5. The sex trade and laws: India

How do women find themselves in the sex trade? How does the sex trade run? What is trafficking, actually? What does the law say and what does the law do? This episode 5 tracks the sex trade and laws, in India.
Warning: sexual content, adult themes. Listener discretion is advised.
Credits:
Host: Surabhi Chatterjee
Audio production: Pruthu Parab
Cover Art: Rini Alphonsa Joseph
The intro music is Wake up, Max by Axel Lundström. Other music is from the YouTube audio library and include: Moonlight in Mexico – Jimena Contreras;  Piroutte – Asher Fulero; Subharmonic Bliss – Loopop; Vital Whales – Unicorn Heads;  Swing House – RKVC; EBB Density and Time; Sunshine on Sand – Unicorn Heads; Bageshri – Aditya Verma

Show notes:
Sanjay Leela Bhansali. "Gangubai Kathiawadi" (Film)
Joe Doezema, “Ouch!: Western Feminists' 'Wounded Attachment' to the 'Third World Prostitute'"
Essays in ‘Prostitution and Beyond: An Analysis of Sex work in India’ by Rohini Sahni, V.Kalyan Shankar, Hemant Apte (Eds.), Sage Publications (2008): Rohini Sahni and V. Kalyan Shankar. 'Markets, Histories and Grass Root Evidence: Economics of Sex Work in India'; Meena Saraswathi Seshu. 'Surfacing Voices from the Underground'; Manoj Wad and Sharayu Jadhav. 'The Legal Framework of Prostitution in India'
Juno Mac and Molly Smith (2018). “Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers’ Rights”.
Indian Penal Code, 1860; The Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act, 1956
Prerna Podcast. What is Human Trafficking
Case title: Budhadev Karmaskar v. State of West Bengal. Criminal Appeal 135/2010; Sangram (VAMPS) statement on the 2022 Supreme Court Order.
Kavita Chowdhury, India’s SC recognises Sex Work as a profession;  FP Explainers, SC recognises prostitution as profession: What does this mean for sex workers; Krishnadas Rajagopal. SC recognises sex work as a ‘profession’;
New law to treat sex workers as victims, says Maneka Gandhi ;The Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2018; Ministry of External Affairs, India. Q & A: What is Human trafficking
Other resources from Sangram (VAMPS)

Transcript

Episode 5: Prostitution and Anti-Prostitution: India

In 2022, Sanjay Leela Bhansali released the movie, Gangubai Kathiawadi, set in the 1950s in Kamathipura – Mumbai’s red-light district. The movie based on the life of a real-life sex worker and madam whose story is recorded in the book ‘Mafia Queens of Mumbai’ written by S. Hussain Zaidi and Jane Borges.  Alia Bhat won the National Award for best actress, for playing the protagonist, Gangubai.  The premise of the movie: a young girl sold into a brothel fearlessly reclaims her power to preside over the world she was once a pawn in. 

Let’s talk. The sex trade and laws. Anti-prostitution laws which masquerade as anti-trafficking laws. Trafficking includes so many things now that it’s meaning has basically collapsed and it’s difficult to understand what we are describing when we say ‘trafficking’.   Some things thrown around today include how after Southeast Asia (Thailand, Cambodia) - South Asia has now become a hub for trafficking - one of the fastest growing regions for human trafficking, with India at its center.  

Anti-trafficking campaigns, we saw, portray sex trafficking as abduction into the sex trade usually across borders but research finds that abduction into the sex trade is rare so what do we actually mean today when we say trafficking? 

In India – anti- prostitution discourses will focus on forced prostitution – how a girl or woman was forced into the sex trade. Here they discuss the point of entry. The portrayal of forced prostitution is as shown in the movie Gangubai – Ganga was sold to a brothel, locked up, beaten and forced to work. This is not fabricated. Just to make sure I’m not downplaying forced prostitution – I’ll concede that these are common stories in a brothel. But is there more to it? 

In 2022, the Supreme Court of India in an order recognized voluntary sex work. It opposed the police’s (quote unquote) “brutal and violent” harassment of sex workers and issued some directions with respect to sex worker rights including one which said that if a sex worker is an adult and participating in the sex trade with consent, the police must not take any action against her. 

Well-meaning observers will agree with the Supreme Court of India and say that we must distinguish between trafficking and prostitution; between forced prostitution and voluntary sex work. But are these all that distinct?  Is it that easy to distinguish? 

Because. The thing is: 

sometimes, a trafficked woman is a voluntary sex worker. 

sometimes, the line between voluntary and forced itself is blurred. 

sometimes there are cases which are forced prostitution but the sex worker may still want to remain in the sex trade. 

sometimes the voluntary sex worker may want to leave the sex trade but not have a choice. 

sometimes there are cases which are voluntary sex work, but that still contain layers of abuse, vulnerabilities, and exploitation. 

The thing is: it is complicated.  

Hi, welcome to So skewed. I’m Surabhi. This is episode 5. 

When we discuss prostitution, we look at it through the lens of sex and exploitation. There is both of that in the sex trade. But to have meaningful conversations – some of the moral and intellectual outrage has to be removed and we have to look at ground realities.  

In defense of India’s anti-prostitution stand, you will often hear that: in India especially – legalization just cannot happen because cases of forced prostitution are more common here; because most women in the sex trade in India do not enter by choice; because numbers of minors are more than in other parts of the world; because exploitation in the sex trade is more prevalent and widespread, that working conditions are worse, and that sex workers are illiterate, poor and so, more vulnerable. The implication still being that sex workers in the West are more empowered and exercise more agency and enter the sex trade willingly, unlike in India. 

I do not agree with this analysis. Not because it makes India “look bad” but because this is an internalization of a post-colonial narrative that says the West is more “modern and civilized”. This is also an uncritical acceptance of the racist anti-trafficking discourses that happened on an international stage - how prostitution in the Global South – “Third World’ was stereotyped as more shoddy, more exploitative, more brutal and the sex workers were portrayed as ignorant, helpless, naïve, and basically - incapable of being agents in their own lives.  And we have not been critical enough of these global discourses and narratives.  A sex worker working in a brothel in Amsterdam is looked at as more empowered than a woman working in a brothel in India – but why? They’re both in it for the money; they both are responding to their respective markets; and they both may have faced complicated situations that got them to the sex trade. 

While, we truly have no reliable data to compare. While there is no point in comparing. Accounts from across the world – the Global North and South - show similar patterns/stories about how women enter or find themselves in the sex trade. There are stories of forced entry; entry due to lack of choice; minor prostitution; bad working conditions; exploitation within the sex trade across the world. Again, the point is not to say that India is “not as bad as we make it out to be” or that the West “is also bad”; the point is to say – these problems are common in the sex trade; faced by women across the world; and it is incorrect and disempowering to assume that Indian sex workers cannot think and make decisions for themselves. 

Entry into the sex trade; structures and hierarchies within the sex trade; tricks of the trade, power dynamics within the sex trade; gender and demographics - see similarities across the world. In this episode - we’re zooming in, to India - to contextualize how all of this looks.  

