Legalizing prostitution? Let’s put a pin in it

NEW DELHI: Just days after making headlines for supporting legalization of sex work, National Commission for Women (NCW) chairperson Lalitha Kumaramangalam now appears to be softening her stance.
“I will only speak about the issue after the national consultation on November 8,” Kumaramangalam told TOI, adding, “It is my personal and professional view that sex work should be legalized but the commission must make an informed decision and I am open to listening to all views.I will be using a lot of time next week to hold informal consultations on the issue, talking to all advocacy groups and others to understand what their apprehensions are.”
Kumaramangalam is part of a panel set up by the apex court following a public interest litigation filed in 2010 on the rehabilitation of sex workers. The panel, which includes activists and representatives of sex worker unions, is meant to recommend possible amendments in Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956 (ITPA) to the Supreme Court and will meet on November 8 in this regard.
It’s clear the panel has not yet arrived at a consensus on their position regarding the legalizing of the trade. On October 28, Kumaramangalam told a daily that legalization will bring down trafficking of women and lower the incidence of HIV and other sexually-transmitted diseases. She also said she intends to put forth the proposal at the November 8 meet.

National Commission for Women chairperson Lalitha Kumaramangalam. (TOI file photo by Rajesh Mehta)
But barely two days later, panel member Ravi Kant made it clear he would not support a move to legalize the trade at a talk organized by the Apne Aap Worldwide, an organization that works with trafficked women. Kant, a Supreme Court advocate and anti-trafficking activist with a Delhi NGO, Shakti Vahini, says, “Kumaramangalam’s views come from her background as someone who has worked in the field of HIV-AIDS prevention. The panel also includes Priti Patkar of Prerana, Durbar and Usha Multipurpose Co-operative Society, unions of sex workers, some of who favour legalization. All our views will be heard on November 8 and only then a decision reached.”
In Kant’s opinion, every right that an average woman and Indian citizen has is available to sex workers as well. So why demand legalized work status for sex work? He believes it will lead to a host of problems, including increased trafficking of women and young children from small, remote impoverished villages.
“Thailand, for instance, has to get girls from Cambodia and Myanmar to keep the trade going,” he says. Kirti Singh, noted lawyer on women’s issues and member of the All India Democratic Women's Association, points out how most women in the trade didn’t become sex workers out of choice. “They come in at very young ages and in most cases it is pure exploitation. If we legalize sex work this exploitation and trafficking will only happen openly,” she says, while Kant adds, “Almost 90 per cent of those who pull out of the trade go on to acquire education and find another life for themselves.”

Children of sex workers and activists in Kolkata protest against the discrimination the children have to face. (Getty Images file photo)
The view from within the community — estimated at about 50 lakh — is all for legalizing prostitution. Bharati Dey, president of the All India Network of Sex Workers, a collaboration of about 90 sex-worker community bodies with close to 2.5 lakh members across 16 states, says that legalization will mean regulation. Dey, who also heads Durbar, a Kolkata-based body of sex workers with 70,000 registered members that is represented on the SC panel, has spent the last two decades lobbying for legalizing sex work which she says will reduce trafficking by nixing the police-trafficker-malkin nexus.
“Police very often get paid to let off traffickers. Regulation will decriminalize the trade,” says Dey, whose organization currently runs self-regulation units and has sent at least eight traffickers to jail. She also points out that many of those entering the profession are extremely poor, have few options and know what they are getting into. “But they make it to our communities through traffickers and middlemen. Legalizing will remove these middlemen,” she says.
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Dey has her own reservations about amendments to the ITPA Act, which has always been a contentious subject. In 2007, members of the UPA I government disagreed over why the client of a sex worker should categorized as a criminal. Under the current law, women are punished for seduction, but the amendment seeks to portray them as “victims” instead of “offenders” and award a jail term of up to seven years to clients.
Kumaramangalam is hopeful the panel will arrive at some common ground on other matters regarding the Act. “The panel relates not just to legalizing sex work but also deliberating on the existing provisions of ITPA, loopholes and implementation of the law and the impact this has,” she says.
(With additional reporting by Nandita Sengupta)