Should prostitution be legalised or decriminalised?

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM - Will legalising prostitution, an issue raised by the Supreme Court, end the exploitation of thousands of women pushed into the flesh trade and help curb the spread of HIV or would it be better to decriminalise it?

On Wednesday, Justices Dalveer Bhandari and A.K. Patnaik of the apex court told Solicitor-General Gopal Subramaniam on the matter of prstitution that “when you say it is the world’s oldest profession and when you are not able to curb it by laws, why don’t you legalize it? You can then monitor the trade, rehabilitate and provide medical aid to those involved.”

Kerala Education and Culture Minister M.A. Baby said there are countries that have legalized the world’s oldest profession “but in a place like ours which has a rich cultural ethos, this certainly cannot happen”.

“In order to tackle HIV, basic education has to be provided to all with special emphasis on adult education at the Plus 2 levels. The present employment guarantee scheme should also be spread across the length and breadth of the country. Child marriages should not take place and land reforms should be undertaken,” Baby told IANS.

S.K. Harikumar, behavior physician and a leading consultant in HIV/AIDS, said that legalizing and decriminialisation are two different issues.

“As far as I see this, decriminalization of multi-partner sex among both males and females should take place. This should no longer be a criminal act. The right to privacy in sexual acts, urges and desires should be vested with the individual. Legalising this will in no way guarantee anything,” Harikumar said.

According to the latest figures, Harikumar said there are more than 55,000 prostitutes in Kerala and the pattern over the years is that it has been showing consistent growth.

Fr Paul Thelakat, spokesperson of the Syro Malabar Catholic Church in Kerala, said there is no guarantee that HIV can be eradicated by legalizing prostitution but would instead aggravate it.

“We are living in a world where man and woman are equal with full dignity of a son and daughter of god. A nation must engage in greater efforts to help free women from the abuses against human dignity that result from prostitution. The state must not make prostitution a form of employment but provide other dignified employment opportunities,” Thelakat told IANS.

Nalini Jameela, 56, who has been a sex worker since 1978, is in the news because of her Malayalam book, translated into English as “Autobiography of a Sex Worker”, which sold 13,000 copies within 100 days of its release in 2004 and went through six editions.

Attending a conclave of sex workers in Bangalore, Jameela said she has to literally fight every day against the stigma attached to her profession. “We have done our best to be part of various other mainstream groups, but we are still stigmatised,” lamented the author and sex workers’ rights activist.

Nalini feels the biggest battle for her community is to make the profession legal. “Once our profession is legalised, nobody can harass us,” Nalini told IANS.

“On one hand, police use force and violence against us. Society also discriminates against us because of our profession. All this violence and discrimination will end once our profession is legalised,” she said.

(Sanu George can be contacted at sanu.g@ians.in)