While the Indian law on prostitution is technically gender-neutral; while we do see men, hijras and other gender identities in the sex trade – the majority of sex workers are women and majority of the clients are men. Plus, those processed under anti-prostitution laws are almost always the women. So female sex workers face the most scrutiny. This is also true across the world. This is why I am referring to sex workers as women – just keep in mind, it is not only women in the sex trade – hijras, transwomen and men also work in it and may be facing similar conditions and issues.  Another disclaimer for this episode: how and why women enter or find themselves in the sex trade is not easy to listen to. This episode will contain discussions of abuse so please be careful.  

Part 1: Entry 

When an anti-prostitution feminist or activist in India justifies their anti-prostitution stand, they may say something like this:  If a woman is aware of how the sex trade runs, then decides to do sex work and likes the job - then – sure, it may be ‘voluntary sex work’, but these cases are rare.  They will say: Most women or girls enter the sex trade through some form of force, coercion, deceit, abuse, inducement, lack of choice, and never on their own free will. To them: to decide if it is forced prostitution or not, we have to look into how these women enter the sex trade.  If her point of entry is coercion, deceit, force – then even if she says she wants to remain in the sex trade, today – it should not count as ‘voluntary sex work’. Because this consent of hers to remain in the sex trade is not free consent, it is forced consent. She has been successfully groomed, brainwashed and she does not have a way out of this situation.  

Sex workers are telling us something else though. Many sex workers will say they are in the sex trade off their own accord today, with no one influencing this decision and want to continue working in the sex trade. No matter what their point of entry was. Because for some, point of entry is choice – they were looking for a job and found one in the sex trade. For some, the sex trade was the only available option. For some point of entry was deceit; for some it was forced; and for most, it is a mix of the above and complicated. Sex workers need more space to be able to articulate their own complications instead of being told that they are brainwashed if their story is anything other than – “I am  exploited in the sex trade and need help getting out”. So, let’s lay it out – how do women find themselves in the sex trade.  

First: Force. Some women have found themselves in brothels after being sold by their families, husbands, - for money or to clear a debt or abuse. Some sold by their boyfriends after running away with them lured by the promise of a marriage or job or a new life. There may be other such types of situations. Many in this situation come from abusive homes or extreme poverty or both. In such cases, the girls or women are sold to an agent and find themselves in brothels in different cities – far away from home. Here the point of entryis forced. Now: as awful as this situation is; notice how these are usually girls or women who are already abused or face extreme vulnerabilities including economic, and they are usually sold by those close to them not a random stranger. In Gangubai, Ganga was lured by her boyfriend under the promise of getting a movie role in the Hindi Film Industry in Mumbai; Ganga was forced into prostitution. 

Where it gets complicated in this situation is this: many may be looking for ways out of the sex trade but they can’t return to their families – their abusers, those who probably sold them in the first place and they don’t have any other social or financial support. Even if they are able to access justice against those who sold them (they won’t be able to because sex workers aren’t taken seriously anyway and a lot of resources will be required to track those who sold them) but even then, they still need to make a livelihood. 

So many can’t go anywhere; they have no home; they need to start making a living and so they provide for themselves through sex work.  In the Movie and it’s based in the 1950s so account for that but Ganga could not go back because she realized that she’s stigmatised – she’s already been sold in Kamathipura; she’s heard stories of girls like her who were killed because of the same – she had run away and her family would not accept her, she had nowhere to go and so she decides to stay on – takes on the name Gangu.

Many women also find family and a support system in the sex trade – so they find sustenance and community.  Some in this situation may also want to get out of the sex trade no matter how she manages to survive outside it – these are the ones who want to leave and are looking for help. But as we will see the current laws don’t help them either. 

Second. Deceit or coercion or inducement. These are not uncommon. This is how it works. Some women leave their villages or towns on a promise of a job in a city or run away from home due to some form of abuse, neglect or trauma. They need money to provide for themselves and maybe also their families; marriage was not an option because maybe her natal family was dependent on her or she did not even have the resources to get married. In India – women need money to get married. So, these women may approach or be approached by an agent who sets them up with a job in the city. Now two things can happen here. This agent may tell this woman the job is of a domestic worker and when she reaches the address, she finds herself in a brothel. This will count as deceit. She was deceived to work in a brothel. Or the agent may tell this woman that the job is of a sex worker but also say that it pays better than any other job will and convince her to do sex work. This will count as coercion. Here, the women find themselves in a situation where they desperately need a job and have no other viable alternatives; returning back home without a job is not an option; and so many times: these women decide to take up sex work anyway even if they were deceived. Maybe she thinks that she will do this until she gets some money.  There are also cases of women where they will say their partners (husbands or boyfriend) convinced them to start doing sex work when they needed money, and it started bringing in decent income and she took up sex work. This will count as inducement. Here, social workers will say – the partner induced her and is exploiting her through sex work. Where it gets complicated in these situations is this: the sex worker may say that my partner or this agent did induce or coerce or deceive me into sex work; he became my pimp but I had no money or other option, and this became good income. 

Now this situation may be complicated and have layers of abuse but her feelings about her manner of entry may change over time. The range may be from: he used me to he was my only support to he came up with a viable plan when I was desperate for money; and will usually be a mix of different feelings in this spectrum.  These are women who grew up with a lot of vulnerabilities; they could have faced poverty or abuse, escalation of that abuse and run away from home, and many times they will say – I was desperate and vulnerable and this agent or my partner helped me out of a terrible situation. I’ve heard sex workers say that sex work saved my life – however I got here - It gave me freedom and livelihood.  So, the same people who are considered to be harmful external influences over these women may also be the only people who helped her when things got really tough, when they had no one else to turn to. These women may look at sex work as something not ideal but something that, for better or for worse, helped them out of a bad situation, and became and remained a viable job.

Third situation is lack of choice. These are situations where we see women who enter the sex trade because they have no other alternatives. One example can be caste - based hereditary prostitution where we see instances of girls or women who take up prostitution in say, their village - because in the absence of resources, she and her family rely on the income she can generate through sex work. Many may, over time find their way into urban spaces where earning potential is greater and continues. This is a terrible situation – this woman and her family have been kept socially and economically marginalized for generations, and if given social support to access good education and viable employment, this women may not have taken up prostitution.  Where it gets complicated is this: this woman may also have found her livelihood in the sex trade today. She does not have the means to challenge this blatantly castiest system because she is kept marginalized, and she may say – yes I entered prostitution cause I see no other option. In the field, social workers will assume these women were induced by their families into prostitution, they use her to make money and she is being influenced. But the truth is – this woman wants to provide for her family, and she will through sex work if that pays the best among the other few options that may be available to her, no matter how uncomfortable it makes anyone else.  

