CommentaryHamsa Subramaniam discusses the knowledge she gained as a 2008 Clinton Fellow at SAATHII, an HIV/AIDS technical assistance organization in Chennai, India…
In 2007, the World Health Organization reported that 2.3 million people above the age of 15 are infected with HIV in India, a prevalence which ranks second only to South Africa. Approximately 40 percent of the infected are women. The Indian government estimates that 8 percent of the nation's sex workers are infected with HIV, which is almost nine times higher than the overall HIV infection rate for Indian adults. Moreover, studies of sex workers conducted by the Indian National AIDS Control Organization in individual areas have found much higher HIV prevalence rates, such as 44 percent in Mumbai, and 26 percent in Mysore.
It is true that a considerable portion of sex work — especially in the developing world — is performed as a result of trafficking or other forms of sexual coercion. With this issue in mind, India adopted the Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act (ITPA) in 1956, in line with the 1949 UN International Convention for the Suppression of Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others. While the law as drafted is quite comprehensive, the ITPA is enforced most commonly by punishing sex workers for soliciting sex as opposed to arresting pimps for profiting from this sort of exploitation.
During my time at SAATHII, I spoke with sex workers in the context of my work, and I realized that while many women go into sex work as a result of trafficking, others actually turn to it as a calculated professional choice. I had not considered this a possibility, but came to understand that sex work can be comparatively lucrative when other 'culturally acceptable' jobs pay practically nothing.
One woman I met, Fathima (alias), moved to Chennai with her husband shortly after their marriage. They were soon living in absolute poverty with a newborn daughter. After months without work, Fathima became a house servant, where she was paid 50 Rs ($1) a day. When the father went away for business, his two sons started soliciting Fathima for sex. She realized that instead of working in this home for so little, or at any other job, for that matter, she could charge clients for sex and make 10 times more per night to take care of her family. After 15 years of being in this business, Fathima charged on average 1,000 Rs per session (around 5000 Rs per week) and single-handedly earned enough money to buy a small house and educate both her daughters in English-language schools and universities.
The issue remains that sex work is still a crime, therefore sex workers are seldom protected under Indian law. I was told that it is not uncommon for them to perform sexual favors for police officers in exchange for their turning a blind eye to the 'violation.' There is now a growing movement led by the Sonagachi sex workers in Kolkata, Asia's largest red-light district, demanding labor rights in addition to calling for the refocusing of the ITPA to punish traffickers who force women into prostitution, and to decriminalize sex work in India.
For a sex worker in Chennai, getting high-paying clients means cruising train stations and bus stops to locate men who seem safe and relatively wealthy, all the while avoiding the "special police" employed to enforce the ITPA. Prospective clients tread carefully at cruising sites for fear of being seen, judged, or intimidated by the police. If the ITPA were also used to criminalize those who buy sex, women like Fathima would have to search even harder to locate 'safe' clients. Criminalizing clients will drive the entire sex industry underground, further stigmatizing sex workers, precluding them from availing themselves of legal protection and necessary social services, especially HIV-related medical support. Additionally, this will create yet another barrier for sex workers attempting to negotiate for a safe sexual experience, including the use of condoms. While many women's rights organizations, politicians, and the public at large look at sex work through the lens of morality, public health practitioners prefer the perspective of safety. If the ITPA were amended to criminalize clients, sex workers will be even more vulnerable to the occupational hazards they already face. More alarmingly, this law may have a hand in facilitating the spread of HIV.
The HIV/AIDS unit of the Lawyers Collective, a human rights NGO in India, endorses the sex-worker rights movement to strengthen the ITPA to come down harder on traffickers, especially those who traffic children, while legitimizing sex work as a profession so long as it is one of choice. This way, those who sell sex as their livelihood may be privy to social services, especially access to health care, and those who traffic women are punished.
Legally defining sex work is a first step in protecting the rights and preserving the health of the estimated 2.8 million sex workers in India. Criminalizing clients of sex workers will do nothing more than drive the sex industry underground, making it impossible to monitor activity and moving public services further away from women who desperately need them. As an aspiring public health practitioner who is familiar with the Indian HIV epidemic, I believe it is abundantly clear that legal changes need to be made to combat the spread of HIV in this extremely vulnerable and high-risk group. It will certainly be interesting for me to follow the course of this debate. My ultimate hope is the ITPA is implemented in such a away that promotes the right to health, so women like Fathima can live independently without fear and provide for their families.
