Obscene, immoral, debauched – these are adjectives often used for people selling their bodies for sex.
But the Indian government has now taken steps to put an end to this debauchery. Or at least, to have it happen underground and keep the ‘obscenity’ away from the public eye.
On 13 June, the government issued a ban on 240 internet sites offering escort services – believed to be a front for prostitution.
Of course, the move is like clenching your fist around running water. Not only is it incredibly easy to change a single letter in the site’s name, to make it appear on another web address, but there are ways to get around blocked sites too.
Having said that, going by the Indian constitution, selling sex or buying sex by consenting adults is not illegal. So why should the government ban sites offering these services? And more importantly, is this driving the sex worker industry further underground?
It’s a Simple Equation of Demand and Supply
The ‘oldest profession in the world’ is an often-used refrain for sex work or prostitution. Naturally then, the demand for commercial sex has existed unabated. It will continue to exist, whether or not sex work is criminalised.
In India, prostitution is legal. But quite a few related activities, like pimping, soliciting in a public place, and owning a brothel are not.
The allure of the metropolises and the relative anonymity of large cities means people from small towns and rural areas flock to them in the pursuit of opportunities.
Many get subsumed into the sex worker industry, sometimes out of coercion, often by the glamour of a stupendous cash inflow.
There has been an influx of the “foreign escort” – women from Russia, Ukraine and the erstwhile Soviet nations. These women are able to demand higher rates from customers, often multiplying the income of their Indian handlers.
The 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi gave the business an unprecedented thrust as thousands of tourists, foreign dignitaries and athletes came to the city.
The guests in the Games village “burned through thousands of condoms,” a Caravan magazine report says.
In other words, the supply exists to meet the unyielding demand.
The Stigma Still Haunts
Whether sex workers operate out of suspicious red-light areas or high-flying five stars, the stigma attached to the nature of their work continues to haunt them.
This is largely linked to the notion that sex is immoral and women associated with sex are especially deviant.
The benchmark for a ‘good’ woman, particularly in India, is judged by her sexual ‘innocence.’ When that innocence is violated in the eyes of society, the woman becomes ‘fallen’, a vaishya.
The stigma has only managed to alienate sex workers further, banishing them into the dregs of the city. As long as the worlds of the ‘honourable’ and the ‘whores’ don’t overlap, it’s easy to turn one’s back.
Sex Work Is Work
Many schools of thought argue that sex work should be treated as any other profession. To that extent, sex workers should also be privy to the benefits other professionals get.
Delhi-based writer and photojournalist, Mayank Austen Soofi, who has written extensively about the brothels on GB Road, says that every sex worker he has met wants to be legal.
Nearly 7,000 sex workers in Sonagachi, Asia’s largest red-light district in Kolkata, conceded that they have no other means of survival.
There are women who have escaped from abusive marriages, rebuilt their homes and single-handedly educated their children with the money they earn from prostitution – their only source of income.
The police looks upon the industry as a minor nuisance, which only becomes problematic for them if it’s been doing “too well for too long”.
Though the sex-workers and their pimps often have a covert understanding with the authorities – who let them carry out their business for a paid commission – they’re not immune to police harassment.
The Need for Regulation
Lalitha Kumaramangalam, the head of the National Commission for Women, argues that a regulated industry would help to stop forcible trafficking, improve hygiene among workers and clients and limit the spread of HIV and other diseases.
Across the countr,y sex workers live in deplorable conditions, often exploited by their pimps and the ambiguous law which may clamp down on them unexpectedly.
For escorts, selling their services on the anonymity of the internet, there’s no telling who’s buying the services on the other end. They have to protect themselves when the law refuses to.
Often physically assaulted by clients, sex workers are highly vulnerable to diseases from having unprotected sex. They don’t have easy access to healthcare, and hesitate to go to doctors or the police for fear of harassment.
In 1992, Durbar, an NGO, made efforts to unionise the sex workers of Sonagachi. By bringing them together, the NGO empowered them to refuse sex without a condom. Today, all sex workers at Sonagachi are a part of the union.
Of course, legalising all (consensual) sex worker related activities has its social repercussions. What was earlier happening outside legal boundaries may now come under the purview of the law – including frequent violations of consent.
But it’s a vicious cycle where the sex workers, often women, get the shorter end of the stick in a highly unorganised sector.
The blocking of these websites, even for the noble cause of protecting society’s “morality”, is another move, amongst many, to alienate a group that has long existed on the fringes.
The idea is not to isolate them nor to perceive them with pity. It is to straight up give them their rights and enable them to protect themselves.
The idea, perhaps, is to finally address the elephant in the room.
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