Another common situation is that many enter the sex trade to escape some form of domestic abuse. This is also common and globally. Among women and people from the queer community. Mostly - because of violence at the hands of an abusive partner or family, either they run away or are thrown out of their home. When desperately looking for resources – this person may turn to sex work. In this situation – a woman may find herself in a brothel; maybe an agent found her lurking around at a railway station and knows how to spot someone who is on the run and desperate. But this brothel will offer her a place to stay and sustenance. This can include a person from any background – the common factor being that they are extremely vulnerable; do not have money; cannot rely on their families or any other social support and will not have a bankable education or skills. Even to get a working-class job for a woman– among the few options that are available like domestic work or caregiving work, getting the job will require this woman to atleast have a house to stay in, some social support and resources to last until she finds this job.  But when someone runs – they run unexpectedly, and women take their children with them. These people often find themselves alone on the streets – vulnerable, easy to be preyed on and with no money. These people may also take up sex work on the streets the day they ran to get money for the next meal and maybe shelter for that night. This is also called survival sex – people in a desperate situation may do sex work for food and shelter and not necessarily, for money.  This is messed up. It’s true that if someone is facing abuse they should have somewhere to go and stay until they can figure next steps but voluntary shelters for people without homes or resources including for those who are running from abuse hardly exist. Where it gets complicated is this: This woman also may not ideally want to be in the sex trade, but she can definitely not go back to her husband or family that she ran away from; she can’t rely on anyone else; she has to provide for herself and her child, and sex work becomes her livelihood – whether for a couple of days, months or years. 

Fourth. Choice.  

The sex trade also sees women who are looking for work, and sex work emerges as the most viable source of income. These are women who fall upon difficult times and find themselves in a situation where they have to start supporting themselves and their families. 

 Maybe her husband had to stop working or passed away and she relied on his income.  Maybe someone in her family fell sick and needs a lot of money for medical treatment and special care. Maybe her child or parent is disabled. Maybe in a brutal city, her husband’s income is just not enough. Maybe she wants to ensure her child is educated in a private school to have a shot at a middle-class education and job; Maybe to pay for college that will ensure her a middle-class job after, and maybe – just for a higher quality of life. 

So these are the points of entry but again remember, it’s not that easy to slot situations into these points of entry. Many times it’s a mix of these situations, and sex workers have different feelings and thoughts about them. Women have found themselves in the sex trade for a range of reasons, these are complicated situations and most of the times – these situations crept up on them and these women did their best to survive.

Part 2: Trafficking 

Anti-trafficking laws today, do exactly what anti-white slavery laws did during colonialism. They aim to restrict the migration of women. Only now, the targets have changed. Today it targets the undocumented migration of women from the Global South. A lot of people across the world want to or need to move, usually from the Global South to the Global North. Places with more employment opportunities.  This does apply to India too which is why India is being called a hub of trafficking. Here - it is undocumented migration from neighboring countries - Nepal, Bangladesh into India.  A lot of people from the Global South are looking to escape different difficult situations – poverty, political instability, wars, civil wars, bombings, climate change, and other unlive-able conditions. A lot of these reasons are directly a result of the West’s interventions - the after-effects of the West’s actions and their vested interests. 

Now  – if you need to get out of your country – to work in another country to make a living. How do you migrate?

1.     you would submit a gazillion documents and get a work visa. That’s the legal route. 

2.     If you are ineligible for that visa and those visa terms are not easy to meet; you may approach a border agent. The border agent will ask you for money to assist you to “illegally cross borders”. Now you may have the money for this so you pay the money upfront to the agent, and you’re on your way. In this situation - many go to countries where they have families or know someone that will help them get a job. This is known as ‘people smuggling’ – the smuggling of migrants by Land, Sea and Air which is the 2nd protocol under the Palermo Convention. 

3.     Now – 3.  the more marginalised, poorer, person (and this is quite common) may not have money to pay this border agent upfront. This is not a small amount – crossing borders is expensive. There is obviously demand and high risk involved. You have to or need to get out of your home country, can’t get a visa and don’t have money to pay the border agent upfront. So how do you migrate? Well – you take on a debt. The agent agrees to drop you to some place, he may put you in touch with someone for a job that doesn’t require papers or he tells you that you have to figure out your own job, and you have to pay off this debt over a period of time. This is what’s called debt- bondage. You are bound by your debt to this agent. Now you are undocumented – this means your job opportunities are limited. For men – we often see that these jobs are in agriculture; fishing; mining; other difficult factory jobs, the service industry so places looking for cheap labour – they can pay these undocumented migrants less than minimum wage. For women – it can include the service industry; but many times – it’s the sex trade.  Now this may also look like different things –  sometimes women are told that they will get jobs in other industries but find themselves in a brothel and have no choice but to work there;  sometimes women are told their jobs are in the sex trade but the working conditions and hours are terrible;  sometimes the women  know they are going to work in a brothel and are fine with it even though her job is also bad, until they pay off this debt and the agents have no hold on them anymore. 

This debt-bondage is included in the definition of trafficking today. This is what is used to say – look this woman is a modern-day slave – she is bound to this agent who is exploiting her. While the men who take on this debt-bondage will be assumed to be active agents in their movements, looking to migrate; the women in the sex trade are assumed to be to be “victims for the purpose of sexual exploitation”. Now this does not mean that exploitation does not happen to these women, exploitation in such situations is rampant (infact - it happens to the men too)– these women are extremely vulnerable to be exploited by this agent and face really bad working conditions against which they have no recourse; many times they are in a situation where they are trapped but the fact is: these women still do not want to go back to their home country where conditions are worse and where they can’t even make a living. 

Studies have shown – in these trafficking cases, mostly women are not kidnapped into the sex trade, you know why? because – it is non-profitable. If agents are getting women to pay them a lot of money – why would they  “give this service for free”. These agents charge 30,000 pounds onwards to reach Europe so Rs. 30 lakhs minimum. To cross into India – women take on a debt of atleast 5 to10 lakhs. It doesn’t make business sense for these agents to do this high-risk job for free.  These women agree to these terms, however unfair because they are desperate, and they choose to move. They are also active agents in their own lives. 

If you’re following immigration discourses in the West – you will know of anti-immigration sentiments among certain sections. Calls to “send back the boats” or “throw illegals out” or “build a wall” – basically to tighten borders and make migrating to the West, harder. These anti-immigration discourses often come from the pro-white supremacy camp. Why do people in this camp talk about the supremacy of the west or panic about the decline of the West? Because the “West” is not a geographical term – the West is located across – It’s Europe but not Africa; US and Canada but not South America, Australia but not Japan. So the West is often used to mean - White. And anti-immigration sentiments basically are anti-anything-except-white sentiments. Anti-trafficking laws, while they are made to seem humanitarian, are usually a way to keep poor migrants out. The anti-trafficking camp present themselves as saviors who oppose the exploitation of poor women when what they actually fight for is to deport these women back to their home countries. Women who have taken on huge debts to move and sex workers without documents are often deported back – many times with their debts unpaid which for them is the worst thing that can happen. 

