Prostitution has always been a conduit to a moral quagmire in democratic societies with capitalist economies; it pierces through the terrain of intimate sexual relations yet beckons for regulation. Laws on prostitution differ considerably around the world. They range from total prohibition, to regulation to varying extents of some or all aspects, to minimal restriction. Even when the sale or purchase of sex is legal, prohibiting some or all of the activities necessary to work, such as communication between worker and client (soliciting), working from premises (brothel), and involvement of third parties (managers, drivers, security) imposes a de facto prohibition. That is where India stands on the matter. The act of prostitution is perfectly legal but an unwritten, unstated ban exists because all the activities that are required for prostitution are illegal. More specifically activities including soliciting in a public place, kerb crawling, owning or managing a brothel, prostitution in a hotel, pimping and pandering, are crimes.
Prostitution isn't inherently immoral, not any more than running a business is inherently immoral. It's how you do it that counts. Realistically prostitution isn’t going anywhere. It's not called the world's oldest profession for nothing. Why not make it, at the very least, safe and productive? The act itself isn’t bad, but the plagues that follow. Human trafficking, abuse, murders, and the lack of consent are some of the most prominent ones. The only way to stop these is for prostitution to be regulated. Legalization opens it up to regulation; and regulation means safety. The primary law dealing with the status of sex workers is the 1956 law referred to as The Immoral Traffic (Suppression) Act (SITA). The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act (PITA) is a 1986 amendment of SITA as a result of the signing by India of the United Nations' declaration in 1950 in New York on the suppression of trafficking. The laws were intended as a means of limiting and eventually abolishing prostitution in India by gradually criminalising various aspects of sex work. According to this law, prostitutes can practise their trade privately but cannot legally solicit customers in public. As long as it is done individually and voluntarily, a woman can use her body in exchange for material benefit. PITA does not acknowledge male prostitution, nor does any other law in India however; even consensual anal intercourse is illegal under section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. Unlike as is the case with other professions, sex workers are not protected under normal labour laws. The Indian government didn’t completely abandon the sex workers though, they possess the right to rescue and rehabilitation if they desire. In practice, though the government takes little action in regards to protecting sex workers. The laws described under PITA exist only on paper, vaporizing into wisps of hollow words in the real world. PITA isn’t even used to try sex workers. 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. The Parliament has been trying to amend PITA since as early as 2006 and are still discussing the bill in both the houses. Seeing as our government is in the midst of trying to rectify their attitude towards prostitution, for better or for worse, why not help chart a course for the rosier side with a few suggestions. Arguments against prostitution originate from primitive impulses to the frightful, to the unknown. To quench the fears of those unconvinced sceptics, a comparison of the pros and cons is in order. When legalised, and under proper regulation the benefits would be numerous: → The fight against human trafficking could be better fought against. → Cases of rape and abuse would decrease. → The spread of STD’s and STI’s would dramatically decrease. → The profession along with industry that surrounds it would become a large source of income for the government when taxed. → It creates more legal jobs. → The number of sex crimes would decrease; → The costs associated with policing and prison that are currently attached to prostitution would drop significantly. → Minors would also be more effectively protected; → Consent would be one of the cornerstones of regulated prostitution; → It would also create a safer environment for the prostitutes themselves and they would be under the umbrella of labour laws that currently shun them. → It also creates a safer environment for the children of sex workers. There are only two arguments that can be made to oppose the legalisation of prostitution. The first questions the morality of prostitution. Morality is a fickle and highly subjective thought process. To make prostitution illegal because society thinks of it as a degradative act is in itself morally wrong. Who is so pompous that they have the audacity to raise themselves to their own cleverly crafted moral high grounds that they can place limits on someone’s free will. Not only is free will protected by the constitution as a fundamental human right, but trying to curb an individual’s free will is highly immoral, the very point on which the argument is made. The other argument for not wanting to legalize it is that it could promote prostitution and thus imply that the government is becoming more accepting of everything associated with prostitution, i.e. human trafficking amongst other things, even if they are explicitly stated to be illegal and punishable offences. Media gives birth to a lot of possible tangential interpretations. These ideas that extrapolate from the presented data are what the public hears and breathe life into. The issue that the government might be seen to be becoming more open to prostitution is possible; however in this argument prostitution isn't seen as the metaphorical bad guy, human trafficking is. The solution to the issue cannot be to ban prostitution simply because it has ties with human