Magazine | Dec 28, 2009

To Let / For Sale?

Legalising prostitution is not the answer. Nab the traffickers.

By Ruchira Gupta

Scroll down to read the Supreme Court of India's ludicrous recommendation to legalise prostitution as a means of "controlling" trafficking and the country's thriving sex industry

When a problem is big and tends to profit a powerful group, there’s a time-honoured temptation to sweep it under the rug by assuming it’s natural and inevitable. This was true of slavery until the abolitionist movement of the 19th century, and of colonialism until the contagion of independence movements in the 20th century. Now these same forces are at work in attitudes toward the global and national realities of sex slavery.

The biggest normaliser of profiteering from the rental, sale and invasion of human bodies is the idea that it is too big to fight, that it has always existed, and that it can be swept under the rug by legalising and just accepting it. Those who profit­in this case, the global network of sex traffickers, sex tourism operators and brothel owners­are the major force behind the argument to legalise and increase profits that already rival those from the global arms and drug trade.

What will diminish and end this injustice? Exposing its reality: the lack of alternatives for those who are prostituted; the addiction and inability to empathise among those who create the demand, and the disastrous results wherever the selling or renting of human beings for sexual purposes has been legalised and normalised.

In Australia and the Netherlands where prostitution has been legalised, for instance, trafficking and the harms that come with it have only increased. In Victoria, Australia, it not only allowed legal brothels to proliferate, but illegal brothels increased by 300 per cent in a year. A hospitable environment for sex tourists and other buyers drove up demand local women and girls had too many alternatives to becoming the supply, they had to be trafficked from Southeast Asia.

The same is true of Amsterdam where trafficked East European and North African girls outnumber Dutch citizens in brothels. The mayor of Amsterdam reports that the red-light district has become a centre for illegal immigration and money laundering. In Germany and in an area near Las Vegas where prostitution has been legalised, government agencies tried to make applicants for unemployment benefits show they had attempted to find ‘work’ in the so-called ‘hospitality industry’ of prostitution in order to become eligible for such benefits. This was only defeated by massive organising by women’s movements.

In the few countries that have legalised prostitution­with the idea that it would reduce harm to prostituted women, as is now being argued by some in India­rates of assault and rape against the prostituted have not dropped.  There is also no corroborated evidence that legalisation increases the use of condoms or women’s power to demand such use. On the contrary, an official emphasis on condoms has often made it possible for brothels to demand more money for unprotected sex, while also causing them to conceal the number of prostituted women and children who have lost their lives to AIDS.

In Calcutta, a group of women who had asked for the unionisation of prostitution to guarantee workers’ rights  admitted to facing violence when they’re alone with the client. “They paid for it, we cannot stop it.” A doctor working for this group said he left after having to stitch up the vagina of a fifteen-year-old Nepali girl­for the third time.  
But there is some good news. It comes from countries where traffickers have been pursued, and prostituted women and children have been given services and alternatives. Sweden has gone after traffickers and pimps, confiscated their illegal assets, and made them compensate for damages while also decriminalising and offering services to prostituted women and children. By imposing penalties on those who create the demand and providing ‘John schools’ that address their addiction to dominance, they diminish the problem itself.

The result has been a significant decrease in sex trafficking and the commodification of sex. In ’99, it was estimated that 1,25,000 Swedish men bought about 2,500 prostituted women one or more times per year, before the law came into force. By ’02, this figure had fallen to no more than 1,500 women. The only truly effective way to curb trafficking is to see it for what it is, an outrage to human rights; one that can diminish, just as labour slavery and colonialism have come to do. Prostitution has not existed in all societies: it is a function of the inequality of women and the equation of masculinity with domination. All men in the present are not dependent on prostitution.

Commodification of human beings creates a separate class  of people whose bodies can be rented or sold - ­the very opposite of the universal protection of human dignity enshrined in the body of the Indian constitution.

(The author is the founder and president of Apne Aap Women Worldwide, an anti-trafficking organisation.)
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 December 16th, 2009

Legalising prostitution will not stop abuse

By Sherna Gandhy

It’s a funny old argument: you have not been able to control an activity that is illegal, so legalise it and you will be able to control it. That’s what the Supreme Court presumably meant when it said prostitution should be legalised since in its illegal avatar it has been abusing women in horrible ways.