So anti-trafficking discourses today are still about immigration, border control, and white supremacy.  This does not mean that citizen sex workers do not get targeted – they do because at its core anti-trafficking discourses are anti-prostitution, and the sex trade is indiscriminately targeted anyway.  But people who are immigrants without documents are definitely considered to be ‘trafficked’ whether they chose to move or not; whether they chose to do sex work or not. In India – women from Nepal and Bangladesh who are found in the sex trade will be considered to be victims of trafficking. When the police say they caught a major trafficker – it will be a border agent who was getting women across borders - illegally.  

This is why distinguishing between trafficking and prostitution; between forced prostitution and voluntary sex work is not really helpful. This allows us to kick out undocumented migrants who are in a bad situation; this allows us to not listen to women who are forced into prostitution – she will be treated as a victim with no agency; this allows us to consider ‘voluntary sex workers’ as women who don’t need any help at all. This also becomes a pointless exercise in who “chooses” sex work and who was forced into prostitution – she gets portrayed as the perfect victim.  

Part 3: The Trade

When an anti-prostitution feminist justifies their anti-prostitution stand, they may also say something like this. 

Even sex workers who enter the sex trade by choice do not have a full understanding of the sex trade. They will point to the power dynamics between the third-parties and sex workers which is skewed in favor of third parties and say that the sex trade is sexist – most clients are men; the sex trade is run by men and the “workers” are mostly women; they will say there is rampant abuse and exploitation in the sex trade and sex workers are exploited for the benefit of third-parties and her consent to this exploitation is bought for very little money.  They will also say that overtime, a sex worker deteriorates in the sex trade – she becomes vulnerable to addictions; mental and physical health issues and is ultimately discarded. 

But the thing is while the sex trade is sexist; while the sex trade does have exploitation, abuse and violence – the sex trade is a market; it’s a criminalized market, a black market, but a market – with its own behaviors.  

1.     Shelf Life: One really crucial thing that is ignored when talking about the sex trade is the time sex workers work in the sex trade – their “shelf life” as the world of cinema in India would call it. Even in the recent 2022 Supreme Court order – the headlines across was – the Supreme Court calls sex work a profession. But sex work is not really a profession. Unlike most middle-class professions where earning capacity increases over the years and unlike working-class jobs where wages remain the same, the sex trade is a market where the younger a sex worker is, the higher her demand and price for her services. Today - police take minor prostitution seriously, so while we still see instances –it is less common than earlier. This is not about minors – we’re discussing adults. A sex worker’s highest earning potential is when she just enters the trade and the first few years in the beginning. It remains high during these “peak” years, butthen, it substantially drops, until she has to leave the sex trade. Not all women are thrown out of the sex trade; many try to make enough money to be able to leave much before they have to. This is also because there is a lot of competition in the sex trade – women are constantly entering so middle-aged to older sex workers keep getting rendered out of business. Brothel based sex workers may have a higher chance of losing their jobs – there’s limited place in the brothels so with more women coming in– older women already living in brothels might have to leave. The point being – sex workers are easily replaceable at their jobs and also face job insecurity. They usually do not work for more than 10 years and they depend on those years to make as much money as they can to set their future. That’s it – that’s the length of her ‘profession’ – that’s all the years she is active in the sex trade– then she has to leave anyway. 

After leaving the sex trade, some women might shift to smaller towns and continue working till they can at dropped prices or go back to their villages or towns. Some may take up some form of activism or social work and some may go on to become agents or “madams” (the brothel keepers). Madams and female agents in the sex trade are usually ex-sex workers.  Gangu in the Movie takes over the brothel when the Madam she worked under – Sheela maasi played by Seema Pahwa passes away. Gangu was 27 years old. The other sex workers in the brothel tell Gangu to quit sex work and become the Brothel Madam, the Gharwali, full time, which she does, and gets called – Gangubai. 

2.     Bargaining power: Not all sex workers can demand the same price. A sex worker has to find her place in a hierarchy in this market. Who her clientele can be; how much she can charge. The madam or pimp may help her figure this out.   The high competition in the sex trade also means that a sex worker is always the price taker in the sex trade. Picture a brothel in a red-light area – many women and some customers. She needs to sell her services on a particular night if she wants to make any money that day – so tricks of the trade include charming, luring, soliciting, seducing – whatever you want to call it. In Gangubai we see all of this – the women dressing up for the night to stand outside the brothels – soliciting men to buy their services; also how the Madam and her henchmen often negotiate with customers before sending them in to the brothels.  When sex workers have to hustle for customers – they dress up and make clear that they can be approached for sex work. These are used against sex workers as if this shows how they are “vulgar” and “immoral”. But this is a trade behaviour- a sex worker has to let customers that know she is offering their services; then solicit customers and seal the deal - ensure he doesn’t take his business to another sex worker around her. Sex workers need the money; clients have other options so sex workers have lesser bargaining power in this relationship – she may have to reduce her price if a client threatens to walk away and she doesn’t have other options.  Sex workers have to compete in a market and are the price – taker so there’s a limit to how much she can charge: she has to take into account the prices around her and her clientele’s spending capacity. 

3.     Power: Third parties do exert a lot of power over sex workers. In the beginning, most sex workers rely heavily on pimps or madams for regular business – they need to make money and don’t know the trade at all. Some have good relationships with their pimps/madams; some bad. Sheela Maasi in the movie is shown as a bad Madam – she’s ruthless, she buys girls and forces them to sit for business, she doesn’t listen to the workers problems and doesn’t like them asserting themselves. In the beginning especially – the power is completely in the hands of these third-parties. If the women have some debt owed to their Madams or pimps – the power asserted can be more and can easily get exploitative - they can tell sex workers to take up more clients even if they don’t want to; they can make them take up clients that they don’t want; third-parties can end up taking very high commissions. But with time– sex workers can start gaining a level of independence and even power against these third-parties. She may become more confident, learn trade tricks, maybe her earning capacity shoots up because of this, she may be a popular sex worker so clients frequent the brothel she’s working in. Gangu, in the Movie, within a year becomes a popular sex worker. We know this because a regular client of hers buys her gold jewelry; we are also told her Madam does not like that she’s popular. But Gangu uses her popularity to fight on behalf of all sex workers in the brothel (the labour) against the madam – the management. She declares a holiday one night on behalf of all sex workers to go watch a movie to celebrate her one-year anniversary in the brothel. She says – even offices get a day off so why not our business. She’s been here for a year, she’s popular, she’s gaining some power over the Madam and she’s using the power to assert their collective labour rights. Sheela maasi can’t stop them – she can’t afford to lose Gangu and the business she brings.

So women gain more power against these third parties over time and start using this to assert themselves more and more. But in general and especially because the sex trade is criminalized – sex workers are reliant on these third parties and need to maintain a decent working relationship with them. 

We also see, when Gangubai is the new Madam – she is a good Manager. She’s empathetic and fair. She cares for the worker’s welfare and rights. We see how when a young girl is brought in and kept captive in a different brothel, Gangubai is brought in to convince the young girl to stay on. She has power now over more than just her brothel. She warns the young girl – there is no going back from a red-light area – you were sold, you’re stigmatized just cooperate, but the young girl wants to go home anyway. Gangubai then pays the other brothel madam for the cost of the girl to compensate her; she sends someone to drop the girl home and we find out that her family was grateful to have the young girl back. So, she’s started exerting her power, that she’s gained over all these years, for the good – she’s helping girls leave the sex trade. She’s a good matriarch and doesn’t stop there. She eventually becomes the President of Kamathipura because she wants to fight for the rights of all women in the sex trade.  

