" (not legally married): 3
  • Husband (legally married): 1
  • Young college student selling to brothel and visiting free of cost: 1

The breakdown of the agents by sex were as follows: 76% of the agents were female and 24% were males. Over 80% of the agents bring young women into the profession were known people and not traffickers: neighbors, relatives, etc.

Also prevalent in Indian prostitution is the Chukri System, whereby a female is coerced into prostitution to pay off debts, as a form of bonded labour. In this system, the prostitute generally works without pay for one year or longer to repay a supposed debt to the brothel owner for food, clothes, make-up and living expenses. In India, the Government's "central sponsored scheme" provides financial or in-kind grants to released bonded labourers and their family members, the report noted, adding over 2,850,000 people have benefited to date. Almost 5,000 prosecutions have been recorded so far under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act of 1976 [20].

Some women and girls are by tradition born into prostitution to support the family. The Bachara, for example, follow this tradition with eldest daughters often expected to be prostitutes.

Over 40% of 484 prostituted girls rescued during major raids of brothels in Mumbai in 1996 were from Nepal.[21] In India as many as 200,000 Nepalese girls, many under the age of 14, have been sold into sexual slavery. Nepalese women and girls, especially virgins, are favoured in India.[22][23]

At the other end of the spectrum operate high-class escort girls recruited from women's colleges and the vast cadres of India's fashion and film industries. They can command large sums of money. These services usually operate by way of introduction. However a recent trend has seen the emergence of several snazzy websites, openly advertising their services.

Male sex workers

Male prostitution is increasingly visible in India. Gigolo service in India is growing. But there are cases of harassment of client women by gigolos.[24] In Delhi there are as many as twenty "agencies" offering "handsome masseurs" in the classifieds of the newspapers (Hindustan Times). They offer both in and out services, although the facilities are usually very basic. Most western clients are visited at their hotels. Local middle-class Indians are also now using these services. Fees are discussed over the phone, typically 1000-3000 Rs.[citation needed] Safe sex and condom use is generally well understood. The workers typically do not speak English well. They are also found in Delhi's emerging gay night life scene, with several "one nighters" at various middle-class night clubs in the city.

In India, male homosexual acts are now legal but male prostitution is all but invisible and not much is currently known about the status of male sex workers. Due to the social stigma attached to homosexuality in India and the lack of legal protection, they tend to face higher risks than females. They are often faced with violence from the police, clients, and are often subjected to extortion from the police in order to carry on with their work. A large percentage of male sex workers are eunuchs or hijrahs. Most know of sexually transmitted diseases through experience, but there are few preventative measures, such as condoms, that are made available to them. Due to their legal status, no regimen of testing for HIV/AIDS or other diseases are made available.

AIDS

Mumbai and Kolkata (Calcutta) have the country's largest brothel based sex industry, with over 100,000 sex workers in Mumbai.[25] It is estimated that more than 50% of the sex workers in Mumbai have HIV.[26] In Surat, a study discovered that HIV prevalence among sex workers had increased from 17% in 1992 to 43% in 2000.

A positive outcome of a prevention program among prostitutes can be found in Sonagachi, a red-light district in Kolkata. The education program targeted about 5,000 female prostitutes. A team of two peer workers carried out outreach activities including education, condom promotion and follow-up of STI cases. When the project was launched in 1992, 27% of sex workers reported condom use. By 1995 this had risen to 82%, and in 2001 it was 86%.

Reaching women who are working in brothels has proven to be quite difficult due to the sheltered and secluded nature of the work, where pimps, Mashis, and brothel-keepers often control access to the women and prevent their access to education, resulting in a low to modest literacy rate for many sex workers.

Consistently high HIV infection rates among sex workers (50% or more among Mumbai's female sex worker population since 1993),[27] coupled with lack of information, failure to use protection, and the migrancy of their clients,[28] may contribute to the spread of AIDS in the region and the country.[27]

NGOs in Mumbai Area

A lot of literature is available about the various socio- economic political aspects of prostitution. However very little information is available on the various government and non-governmental effort made to help this section of the population in leading a dignified life.

