Give legal recognition to sex workers: Supreme Court panel

A Supreme Court panel formed to look into the status of sex workers in the country has recommended that sex work be given legal recognition in India. The panel, formed in July 2011 after the Budhadev Karmaskar vs State of West Bengal case, was headed by advocate Pradip Ghosh. Panel members included advocate Jayant Bhushan, who was the co-chair, Dr Samarjit Jana of the Usha Multipurpose Cooperative Society, Bharti Dey of the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, and Saima Hassan.

“... The most apparent problem for sex workers was their lack of legal status in the country. As sex workers are criminalised, it is difficult for them to acquire proof of identity such as ration cards or voter ID cards, owing to lack of proof of residence. The local district authorities do not recognise the identities of sex workers and their children, even though every citizen of India is entitled to basic human and fundamental rights. Consequently, sex workers cannot access the schemes meant for their rehabilitation, even if they want to. Similarly, sex workers have no access to credit facilities offered by the state because of their inability to open bank accounts, due to lack of supporting documentation,” said the report, which submitted its report in the last week of September. 

Recommendations include that state authorities should issue ration cards to sex workers, that sex workers should be given voter identification cards, and that the children of sex workers should be given admission in government schools. The panel was appointed by the apex court in 2011 while dismissing a criminal appeal and affirming the conviction of the accused, Budhadev Karmaskar, for brutally murdering a sex worker in Calcutta in 1999. The appeal was converted into a public interest litigation to look into various aspects of sex workers’ rehabilitation and to provide them with a dignified life. The panels has prepared fifteen interim reports till now. 

The panel has also recommended that rehabilitation be made a right for those who seek it, and recommended that a scheme should be made to protect, rehabilitate, provide livelihood alternatives, and prevent re-trafficking of sex workers. The scheme should allow for monetary provisions of up to Rs50,000 for sex workers to eke out alternative work. “The Panel was quite surprised to learn that there existed no exclusive scheme for rehabilitation of sex workers who wish to leave sex work, either at the central and/or at the state levels,” said the report, noting that existing schemes, like Ujjwala, are mostly aimed at trafficking victims. The panel also noted that all rescued sex workers, irrespective of whether they seek help or not, are sent to state-run shelter homes, keeping them away from their families and friends. 

The panel has also called for recommendations to amend the existing Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act. This includes the recommended that section 7 of the Act be amended to include the clause that sex work will not be illegal if conducted near a public place like a temple, hospital, educational institution, etc., in cases where these public places have “come into existence subsequent to the prostitution has started.”

Some of the other recommendations include changing the definition of brothel (section 2a), not penalising those living on the earnings of a sex worker (section 4), deletion of the section on soliciting (section 8), and the doing away of the section on the removal of a prostitute from any place (section 20), among others. 

The Pam Rajput Committee, too, in its report, submitted to the women and child ministry early this year, recommended for the decriminalisation of sex work.