4.     Gender: red light areas may have separate brothels for women; for hijras. Men who have sex with men also exist in the sex trade. Clients will know where to go based on their preferences and spending capabilities. Hijras and men also face police harassment, even more earlier when homosexuality was criminalized, until not so long ago. In the movie, Gangubai runs for elections to become the President of Kamathipura dethroning Razai bai played by Vijay Raaz – a hijra sex worker. Hijras have featured prominently in the sex trade in India. Sex work has historically been one of the only 2-3 jobs hijras have been able to do.  

5.     Clients: sex workers have regular clients; preferred clients; good clients; decent clients; bad clients; problematic clients and some clients even get blacklisted.  Sex workers talk to each other – they tell each other which clients to avoid, which clients are difficult, which client’s condoms should be checked and they’ll also refer good clients to each other. 

6.     Forms: Within red light areas – there are different brothels catering to different kinds of clientele. Some brothels will be richer, more well – kept; some not so much. Some cater to richer clients, some to low – income clients and some for those in between. The sex trade is not homogenous – it’s diverse and adapts to changing situations. Brothels would be considered a fixed form of prostitution – contained in zoned areas and the most visible. While some sex workers stay in brothels full time, some may also do shift- work and not live there. These women will likely have a family outside the sex trade. Usually red-light areas also have full-blown commercial activities within them. Vendors during the day will go into the rooms in brothels to sell clothes, jewelry, make up. Many times, these brothels will have some bodyguards or young boys/men who work as waiters, and work inside the brothel; so there is an entire ecosystem – an economy around these brothels.  In brothels – the Madams (so keepers or managers) and the brothel owners are the main third parties who run the brothels. 

Then there’s floating prostitution, which is sex workers who either work in flats or massage parlours or bars or visit flats, lodges, motels, hotels. These sex workers will usually have a pimp or agent or manager – however named - who will get them clients, fix the meetings, fix the prices, maybe go with them and do other logistical work. Call Girls or Escorts are the more elite versions of floating prostitution; more individualistic and fancier. So, in floating prostitution, the pimps play a crucial role and sex workers depend on them for the administrative, logistical and security aspects of the job including getting the client. 

Another form of prostitution – an old school form - is street prostitution which is street-based sex workers usually soliciting alone or in groups on street corners, in highways, dhabbas - places with a pool of men visiting for work like truck drivers or migrant labourers.  These women are more likely to be fully independent without a pimp or agent but may have someone for driving or protection; they perhaps have a house or known place where they can take the client; many times they agree to go with the client if he wants to take her somewhere but this is considered risky. Here sex workers try to work in small groups, negotiate for each other, and have signals for each other when they are leaving with the client.  

7.     Identity: Some women are in the sex trade for 2 years, some for 5 years, some 10 years, some a little longer. Some women just work intermittently. They take up sex work when in need of money.  These are just in case situations - women from families who depend on say, agriculture may experience bad seasons and will take up sex work just for those time periods to support the family. Some come and go – some have worked for a few months over a period of time but only when in need of money. These sex workers will also depend on agents who can hook them up with a client whenever she wants. This is also why sex work as a profession is not necessarily true. Some sex workers may be supplementing their other income. Some take it up sometimes.  Some have a life completely detached from the sex trade. This means that not all sex workers’ social identity is in the sex trade. They live completely separate lives. This is another reason sex worker activism in India also comes from these brothels where women can assert their identities as sex workers, openly.  For many – this is not an option. They might support sex worker rights vehemently but simply can’t identify as a sex worker cause there’s too much stigma and too much to lose. A seasonal or intermittent sex worker – might do sex work sometimes and not think of herself as a sex worker. She will look at sex work as a gig she takes up when in need but she’s not doing it like a daily job. 

8.     Community: The sex trade many times provides sex workers with their closest friends and deemed family. Many sex workers come from complicated backgrounds. They find comfort and community with each other. Sex workers help each other’s families and children especially during arrests and detentions; they ensure all their children are taken care of; they lend and borrow money from each other; they support each other if there’s unfair treatment from a third party or madam OR abuse by a violent client. They may come together to protest brothel owners for bad working conditions and long hours – collective bargaining. We see this community beautifully in the Movie Gangubai. The women fight for each other against the Madam; they visit each other in hospitals; they take care of each other’s children; they perform each other’s last rites. They share resources and wealth – make up, clothes, jewelry, gold. Gangu’s own family never forgive her for running away. She and the other sex workers find family in each other. 

9.     Children: Many sex workers are mothers. In brothels - their children may live with them if they have nowhere else to go. Sex workers may be single mothers or have husbands or partners.  Children of sex workers face a lot of stigma. Children also get adversely affected with police action taken against their mothers and many times – the police will wrongly assume that their children in the brothels are minors in prostitution when they are not. They just live in the brothels with their mothers who protect them. In the movie, Gangubai is concerned about a young daughter of a sex worker whose mother kept her drugged and locked up so that the young girl is not made to work in the brothel. We see how Gangubai pays a huge dowry to get the girl married to the man, she is in love with because while she doesn’t want to add to stigma in this man’s life - he can’t marry a sex worker - he can marry the daughter of a sex worker, she says. She gets a doli, a baraat into Kamathipura for the first time. Gangubai is dealing with the stigma the children of sex workers face. 

10.  Money:  If a sex worker does not take up clients, she doesn’t make any money. And sex workers make a daily wage. In a brothel, sex workers pay the brothels to first, buy and then, keep her position. Women split their incomes with the brothel. Maybe 50%. So 50% of her monthly earnings goes to the brothel. If you have a bad madam– they might take a larger chunk. A woman may not have the money in the beginning to buy her spot so she takes on a debt in the beginning itself, this will also count as debt-bondage and she pays this over time to the brothel from her 50% share. End of every month, a sex worker in a brothel also has to pay the brothel for her food, electricity, water, condoms, make up, alcohol, tobacco and any other costs of running the brothel. This also comes from her 50% share.  So - sex workers have monthly fixed costs which go from their income. If a sex worker in a brothel doesn’t work for many days, she loses the ability to pay these fixed costs and may lose her place in the brothel. If her earning capacity decreases and she’s no longer making decent money, she may get chucked out.   For floating forms of prostitution – the agent will take a fixed percentage from the sex worker out of the money she makes per client.  

