Not all sex workers need rescuing
According to several news reports, in 2016 alone, the Social Service Branch (SSB) of the Mumbai Police has rescued 143 women forced into prostitution and arrested 116 people under sections of The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act. And this is just the Mumbai Police alone.
It's important work, no doubt - it is a gross violation of human rights, and people who are being forced into the sex slavery (mostly women, minors and those that identify as the third gender) require help, rescue, protection and rehabilitation.
But every once in a while there comes a case that makes you wonder about all the crackdowns on the various prostitution "rackets". Is it possible that sometimes, not always but occasionally, the police is "rescuing" women that may not necessarily be in need of saving?
The case that caught my attention was the one involving models and a TV actress in Mumbai, with a promise of more high-profile names likely to be revealed as investigations progressed. Those involved in the "racket" were allegedly supplying rich corporates with prostitutes under the guise of providing models for shooting assignments.
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| There is an element of moral panic to accepting that sex can be transactional. |
As a former journalist who spent a significant amount of time around models and starlets, I know for a certainty that if the police actually decided to start cleaning house, we'd be devoid of a significant chunk of the beautiful people we see on our screens.
Are they involved in prostitution? Yes. Are they being exploited? No. They have rents to make, bills to pay and groceries to buy, and in a city as expensive as Mumbai, that's not easy.
I have friends - ambitious, go-getter women and men - who model and will take up any small-time acting assignment that comes their way, all in the search of their big break. And every once in a while, or sometimes on a regular basis, they agree to "escort" rich people who are willing to pay them a LOT of money (anything ranging from tens of thousands to lakhs, depending on their popularity and star-power) to sleep with them.
A model friend once compared her side gig as a high-profile escort-cum-prostitute service to my earlier days as a writer when I routinely penned disingenuous gems such as "10 amazing ways with asparagus", when, in my heart of hearts, I believe that asparagus is an abomination. Comparing a half-hearted article to having to shed her clothes for the pleasure of rich, bored men seemed like a horrific overreach to me, but to her, and many like her, it's just a job, one that pays bloody well and helps sustain her bigger dream.
It's not just about high-profile, glamorous escorts and their moneyed clients. I've interacted with dozens of women, men and people of the third gender, who take up the sex trade because even though it might not be a "respectable" profession, it still allows them to lead an independent life.
A woman I interviewed several years ago told me that if she'd stayed in the family she was married into, she and her two daughters would have ended up dead long before I met them. She was already regularly being raped by her husband, and strongly suspected that as her older one grew, her husband's brother was beginning to eye her "in that way".
She'd run away to Mumbai, was now living in the famous Kamathipura red-light area and earned enough to provide for her family of three.
It was a modest life, far removed from my glamourous escort friend's, but essentially, they did the same thing. The only "saving" she needed was from the threat of persecution and randomly being thrown into jail; because, even though the law does not technically criminalise prostitution, it's all too easy to book them for soliciting clients, public indecency, public nuisance and other vague charges.
What she needs is access to decent medical care without discrimination. It's for this very reason that in 2015, Amnesty International voted for decriminalisation of consensual sex work by adults.
Repeated researches have proved that criminalising prostitution puts workers at greater risk of exploitation and abuse due to lack of police protection, violation of their human rights, forced eviction from homes and an inability to access medical facilities.
We make their lives so difficult, socially as well as logistically, not to protect them, but because it makes us uncomfortable to think that sex work could be a matter of choice, an effective means to an end. There is an element of moral panic to accepting that sex can be transactional, just like the exchange of any service for money, between a willing professional and their client.
Maybe if we doubled down on our own attitudes on sex work, we'd be better equipped to rescue those that needed rescuing and leave the others to get on with their business, no?