Why decriminalizing sex work is like looking at the glass half full instead of viewing it as empty.
By S.Bhavani
A sex worker in India gets into the sex industry for a variety of reasons. They are often forced by society to enter the profession, irrespective of the consequences. A sex worker in India is of various types, though based on culture there are essentially two types those who are brothel based and those who are migratory in nature.
A pimp usually governs a brothel-based sex worker. He/she takes a large chunk of the remuneration that a sex worker gets. He/she usually does the solicitation of customers and is often found in red light districts. Such practices of red light areas are more common in the north of India than it is in the south. The southern region of India is home to more migrant workers, who are often moving from place to place and have no pimp or brothel to work under. This made the life of an independent migrant sex worker’s life all the more difficult especially street sex workers as the law (ITPA) penalizes both the solicitor and the customer. This makes the street sex worker vulnerable to being arrested. Similarly even in brothel situations, the constant raids by the police have also been harmful for the business of the sex industry.
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The decriminalization of sex work alone may work for some countries, but in a country that has a heavily patriarchal culture the notion of protection of the sex workers becomes more important. There needs to be a solution that takes into consideration the problems that the sex worker faces such as the problems of causation into the entry of this profession as well as the problems faced due to castes, unemployment in other professions, poverty, enforcement into this profession, the problems of child prostitution are all problems that altogether make this situation different from