11.  Health: Mental and physical health issues, and addictions are present in the sex trade. Many social workers and anti-prostitution feminists will use this as proof that the sex trade caused these issues and the pro-sex work camp may respond by pretending these issues don’t exist. But these issues do exist. This is no coincidence – many sex workers come from abusive backgrounds, have no social support and then deal with violence in the sex trade including police violence and state action. They are always at the risk of poverty, homelessness, being detained by the police - so they are vulnerable to mental health issues and addictions.  I have seen social workers complain that sex workers are immoral because they drink or smoke or abuse, but these are logical responses to cope with the issues sex workers face in the sex trade and their lives. These are value-neutral habits. She is not a bad woman if she drinks and she very well may be drinking to cope with her job, but her drinking should not be used as proof that she needs to leave the sex trade. She’s in the sex trade for money and she may use drinking to cope with this job that gives her the money. Removing sex workers from the sex trade will not address her other problems and it may add to them, and actually worsen her mental health issues and addictions.  Sex workers also risk STDs and safe sex is an important concern among sex workers, and sex workers are extremelyaware about the importance of condoms. In fact – sex workers have since the beginning said that the law disempowers them to be able to ensure their clients use condoms. Also – sex workers have no healthcare, government or private – for themselves, children, family. Lack of access to medical attention is common. Shaming in hospitals is common. The sex trade also sees a lot of premature deaths due to diseases which are now totally treatable. 

When the Supreme Court of India issued its directions in its 2022 Order, it clarified that if a sex worker is participating in the sex trade with consent, the police must not take any action against her. It said whenever there is raid in a brothel since voluntary sex work is not illegal and only running the brothel is illegal – sex workers should not be arrested or penalized. This seems humanitarian, but is it? because it is very out-of-touch. For a voluntary sex worker to have a job – there needs to be a brothel but running a brothel is illegal; to decide whether a sex worker is participating in the sex trade with consent – there needs to be a lawful sex trade. India follows the partial criminalization model. It’s often said that anti-prostitution laws are vague in India – but this isn’t true at all. Anti-prostitution laws are clear – any form of commercial prostitution is illegal. So what counts as commercial prostitution? Because a trade by its very nature is commercial.  How do you do the voluntary sex work that is supposedly legal in a sex trade that is criminalized.  

Part 4:  Laws 

India’s anti-prostitution law -  The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, the ITPA, last amended in 1986,  says that the buying and selling of sex is not illegal but commercial prostitution is illegal. 

Prostitution itself is defined as the sexual exploitation or abuse of persons for commercial purposes. So, any commercial prostitution is considered as sexual exploitation or abuse. So, what is considered as commercial?

Brothels. Brothels are considered to be places of commercial prostitution. Under the law though unlike in common parlance, the definition of a brothel is very wide. 

A brothel is defined as any place or portion of any place which is used for “commercial prostitution” for either the gain of another person or for the mutual gain of two or more prostitutes. 

This will include a brothel in a red-light area that is managed by a madam, owned by brothel owners so for the gain of another person but will also include a room, a house, a car, a street, a gali, a hotel, a motel, a lodge, a highway, a restaurant, a dhabba that is used by more than one woman to practice prostitution. If she’s using third parties like agents or pimps which she mostly will be, this will fall under “a place used for the purposes of sexual exploitation for the gain of another person” but even if sex workers are not using third parties and selling sex on their own, independently, the place they are selling sex will be considered a brothel if 2 or more women are involved.  Even if two women live in a flat and if they are suspected of selling sex, that flat becomes a brothel under the law. It is assumed that if two women are selling sex together even without a third-party, they are being sexually exploited for mutual gain so the law implies - women can be sexually exploiting themselves. 

Solicitation is also illegal. This targets street-based sex workers or sex workers outside brothels. Sex workers standing together, whether they are actually selling sex or not are vulnerable to arrest anyway – because any place used for prostitution for the mutual gain of two or more prostitutes becomes a brothel under the law so a street in this case will be assumed to be a brothel if two women profiled to be sex workers are standing next to each other. To avoid police action, you’ll often see street-based sex workers standing away from each other even if there are on the same street.  This is really risky because they have no one for security, they go away with unknown men and can’t openly negotiate or call their friends to look at the client before she leaves with him. 

Now the sex trade has other people working in it; it has related activities – all of which are illegal.  These are crimes relating to third-parties.  

One is brothel keeping: It’s illegal to run or help in running or manage or help in managing a brothel. So owning a brothel is illegal; managing a brothel is illegal; working in a brothel is illegal. Remember a place is a brothel if more than 1 woman is selling sex out of it. This criminalizes anyone who works in the sex trade in a place considered to be a brothel– security; waiters – everyone. If there are 2 or more women selling sex together without third parties in say, a flat – they can also be charged under brothel keeping provisions. 

Another: Landlords: if you are a landlord or tenant or in charge of any premise and it is found that your premise was used as a brothel – and again even 2 women alleged to be selling sex in a flat can make that flat a brothel even if they do not have a pimp - then the landlord of that flat can also be charged with brothel – keeping whether they are aware or not– the law assumes they are aware of it. This incentivizes not giving houses to single women; sex workers’ homes can be targeted; sex workers find it hard to be able to rent rooms to work out of in hotels, motels because the managers of these places will be considered to be a landlord under the law and can be charged.  

Another crime is Living Off the Earnings of prostitution: Now this provision aims to criminalizes anyone who is seen to be aiding a person’s prostitution including a person who acts as a pimp. But it criminalizes, any adult – who knowingly lives off or is habitually in the company of -  a prostitute. This provision criminalizes pimps, agents, bodyguards – anyone who earns money through the sex worker’s income so since pimps take a commission; since other third parties will be paid out of the sex worker’s income – they fall under this provision. More tragically – this can also include husbands, boyfriends, parents, adult children, grandparents, friends, neighbors – anyone who lives with or around a sex worker. So dependent family members can be punished under the law. What this does is incentivizes isolating sex workers.  Sex workers who live with their families are often scared of their families getting targeted with these provisions and often have to live away from home.  This also means that if a sex worker pays someone to drive her to a hotel to visit a client and waits for her for security purposes – that person will be seen to be living off the earnings of prostitution and will be charged. 

Then there is the procuring and inducing persons or taking persons for the sake of prostitution: These provisions include acts of ‘inducing’ someone to enter prostitution, whether it was with consent or not. The punishment for third parties is different with a more severe punishment for someone who was taken against her will so the law does recognize that there are some women who choose to enter prostitution. But the law treats a woman who was abducted and unwillingly kept in prostitution the same as a woman who agreed to enter the sex trade; and the men involved in both these situations are criminalized, with slightly different punishments.  

So - the law today says. Yeah – sure, voluntary sex work is legal. But commercial prostitution is illegal which means brothels are illegal. And a place is a brothel if more than 1 woman is selling sex out of it and any place can become a brothel under these conditions. This means you can’t have colleagues or co-workers – not even one more woman. Also, all activities associated with doing sex work is illegal. You can’t have a pimp to get you clients; you can’t have administrative or logistical help – no one to talk to clients – ensure he’s safe; no one to fix the meetings; no one to drive you; no security or safety measures- you can’t even employ someone to wait for you outside incase the client is violent if you’re alone which is the only legal way to sell sex. 

So sex work is legal if you are selling sex all alone and with no help or assistance.  These are the terms for women to work in the sex trade.  Where women sell sex to unknown men. 