trafficking. That is the equivalent of launching a nuclear strike on Pakistan because a small contingent of terrorists might be hiding there. The solution is to surgically isolate and eliminate the cancer that is human trafficking, not rip out the organ it presides in. Any argument against making prostitution legal is a knee jerk reaction to fear. It's time that we got rid of some of our fears and thought the safety and well-being of everyone involved. The use of the word ‘regulation’ has so far gone hand in hand with ‘legalising’. Yet it has remained skimpy on what it actually pertains to. To truly make prostitution safe for sex workers a new system is required. The government should create a system following the model of the election commission of India, to create a network of undercover informants that report solely to those three members. These informants collect information about the prostitution rackets around the country. Additionally, seeing as human trafficking is the foot in the door to prostitution. The informants should also deliver Intel to tackle the problem of human trafficking to this committee. The members of this committee can then take appropriate actions based on the information that these informants provide. The members of this commission should be elected on a two year term basis by the chief justice of India and a group of members without any political affiliations in the country. This will prevent taking sides for vote appeals and gerrymandering. This committee will be provided a framework of rules under which they are to work. These rules pertain only towards the achievement of the goals of abolishing human trafficking and regulating prostitution as a legal activity. No one can question their power in this regard. There shall also be a process to dissolve the committee if they violate the framework. The framework shall legalise prostitution while simultaneously legalising brothels, so that there isn’t an inherent impossibility for the sex workers to carry out their trade. The legalisation of brothels shall be accompanied by a procedure for obtaining a licence to run/establish a brothel that would require a thorough background check of the individual who wants to set up the brothel. Soliciting should be legalised within the confines of brothels. The other activities related to prostitution that were defined in PITA shall remain illegal. The framework of rules should enforce the creation of ID cards for sex workers, which would kill multiple birds with one stone; human trafficking would be curbed, the ID’s would prevent minors from getting involved as sex workers, and the ID’s could function to verify that the sex worker in question is free of STD’s. The ID card shall also serve as a licence to practice prostitution. To halt the spread of STD’s only protected sex, via condoms and other contraceptives shall be permitted. The framework should set up another system to obtain the ID card that serves as a licence. The process to obtain such a licence would include: providing valid proof of medical history to ensure that the sex workers are STD free; attending multiple counselling and educational seminars for a minimum period of two months, which would inform the sex workers of the various alternatives that they have to make a living, sex education, a detailed explanation of the concept of consent, and an account of the various activities that are legal and illegal in regards to prostitution. The committee should also guide sex workers as to how they can acquire a government job, should the sex workers during the two month duration indicate that they have no other means of livelihood. The new legislation on prostitution should also allow sex workers to come under the roof of normal labour laws as well as extend the profession to legally include not only biosex females, but biosex males, transgender, lesbians, gays, and bisexuals. It should enforce frequent testing of the sex workers for STD’s. Additionally the legislation should encourage the formation of unions for the sex workers. This legislation should also prevent the entry of minors into brothels, even if they are the children of the sex workers. The legislative assembly while formulating the framework should not only keep in mind the interest of the sex workers but also their children, ensuring that the sex workers keep their work life distant from their children at least until they turn 18. The legislature should also broaden their horizon to view prostitution as a gender neutral profession instead of as a woman centric profession. The policy makers should be aware that the policies that they are formulating are not going to affect them, not truly, but rather the sex workers. Their voice in the matter is non-existent at the moment, yet these laws decide their lives. The sex workers should be the fairly represented; they should be given a metaphorical loudspeaker so that for once people listen to them. What are people so afraid of? Living in a society where sex is as commonplace as food, albeit sex happens behind closed doors. Does it suddenly become unacceptable when there is a price tag attached to it? Such a belief is ridiculous and infantile. There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking that makes it so. At the end of the day it’s a job for so many people; they should be able to go to work without fear. My conscience doth hath a thousand tongues; every tongue brings in several tales and every tale condemns us for villains. We sit here in air conditioned halls, bickering about whether or not to take action, never truly knowing the terror these sex workers, brothers and sisters of this fraternity cum sorority that we call India, citizens of our country face. Every day brings a new taste of hope, but everyday inaction turns that taste stale. For the sake of our siblings we should legalize and regulate prostitution.
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