An in-depth study of the red light area and the pattern of functioning reflect the dehumanizing situation that the commercially sexually exploited women (CSEW) face every day. They are pushed into the trade at a young age, at times even before they attain puberty and thus are not aware of the trap they are falling into. Once in the trade, there is no escape till the brothel keeper has earned well enough through her. Here she is subjected to physical and mental torture if she refuses to abide by the wishes of the keeper. As most women have no formal education, they have no knowledge of how much they earn. When she is allowed to leave the set-up, she is most probably a victim of life threatening diseases like HIV/ AIDS/ and STDs, without any place to go to. Thus in all probability, she will continue in the area and start soliciting and earn for her partner. Once trapped in the trade, women get pulled into a vicious circle from which escape is difficult. She gets succor through the contacts with various organizations working in the area. They form the bridge for her to develop linkage with the outside world, which also form the support system to the women, should she choose to move out of the trade.

Many organizations work in Kamatipura, known as the largest red light area of Mumbai, dealing with various aspects like rescue of minors, dealing with health awareness and treatment with special focus on HIV/ AIDS and other STD related diseases, providing counseling services, de-addiction programs, skill development and training etc. Some organization help in taking care of the children of the CSEW’s by providing full time care/ protection and education through the day/night care shelters or residential homes away from the red light area.

Government organization like MDAX has played a very prominent role in generating awareness on HIV/AIDS through the assistance provided in providing free literature and organizing various street campaigns.

There are many organizations working in Kamatipura. To name a few: Navjeevan Centre an undertaking by Marthoma Church, CCDT, Prerna, Oasis India, Jyothi kailash, SAI, Teen Challenge, Salvation Army, Apne Aap etc. Each organisation has independent specific goals which could be health, education or overall rehabilitation of the CSEW and/ or their children.

Actresses

Because Indian culture is still very conservative in its sexual mores, Indian women in film represent the few opportunities to see women in sexually provocative clothing. Due to their high desirability, Indian actresses - and women claiming to be actresses - can command high prices for sexual services.[29] Actresses such as Saira Banu and Jyoti were arrested in Hyderabad for prostitution in September 2010,[29] and in 2009 the Tollywood actress Seema was arrested, along with her mother, also in Hyderabad.[29]

Prostitution, has been a theme in Indian literature and arts for centuries, Mrichakatika a ten-act Sanskrit play, set in Pataliputra (modern-day Patna), was written by Śhudraka in the 2nd century BC. It entails the story of a nagarvadhu (royal cortesan) Vasantsena. It was made into Utsav, a 1984 Hindi film. Amrapali (Ambapali) the nagarvadhu of the Kingdom of Vaishali famously became a Buddhist monk later in the life, a story retold in a Hindi film, Amprapali (1966).[30]

Tawaif, or the courtesan in the Mughal era, has been a theme of a number of films including Pakeezah (1972), Umrao Jaan (1981), Tawaif (film) (1985), and Umrao Jaan (2006 film). Other movies depicting lives of prostitutes and dancing girls are Sharaabi, Amar Prem (1972), Devdas (2002), Chandni Bar (2001), Chameli (2003), Laaga Chunari Mein Daag (2007), and Dev D (2009).

