NHRC advisory classifying sex work in informal sector: Two extreme narratives
The NHRC advisory related to sex workers has stirred a hornet’s nest. While there is universal agreement that no woman should be denied her basic rights of accessing health and other social services, the directive to the Government of India to grant recognition to sex work as work in the informal sector has brought out two extreme narratives.
Between 2005 and 2011, when I was running the Rape Crisis Cell in Delhi, we would also be called to the Kamala Market Police station for counselling women rescued from the GB Road brothels. In almost all the cases, the initial response of all the girls of various age groups hailing from different parts of the country and some from Nepal and Bangladesh would be identical, steadfastly maintaining that they were in the brothel of their own volition.
Upon deeper probing, stories of deception, inducement, coercion and harassment would surface and invariably the common response would be that they were forced into submission the first time. Being traded between brothels was common and over seven to ten years, most of them normalised their lives in the brothel. Some of them, in their 30s, after 10 or 15 years into the trade, would graduate as “Madams” after actively inducing other unsuspecting young girls.
In my experience, the “choice” voiced by them has never really been their choice, but is indoctrinated into them as their only choice by the benefactors of this clearly exploitative activity. These are brothel owners, pimps and touts who induce, coerce and force unsuspecting women into prostitution and later ensure that the same women become procurers in a never-ending cycle of exploitation.
One reading of our law, the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956 will clearly tell us that commercial sex between consenting adults is not criminalised except in certain circumstances. What is illegal and is rightly criminalised is operating a brothel, living on/off the earnings of prostitution, engaging in prostitution near a notified public place, coercing someone into prostitution. Formal recognition of “sex work” will legitimise these criminal institutions and the groups advocating for this are not being mindful of the large criminal network that operates in ensuring women remain in prostitution. They also seem to nurse an illusion that a theoretical status as “workers in an informal sector” will magically alter the lives of women in prostitution.
Bureaucratic apathy and hurdles in accessing services is a serious problem for all marginalised persons and is a bigger problem for marginalised women. The solution to ensure the health and social security benefits to all the marginalised women including women in prostitution is to make the service delivery mechanism robust and free from corruption and red tape. This requires being in the field, responding to the demands, and negotiating with agencies providing civic services.
In my opinion, women in prostitution are being misled to believe that they are not entitled to any benefits of the government to circumvent advocacy work at the grassroots. It is also a red herring to legitimise the oppressive institution of prostitution comprising criminal elements who subject women to sexual slavery.
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