Part 5: Control  

Rescue and Rehabilitation.  That’s the legal process to save women who are considered to be victims of sexual exploitation. How does the process work? 

The police under the law have the power to remove sex workers from any place where prostitution is happening or believed to be happening. Reiterating – a situation where more than one woman is selling sex out of anywhere is illegal and will also be targeted. This is in the form of raids called ‘rescue missions’. 

Rescue Missions are carried out by the Police, at their own behest or if ordered by the Magistrate. Search, detentions and arrests can be done without warrants – so unexpectedly, at any time.  

In many places prostitution is visible so these places will be targeted anyway; but the police are also always looking for places to raid. They may do undercover operations where they place decoy clients or track women they suspect of being sex workers or men they suspect of being pimps. 

When a place gets raided – the police can enter and detain all persons it presumes to be ‘prostitutes’ which is all women present. If there is no third-parties present and there will most likely not be – the women present will be accused of brothel-keeping and so will be detained anyway. The police will then close off the premises– now this means if a sex worker is operating out of her own home – the police can seal off her home and she’ll be homeless; if a woman was working at a massage parlor or bar - even if the police don’t arrest her– the massage parlor or bar becomes a brothel under the act and so, will be sealed, so this woman will anyway lose her livelihood. If a hotel is raided it can be sealed. 

Now raids happen at random. There’s no warning. When a sex worker is picked up – the police don’t have to listen to whether she is in the trade by choice or force – that’s for the magistrate to decide in the legal process. The police owe no consideration to these women and whether they want to be “rescued” at this time – if it is decided, she has to go. 

If minors were present – brothel owners/ keepers get into serious trouble because they are liable for longer sentences and find it harder to get bail. If a minor is found, her case is processed separately by the Child Welfare Committee. 

Adult sex workers in these raids - they are usually detained – not arrested. If in relation to them – brothel owners, third parties are arrested– they can get out on bail more easily. There is no bail in this process for sex workers because she isn’t technically, arrested. 

Sex workers detained, first, have to be produced before a magistrate of the special court set up under the Act. The magistrate orders for her temporary custody called intermediate custody in state run institutions called protective homes, where she is kept until final orders has been passed in her case. 

Sex workers also have to undergo a medical examination at this stage to determine age, whether “sexual abuse has taken place” and if there is any STDs present.  So, a non-consensual medical examination is the first step of this process. 

The law says that no person can be in intermediate custody for more than 10 days but also says that sex workers cannot be released to anyone who may exercise “harmful influence” on them. Even if it’s her family or husband.  With legal delays– intermediate custody is always more than 10 days and there have been cases of sex workers who have been stuck in intermediate custody for years. 

During this intermediate custody – there is an inquiry. Each protective home has a probation officer who is in charge of the home. These probation officers are expected to be and atleast in cities are, women.  It is this probation officer and her team in the protective home who carry out this ‘Inquiry’; the sex worker is allowed to make her representations to this probation officer. 

The probation officer will make her own report; include the sex worker’s representations and this final report will be sent to the magistrate. The Magistrate will then pass a final order based on this report and decide whether the sex worker can be released or should be further detained. 

The information that has to be included in this report that goes to the magistrate includes -  age and character of the person; details about parents, guardian or husband and their suitability to take charge of the sex worker; the influence exercised by them over the sex worker; the personality of the person and prospects of rehabilitation. This is all for adult women.  

If after inquiry, it is concluded that the person is in (quote) “need of care and protection”, an order will be passed for further detention for a period of 1 to 3 years in the same or similar ‘protective homes’. 

This inquiry is when sex workers have to come up with the perfect answers if they want to be released from custody. This inquiry is also an exercise in perceptions and moralizing – sex workers words are almost always twisted, judged and used against them. 

Sex workers are treated as subjects. They are not allowed to frame their situation – there’s a questionnaire and she has to give “truthful” answers otherwise it’ll be concluded that she’s lying and “the personality of the person” will be put into question. 

Here, sex workers often say things against their own interests to try to protect themselves or their families. There is no correct answer. Because the possibilities of this process working against the sex worker is endless. 

-       If the sex worker says her family sold her: they will pass an order for further detention saying she is in need of care and protection. Even if the sex worker says she wants to remain in the sex trade. 

-       If this sex worker was told by other sex workers to never admit she was sold: she may say that she entered the sex trade by choice. Here, the court could conclude that she should be released to her family to be kept away from the sex trade and she’ll languish in the home until her family can be traced, contacted and brought in. This needs a lot of resources and police time; this is also likely a woman with no documents so her release won’t be processed. 

-       If a sex worker’s family does not know: the court will order that the family can take charge of her and now her family will know, so this situation sex workers will want to avoid. So they will say anything to avoid having their families called which may, again, end up in a further detention order for upto 3 years. If a sex worker insists her family/husband does not know, many times she will be accused of lying to save her husband or family from the law and she will be put in further detention anyway. 

-       If a sex worker says she’s in the sex trade by choice and her family/partner is aware: the inquiry may conclude that her family/partner is inducing her to do prostitution, that she is brainwashed and may even initiate cases against them for living off the earnings of a prostitute or other third-party provisions.

-       There can be cases where a sex worker will say she does not want to be released to her family but the court will conclude that the family is the only one keeping the sex worker out of the sex trade and order her release to the family whom she ran away from. 

-       I’ve also come across cases where some women were working in parlors or hotels which the police raided and arrested every woman around. These women insisted they were not doing sex work but how do you prove you are not a sex worker if it is alleged prostitution is happening where you are present. And the social workers and probation officers will say sex workers “lie” to get out of the homes and how do you prove that you are telling the truth. 

-       Now ofcourse – if a woman was being held in a brothel, she will be happy to be rescued. But then, as per this process, she will be kept in a state protective home where she cannot leave. Her circumstances could be different – if she was kidnapped – why does this woman, the victim, have to undergo an inquiry at all? Why does she have to stay in a protective home at all? 

If she was sold by her family and has nowhere else to go and does not want to be in the sex trade - then yes – she is in need of care and protection by the State.  

This is what is called Rehabilitation. 

During the Inquiry is also when it is seen whether the women detained are citizens or migrants. If it is concluded they are migrants – these women will be deported. In the west – a lot of sex workers are immediately deported or held in detention centers. Now in India – this process may be more convoluted because a lot of sex workers do not have documents. If a woman was sold by her family or ran away from home – it is unlikely she will have her documents with her or maybe she never had any documents. In the 2022 Supreme Court Order – one of the reliefs granted by the Court was directing the UIDAI to issue Aadhar cards to sex workers, for which sex workers had to go to the Supreme Court – in 2022.  To get – basic identification documents. 

Now many can get stuck in a state protective home because she can’t prove her identity or nationality. 

If it is decided she’s a citizen and then after inquiry it is decided that she is in ‘need of care and protection’ – she will be kept in these same protective homes for upto 3 years, depending on what the magistrate ordered. 