Born into Brothels, a 2004 American documentary film about the children of prostitutes in Sonagachi, Kolkata, won the Academy Award for Documentary Feature in 2004.[31]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Prostitution: should the laws be changed?". BBC News. 2001-08-03. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  2. ^ 2008 Human Rights Reports:India
  3. ^ Around 2.8 mn prostitutes in India Indian Express, May 8, 2007
  4. ^ BBC report on number of female sex workers in India BBC News.
  5. ^ Prostitution 'increases' in India BBC News, July 3, 2006
  6. ^ a b Prostitution: A burning issue in India today merinews.com, April 7, 2008.
  7. ^ A mandate to legalise prostitution The Times of India, August 25, 2003.
  8. ^ Leupp, Gary P. (2003), Interracial Intimacy in Japan, Continuum International Publishing Group, p. 49 & 52, ISBN 0826460747
  9. ^ Fisher, Michael Herbert (2006), Counterflows to Colonialism: Indian Traveller and Settler in Britain 1600-1857, Orient Blackswan, pp. 106, 111–6, 119–20, 129–35, 140–2, 154–8, 160–8, 172, 181, ISBN 8178241544
  10. ^ Fisher, Michael H. (2007), "Excluding and Including "Natives of India": Early-Nineteenth-Century British-Indian Race Relations in Britain", Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 27 (2): 303–314 [304–5]
  11. ^ Fischer-Tiné, Harald (2003), "'White women degrading themselves to the lowest depths': European networks of prostitution and colonial anxieties in British India and Ceylon ca. 1880-1914", Indian Economic Social History Review, 40: 163–90, doi:10.1177/001946460304000202
  12. ^ Tambe, Ashwini (2005), "The Elusive Ingénue: A Transnational Feminist Analysis of European Prostitution in Colonial Bombay", Gender & Society, 19: 160–79, doi:10.1177/0891243204272781
  13. ^ Enloe, Cynthia H. (2000), Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women's Lives, University of California Press, p. 58, ISBN 0520220714
  14. ^ [1] LEADER ARTICLE: Sex Workers Need Legal Cover-Editorial-Opinion-The Times of India
  15. ^ [2] 'Sex workers' clients shouldn't be penalised'-India-The Times of India
  16. ^ [3] LEADER ARTICLE: Sex Work Is No Crime-Editorial-Opinion-The Times of India
  17. ^ "India sex workers get life cover". BBC News. May 1, 2008. Retrieved May 22, 2010.
  18. ^ [4] The Immoral traffic Prevention Act
  19. ^ [5] Immoral Trafficing Act
  20. ^ "Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976".
  21. ^ "S. Asia Urged to Unite Against Child Prostitution", Reuters, June 19, 1998.
  22. ^ Millions Suffer in Sex Slavery
  23. ^ [6] Fair skin and young looks: Nepalese victims of human trafficking languish in Indian brothels
  24. ^ [7] Women land in gigolo trap-source-Times of India
  25. ^ "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: India", US State Department, 2001.
  26. ^ "HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific Region 2001", World Health Organization, 2001.
  27. ^ a b "AIDS in Asia, Face the Facts", Monitoring the AIDS Pandemic (MAP) Network report, 2004.
  28. ^ Galwankar S., "Sexual behaviors in migrant male workers from Mumbai: a need for sex education for the uneducated", Internations Conf erence on AIDS. 2002.
  29. ^ a b c Fontanella-Khan, Amana (Sept. 8, 2010). "Do Bollywood Brothels Exist? Why a series of Indian actresses have been arrested for prostitution". slate.com. Retrieved Sept. 8, 2010. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  30. ^ Amprali at IMDb.
  31. ^ "NY Times: Born into Brothels", NY Times, retrieved 2008-11-23

Further reading

  • History of Prostitution in India, by S. N. Sinha. Published by Bengal Social Hygiene Association, 1933.
  • Reporting on Prostitution: The Media, Women and Prostitution in India, Malaysia and the Philippines, by Lois Grjebine, UNESCO. Published by Unesco, 1985.
  • Prostitution in India, by Santosh Kumar Mukherji, Biswanath Joardar. Published by Inter-India Publications, 1986. ISBN 81-210-0054-8.
  • The Castaway of Indian Society: History of Prostitution in India Since Vedic Times, Based on Sanskrit, Pāli, Prākrit, and Bengali Sources, by Sures Chandra Banerji, Ramala Banerji. Published by Punthi Pustak, 1989. ISBN 81-85094-25-X.
  • Child Prostitution in India, by Joseph Anthony Gathia, Centre of Concern for Child Labour. Published by Concept Pub. Co., 1999. ISBN 81-7022-771-2.
  • Immoral Traffic - Prostitution in India, by V. Sithannan. Published by JEYWIN Publications. ISBN 81-905975-0-7.
  • Broken Lives: Dalit Women and Girls in Prostitution in India, by M. Rita Rozario. Published by Ambedkar Resource Centre, Rural Education for Development Society, 2000. ISBN 81-87367-02-4.
  • Gomare et al. 2002. Adopting strategic approach for reaching out to inaccessible population viz Abstract WePeF6707F abstract, The XIV International AIDS Conference.
  • Trafficking in Women and Children in India, by P. M. Nair, Sankar Sen, Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi, India. National Human Rights Commission, UNIFEM South Asia Regional Office, New Delhi. Published by Orient Blackswan, 2005. ISBN 81-250-2845-5.
  • INDIA & Southeast Asia to 1875, Beck, Sanderson. ISBN 0-9762210-0-4
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