Tackling the problem of prostitution

SUBHASHREE KISHORE,THE HINDU 11 NOVEMBER 2007

Amendment to the Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act 1956 is in the making for over two years. Going by the modern standards of performance evaluation, it seems the voting public are getting too little work done by their representatives. The representatives are indecisive on what steps to take.

Prostitution per se is not illegal or criminalised in India but soliciting and trafficking is. The justification for such a dichotomy is as usual safely nestled in age-old beliefs, practices and religion. The law aims to protect the victim without punishing the perpetrators. Prostitution as a means of livelihood is exploitative, repressive and inhuman.

One amendment being heavily debated is whether the client — in effect the demand side — should be punished. Sweden has had some success in bringing down trafficking when it criminalised buying sex. Britain is also considering the move seriously. The argument advanced against this in India is that it would lead to more surreptitiousness and place the victims further at the mercy of police.

Sadly the poorer (weaker) argument is that it would affect livelihood of the sex workers. Does it mean that the government is there only to wring its hands and watch helplessly as people are traded like commodities, forced into a ‘profession’ which can hardly be called that?

Amnesty schemes for tax evaders or defaulters pave the way to legalise their illegal wealth. Why not a scheme to rehabilitate these workers to help them break the vicious cycle of poverty and coercion which condemns them to a life of disease and disrespect?

The entire approach is heavily tilted towards the effect and not the cause. Instead of catering to the ‘vote bank’ minorities, we should address this community which has little voice and a lot to complain about. This is a group which cannot organise itself, burn buses or issue threats to disrupt public life. A realistic solution would be alternative employment and focused provision of basic facilities.

The high profile campaign for the prevention of AIDS can at least in part be diverted to addressing the circumstances which force hapless people into sex trade.

Prostitution is still treated as some ‘foreign’ disease whereas it is, and must be recognised as, a ‘man made’ social evil. The policy and legal framework is to treat it and hardly to root it out. We never find any political leader or public figure taking a stand asking the youth to practise restraint or fidelity. If the ‘supply’ side is too dark and difficult to control, at least the demand can be attacked.

India is blessed with stability and order compared with countries torn by civil war, political instability and the like. It just requires the administration to be committed and interventionist. But given the approach of the establishment which rushes to ban bar dancers rather than bars, maybe it is too much to ask.

We have seen governments steamroll opposition from environmentalists, workers, coalition partners when it comes to economic and political agenda such as SEZs, privatisation or land acquisition but hardly are proactive when it comes to the unfinished social agenda. We have places categorised as ‘red light’ areas beyond the reach of the long arm of the state. Perhaps we can even have areas demarcated for fake currencies, drugs, arms, antiques and so on.

The absence of social anger and condemnation despite having full knowledge of its stigma and consequences remains an enigma. Why do we hesitate to say that, in the first place, it is wrong? Society needs values and they should not be contingent on convenience, laws and individual preference. Larger social interest cannot be held ransom to individual immorality.

Police bust flourishing flesh trade in Gujarat

Gujarat Global News Network, Ahmedabad

Crime branch has swooped down on a gang, which forced young girls including minors into the flesh trade. The girls from the poverty stricken families from outside Gujarat were lured jobs and brought here.

The racket came to light when a 13-year-old girl tried to run away from the clutches of a couple which had bought her for Rs.30,000 and were using her as a prostitute. The girl was saved by three youth who drew the attention of social activist Shabnam Hashmi of Anhad. She took up the matter with the police and as a result crime branch was swung into operation.

The girl told newsmen that she was from Bengal and was brought here for a job in a drama company. She said that she was kept in a house in Viratnagar area of the city where many such girls lived. Then she was sent with one Vijay who lived with his wife and children in Chandlodiya.

Once Vijay raped her in the absence of his wife and then took her to Mehsana and left her in a hotel on highway. The girl was kept there for 10 days and everyday two to three people raped her. From there Vijay took her to Vadodara and kept her there for a week where she had to suffer the same ordeal.

She was brought back to Ahmedabad by Vijay and kept in his house. One evening when Vijay was not around she managed to run from the house.

On the basis of her information police raided all the places and arrested seven people including two women.

For news in Hindi see our Hindi daily Chaupal Chronicle

23 girls rescued from red-light district

30 Oct 2007, 0126 hrs IST,Bhuvaneshwar Prasad,TNN

PURNIA: In a major crackdown on the red-light area at Lakhanjhari alongside the NH-31 in the twin cities of Gulabbagh and Purnia, 23 girls, were rescued by the police on Monday morning. These 23 girls had either been trafficked or lured into the flesh trade rampant in the border areas.

Purnia SP Sudhanshu Kumar said that these girls were in the age group of 15 to 35. They had been trafficked from places like Saharsa, Kishanganj and Supaul and were lured or forced into the flesh trade. He said the girls who were immediately taken into police custody are being interrogated at Sadar Police Station to assess how they were pushed into this most heinous trade. "This interrogation is quite important and will facilitate the police in extending its arms and arresting pimps and traffickers," he added.

