India's Supreme Court Orders Police to Respect Prostitutes' Rights - The New York Times - 0 views
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Though sex work is legal in the country, those who practice it often endure harassment and abuse. The justices urged the authorities to employ a more nuanced and humane approach.
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Zareena was inside her room at a brothel in Mumbai’s vast red-light district when police officers burst in, she recalled recently, looking for a woman thought to be a victim of sex trafficking.
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But, she said, once there, she herself was detained, despite having committed no crime. She spent that night in 2019, like so many others over the years, inside a lockup.
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Though prostitution is legal in India, those who practice it have long faced marginalization, violence and police harassment. A panel set up in 2011 to examine these issues has made a series of recommendations over the past six years, but none have been written into law.
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In that order, the court identified two categories: consenting adults voluntarily employed in prostitution; and minors, trafficking victims and those eager to leave the industry.
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“It is as if they are a class whose rights are not recognized,” the court added. “The police and other law enforcement agencies should be sensitized to the rights of sex workers who also enjoy all basic human rights and other rights guaranteed in the Constitution to all citizens. Police should treat all sex workers with dignity.”
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India is among a small handful of countries, including Canada and New Zealand, that have instituted legal protections for prostitutes. Though performing sexual acts for money itself is legal, running a brothel and other related activities, like soliciting and pimping, are not.
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Rights groups estimate that India has about 900,000 prostitutes. Most, they say, have been pushed into the work by crushing poverty and sometimes forced into it by human traffickers. Others have chosen it over other informal employment opportunities, researchers have found.
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The Supreme Court order addresses something that the United Nations and other institutions have stressed: decriminalizing sex work is, alone, not enough to improve conditions for workers in the industry. Governments need to lift other impediments to ensure equal treatment.
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Zareena, 55, who asked that only her first name be used because of the stigma attached to her profession, said that she had been trafficked into the sex trade at the age of 12 but that, as an adult, she chose to continue the work to support her four children.
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When she heard about the court’s directive on Friday, she said, she was hopeful it would free prostitutes from the fear of being dragged into police stations, where they were often harassed for bribes.