These protective homes are expected to provide care, give medical and psychiatric help to those in need and provide education, skill and vocational training for better rehabilitation.  The intention is – since sex workers need to make a living – the state will provide them with training to assist them to get jobs outside the sex trade once they are released. 

Now these homes have always suffered from low funding and were badly kept. There have been cases over the years of women running away from these homes.  NGOs did intervene and now they are better run than earlier. But still: protective homes are essentially prisons – you aren’t allowed to leave, no one can enter, you are kept away from your family and friends. Whatever the terminology – you are still being held by the state.  

Now the skill and vocational training that will allegedly rehabilitate sex workers. What does this entail? Classes. Classes are run in these protective homes – again, implementation may differ so classes are supposed to be held in these homes and in bigger cities atleast, they are. What kind of classes? Beauty parlour classes; stitching classes; candle making classes; bag-making classes. After attending these classes for the time they are at the homes, sex workers are released and told - now you have a skill – don’t go back to the sex trade. 

These women were in the sex trade for money; they don’t have homes or social support; the “skills” they gain do not provide meaningful employment and even if they do, there aren’t enough jobs and these jobs don’t pay more than sex work. So mostly, after this ‘rehabilitation’, women find themselves back in the sex trade. 

NGOs, police and the state know this: there is research that shows women are likely to return to the sex trade after their time in protective homes; the police report seeing the same women back in the trade; So even if women are rescued and rehabilitated – there is a high chance she will be back in the sex trade. Infact - there’s now an additional reason to do so. 

Each rescue and rehabilitation makes the sex worker poorer and more helpless; each time she is rescued – she incurs costs – bribes, legal fees, court fees. Plus, any time she spends in detention is loss of income. She’s a daily wage labourer. She may have dependent family members – parents or children and she will have to figure out a way to get money to them while she is in custody.  All of this money – she takes as loans from third-parties – so brothel-owners/keepers/ pimps or private money lenders - all with very high interest rates.  

To repay all these loans, she has no choice but to go back to the sex trade once she is released. The sex trade anyway paid her more than other jobs and to add to it, this woman has a large debt now. This she can only repay if she works in the sex trade. Even to get back to the sex trade – she may incur more costs. When she is detained, she loses her spot in the brothel which means when she’s out she has to rebuy her spot, take on another debt – only this time she’s older – her prices are reducing.  This means she has to start from scratch in the sex trade. She’s back at the bottom. Her earning capacity has lowered; her debt is higher, so she has to hustle for more clients per day and work much more - to pay off all these debts she accumulated while she was detained. With each police and state intervention – sex workers lives becomes more miserable. The system did not help address her economic needs because of which she was in the sex trade in the first place; and on top of that: the system compounded her problems – added to her debt; added to her trauma. 

This also means that the process does not effectively help those women who were looking to get out of the sex trade and have no social support.  She also only gets taught only these skills and is sent back into the world so even this woman who wanted to leave the sex trade, may unfortunately find herself back there because the process did not meaningfully help her.  So - the rescue and rehabilitation process is a huge mess – it looks to rescue women who don’t want to be saved and those who actually want help – the help is not enough. When you penalize the entire industry and don’t listen to sex workers, you also ignore the worst-case scenarios and don’t provide any specific help and justice to the women who are looking for it.

We’ve spoken about the Supreme Court’s 2022 order. The order was passed in a case that began in 2011 as a criminal appeal in a case of the murder of a sex worker, after which the Supreme Court of India suo moto took cognizance of the plight of sex workers in India. And this case over the years has been crucial in hearing sex workers. In this case, the court made the central government and state governments parties and it set up a panel which included DMSC, Kolkata to look into issues relating to trafficking and prostitution. Now this panel submitted its report in 2016, which the Central Government said they would consider and include in a draft anti-trafficking legislation that was being floated at the time. 

On May 19. 2022, a three – judge bench of the Supreme Court while noting that the draft trafficking legislation had not been passed issued a set of 10 guidelines to ‘hold the field till a legislation is made by the Union of India’. Some guidelines issued also include a direction for police sensitization and training and a guideline that says governments should involve sex workers in decision-making processes. Thing is –  a Supreme court order can be in favour of a sex worker which only means that if a police officer decides to detain a sex worker who says she’s in the trade by choice, she may ultimately get relief from a court, whether magistrate or appellate – but what happens until then? A sex worker has too much to lose until then. 

Now this case is still ongoing. The central government’s stand today is  - we have taken into consideration the panel’s recommendations and floated a new Trafficking Bill. This should take care of the matter. 

Former Minister of Women and Child Development, Maneka Gandhi, introduced the Trafficking in Persons (Prevention, Care and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2018. This bill has passed in the Lok Sabha. 

The definition of ‘trafficking’ in this bill is exactly in line with the Palermo Protocol’s definition. All prostitution is covered under the definition of trafficking - it basically says that trafficking includes inducement for the purpose of sexual exploitation including the paying and receiving of benefits (money) to achieve the consent of any person and it clarifies that the consent of the victim shall be irrelevant to determine the offence of trafficking. So prostitution is illegal once again because ofcourse money is paid to the sex worker for her service but the law assumes ‘the money is paid to achieve her consent for the purposes of sexual exploitation”. The definition also says that if someone transports, harbours or receives someone for the purpose of sexual exploitation it would fall under the definition of trafficking. Third-party activities would fall under this. It also makes criminal –  brothel keeping or the management of any premise used as ‘a place of trafficking’ -  so all places used for prostitution.  

This means third-party activities will fall under the definition of trafficking. If someone drives  sex worker to a brothel (transportation)  – it will fall under transporting someone for the purpose of sexual exploitation which is a trafficking offence; a pimp – can be accused of inducing a sex worker and receiving benefits over her sexual exploitation, irrespective of her consent. 

The bill also criminalises landlords; it allows for closing down of premises and evictions; search, rescue; protection homes for rehabilitation. All these provisions are still there. 

The bill actually adds to the definition of trafficking. It includes the publication and distribution of “obscene photographs or videos” into the definition of trafficking. This is vague but it seems like even forwarding any material that is considered obscene – and you know how many things can count as ‘obscene’ –  will fall under the definition of trafficking. 

The Bill makes the NIA – the National Investigation Agency -  the agency responsible for preventing and combating trafficking in persons. It mandates the setting up of national, state and district level - anti – human trafficking committees. 

So now there will be more processes; more scrutiny and an even more intense criminal process that sex workers have to go through, and this criminal process is the punishment itself. So the new trafficking bill looks at sex workers once again as women with no agency and does nothing to empower them.  

At the end of the movie, we see Gangubai go to Delhi to meet the then - Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Her demand to him.  Recognise the sex trade. Why did Gangu – the same girl who was sold by her boyfriend, who couldn’t return home because of stigma, who was violently beaten by a client – why did she demand for the recognition of the sex trade? 

She said give us rights. Give us power. That's the least you can do. Not further harm women who have already been harmed.  Because someone who has lost so much in her life and continues to face hardships, should not have to also fight for her livelihood, her home or for her freedom.