Last night I was in a televised debate about the recent Supreme Court recommendation to the government about legalizing the sex trade.
Contrary to most people’s understanding the sex trade is not banned in India. Trafficking is, as is soliciting. Red light areas, though they flourish, are illegal and sex workers are exploited not only by their brothel owners and pimps but also by the police. There are believed to be one crore sex workers in the country, about 30% of them trafficked minors. India has increasingly become a transit and depository area for world wide trafficking.
The issue in question is whether legalizing the profession will help protect the human rights of the workers or will it be an open invitation to more trafficking. The question has many sub texts and it is easy, as happened in the debate last night, to fall back on the age old “hamari sanskriti” nonsense – everything from the WEST is about giving licence to women to strip and throw dust in the eyes of pure Sita and Savitri. And to the rhetorical (and absurd) red herring question which invariably follows, “Do you want to make your daughter and sisters into prostitutes?’
Here are the arguments that were against legalization:
- It will be an invitation to trafficking women especially minors
- It will be an open acknowledgement of license to normal women to undress in public and flaunt their bodies (this from a man who quoted Sita as the true Indian woman)
- It will be seen as though we permit the exploitation of women’s bodies
One of the proponents of this line wished the trade to be decriminalized but not legalized i.e to get the police out of the picture and another body to be set up for social disfunction such as this and drug peddling and domestic issues.
The arguments for the legalization were:
1. Today sex workers are always frightened – of being caught, harassed, beaten, used. If they had legal status this would change
2. Giving them legal status is like giving them all the insurances that a service industry worker gets – medical benefits, child protection, a modicum of respect and a life without fear of being discovered and punished.
As is often the case the programme became a shouting match with people bringing in all sorts of extra agenda. And the real discussion got side tracked. Why is it that we are incapable of calm discussion or cogent argument?
My points are the following. We live in a highly gender biased society, biased against women and their bodies. We also live in a society with a high incidence of violence against women,
where marital rape is common and accepted as part of the duties of being a wife. Even to murder a daughter if she errs sexually or romantically is gaining increasing community and caste authorization. Yes in an ideal world men wouldn’t need to fulfil their urges by buying sex and women wouldn’t be reduced to bodies. But we are far from this world. Given that men do need sex to be bought, and given that many women are forced, by penury, hunger, circumstances or threats, to make a living from their bodies, the only thing they have, isn’t it better to protect them and give them the benefits that their jobs require and demand? As to the argument that legalizing the sex trade would lead to more trafficking , I would like to point out the results of banning or prohibiting things – this just increase demand. Look at the sale of liquor in Gujarat.
Of course mass scale education is the need of the day – to change attitudes, stigmas and what not. But this would be a wise and timely step for the government to take.
And while we are at it, why not stigmatize the”good” men who go to use their services instead?