A moment’s pause for thought here. Why is prostitution illegal in the first place? Presumably because it is immoral, and because it is exploitative. Let us dismiss the first argument straight off. If women choose to sell their bodies for profit it is entirely their own business and morality has nothing to do with it. The operative word is ‘choose’. Something done by an exercise of free will. Most people will argue that nobody really ‘chooses’ to have sex with several unknown men several times a day, but that’s debatable.

And anyway, I use ‘choose’ here as the opposite of ‘forced’.

The second argument against prostitution is the important one. That it exploits women. These women - unempowered and defenceless - are often sold into prostitution by parents, pimps and other unscrupulous persons, and are subjected to deprivation, indignity, abuse, poverty and neglect. Any sane person wants to stop this. The question is: will legalising prostitution achieve this purpose?

Yes, say those who are for it. Legalising it means the prostitutes will be free of police ‘harassment’, will be able to form unions and demand their rights like other workers.

Their working conditions can be regulated - brothels, which will have to be licensed, will have to adhere to working hours, provide health care, hygiene and other benefits, maybe even be forced to ensure that condoms are used in all sexual encounters.

It sounds good and in some countries, it may even work. But frankly I can’t see it working in India. Regulations are more likely to be on paper alone. When nobody bothered to stop the very obvious abuses when prostitution was illegal, how are they going to stop it when it is legal?

But, most importantly, how will this prevent the forcible induction of women into prostitution? In fact, if prostitution is legal, women who are forced into the trade will not have any case at all. Poverty makes many parents push their daughters into the trade. How will legalising stop that? In fact, you won’t even be able to indict the parents since they are not making her do anything illegal. How will it stop trafficking in minors, the most hideous face of the trade? How will it stop the police-pimp/brothel nexus that has allowed an illegal activity to flourish? If the police can turn a blind eye to prostitution per se, they can as well turn a blind eye to the regulations.

The ideal is, undoubtedly, to legalise prostitution and police it with a heavy hand to ensure all rules and regulations are met with and any transgressions are heavily penalised. But policing legal prostitution is a far more complex task than curbing illegal prostitution. And if we have not been able to do the latter, how are we going to do the former?

If prostitution has not been contained it is because of everyone’s indulgent attitude to it. The common perception, commonly voiced, is that it is ‘the oldest profession in the world’ and ‘no country has been able to abolish it’ and other such silly pronouncements.

If there was a real will to do it, it could have been done. But not even its excesses have been checked in the slightest. So, while we may legalise it, and that may make a marginal difference for some, it’s not going to be the magic wand the Supreme Court thinks it will be.
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World News ~ Thursday, 10 December 2009

India court raises question of legalising prostitution

 There are more than two million sex workers in India

India's Supreme Court has asked the government to consider whether it might legalise prostitution if it is unable to curb it effectively.

The court said legalising prostitution would help in the monitoring of the trade and rehabilitating sex workers.

Although illegal, prostitution is a thriving business in cities and towns across India.

It is estimated that there are more than two million female sex workers in the country.

The court's remarks came while dealing with a public interest litigation filed by an NGO about child trafficking.

The court said child trafficking and prostitution were flourishing because of poverty.

"When you say it is the world's oldest profession and you are not able to curb it by laws, why don't you legalise it?" Judges Dalveer Bhandari and AK Patnaik asked a government solicitor.

"You can then monitor the trade, rehabilitate and provide medical aid to those involved."

The solicitor said that he would look into the court's suggestions.

"The [sex workers] have been operating in one way or the other and nowhere in the world have they been able to curb it by legislation," the judges said.

"In some cases, [the trade] is carried out in a sophisticated manner. So, why don't you legalise it?"

A government-commissioned study says that the number of sex workers has risen from two million in 1997 to three million in 2003-04.

Many prostitutes are said to be underage, entering the sex trade as young as 12.

Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal states together account for 26% of the total number of prostitutes in the country.