He said the rescued girls would be forwarded for counselling. Also, steps would be taken to rehabilitate and, if possible, to repatriate them to their parents and families.

The rescued girls revealed they were related to the brothel keepers, the SP said adding this is how they were tutored.

For the purpose, NGOs like Bhoomika Vihar functioning in Katihar and Kishanganj have already been requested to come over to Purnia to render help in their rehabilitation and repatriation, the SP said.

NGO Bhoomika Vihar director Arun Kumar said that while quite a few rescued girls were offsprings of the brothel keepers, some of them had been initiated into the dirty flesh trade since their early childhood. They could not even tell the names of their parents or the places from which they had been brought, he added. He said the counselling of the rescued girls was at the present in progress and it was difficult to say at the moment how many of them had been trafficked or how.

The NGO, Bhoomika Vihar has done a commendable job in rescuing and rehabilitating trafficked girls across several parts of Bihar. Arun Kumar said that the girls rescued from Lakhanjhari redlight area belonged to different communities. "Their identity was being established," he said.

Mumbai cops step up crackdown on dance bars

Mumbai: It is been two years since dance bars were banned in Mumbai but many are still running, and the Mumbai Police is cracking down on them.

Recently, nine girls were arrested for soliciting customers at one such bar during a late night raid. A few days ago, six girls were arrested in a similar raid.

"Nine girls were arrested. They were soliciting customers,” says Inspector, Special Service Branch, R B Mane.

Many dance bars continue to thrive in some form or the other. Some feature live orchestras to entertain customers, and have women waiters.

Though it is legally allowed only up to 9: 30 pm, the bars generally close around 1:30 am.

Dance bar owners say the police crackdown is not justified, as the Supreme Court is still hearing their case.

"This is legal extortion,” says president, Dance Bars Association, Manjeet Singh Sethi.

While many of the dance bars still survive, reinvented as Orchestra Bars, fate hasn't been this kind to the dance bar girls themselves.

Thursday , November 01, 2007

Made famous by the film Chandni Bar, many dancers found themselves out of work after the ban, and have had no option but to turn to the flesh trade.

“Prostitution is up 10 fold. They have so many expenses and can only earn 100 -200 rupees a day as waiters,” says Singh.

NGOs demand that the girls should be treated as victims of the flesh trade. If caught by the police they face action under the Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act.

And often the real culprits get away scott free.

In one case while the girls, orchestra members and the bar manager were arrested, the owner escaped.

1 Uzbek, 2 Indian women held for immoral trafficking

1 Uzbek, 2 Indian women held for immoral trafficking
Express News Service 28 May 2007
Chandigarh, May 27: An Uzbekistan national, two women of Indian origin and five Indian nationals were nabbed from a hotel in Manimajra on charges of immoral trafficking on Sunday. The accused were caught red-handed while indulging in immoral trafficking and marked currency was recovered from their possession. While the Uzbek woman was allegedly charging Rs. 7,000 per day, the other two women were charging Rs. 1,000 per day from their ‘pimps’.
Those arrested include owners of Hotel Chander Palace, Manimajra, Deepak Sharma and Anil Sharma, residents of Mohali, Surinder Prasad Goswami, a Panchkula resident, Vikas Kumar, a New Delhi resident and Rohit Kalra, resident of Sector 6, Panchkula. Of the three women besides the Uzbekistan national who entered India on May 22, one woman belonged to Morigate, Manimajra and the other claimed to be a resident of Noida.
While Deepak and Anil, allegedly used to facilitate their clients in the hotel rooms, Vikas and Rohit Kalra used to arrange women from Delhi. Goswami, who works at the hotel, was the middle-man between Vikas, Kalra and the hotel-clients.
Acting on the information, the trap was set up by Sub-divisional police officer (Central) DSP SS Randhawa. Two teams of Crime Branch and police station-17 were constituted to nab the accused. Three police officers became decoy customers and approached the accused with Rs. 10,000 marked currency. The deal was struck and the accused were caught redhanded while the money exchanged hands. The money, which the accused had distributed among themselves, was recovered later.
The preliminary interrogation revealed that another Uzbeki woman, based in Delhi was running a racket of immoral trafficking with Uzbeki women who would come from Uzbekistan on contract basis, indulge in immoral activities, get their money and go back.
About over a 100 foreign nationals, staying in Delhi and Chandigarh are apparently running immoral trafficking rackets in the northern cities of the country. The details about the Uzbekistan woman, considered to be the mastermind behind this racket, were sent to Delhi police by officials of the Chandigarh Police on Sunday.
“We have already intimated our counterparts at Delhi. They might nab the kingpin soon. We will be producing these accused in the court tomorrow”, said Inspector Satbir Singh, incharge, Crime Branch.