MATS LAW SCHOOL,

MATS UNIVERSITY, RAIPUR

Law & Social Transformation

Project
ON
RIGHTS OF THE SEX WORKERS

SUBMITTED TOASST. Professor Sachin Sharma

LL.M, Jurisprudence

SUBMITTED BYAMAN GYAN DAS

B.A, L.L.B (Hons.)
SEMESTER- IV

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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Page-3

Introduction
Page-4

Over the last few decades, sex workers

have sought to reframe sex workers
rights as a human rights issue. What
are some of the steps they have
taken?
Page-6
How do sex workers rights relate to
other global human rights issues?
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Are Prostitutes entitled to live a life of dignity

What constitution says:Page | 2

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I feel highly elated to work on this dynamic topic on Rights of sex Workers.
As this topic drew my attention and so I was attracted to select this as a project
topic.

The practical realization of this project has obligated the guidance of many
persons. I express my deepest regard for our faculty Professor SACHIN
SHARMA. His consistent supervision, constant inspiration and invaluable
guidance and suggestions have been of immense help in carrying out the project
work with success.

I extend my heartfelt thanks to my family and friends for their moral support and
encouragement.

AMAN GYAN DAS

B.A. LLB SEM- IV

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INTRODUCTION

Sex Workers are human beings like anyone else and

are entitled human rights under numerous
internationally-agreed upon standards for treatment
of all people, regardless of profession.

It is Ironic that sex workers human rights are often

jeopardized by the very policies intended to help
them. However, policies based on the assumption
that sex work inherently dehumanizing can never
recognise or improve the reality of sex workers life.

The Right to life, Safety, Free speech, Political Action

and access to information and to basic health and
education services are as important to sex workers
as to anyone else. No one should lose these human
Rights because of the Work they do.

Reducing Stigma and discrimination against sex

workers will make it easier for those who may wish
to leave this work to do so.

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Example: - Many sex workers say that it is their

criminal records that inhabit them from finding other
work they choose to do.

Over the last few decades, sex workers

have sought to reframe sex workers
rights as a human rights issue. What are
some of the steps they have taken?
Sex worker activists and advocates have historically called on lawmakers and the courts to
decriminalize prostitution, so that people could work without fear of arrest and persecution,
including harassment, stalking, prohibitions against renting apartments, from holding certain
types of jobs, or from obtaining professional licensing. The discrimination that sex workers face
is similar to the policies and attitudes that once prevented gays and lesbians from finding jobs
and housing, from patronizing public establishments, and that threaten their rights as parents.
While securing civil rights for sex workers remains an issue, activists have come to realize that
the effects of discrimination perpetuate a climate of hate. Whorephobiaand its cousin slutshamingare dehumanizing, reducing hookers, prostitutes, whores, and hustlers to
people who arent worthy of concern, and indeed, people who should be chased out of
neighbourhoods or locked up in prison. More seriously, because the police regard sex workers
as lawbreakers, they often ignore or sloppily investigate crimes of violence against sex workers.
Rape, battery, assault, domestic violence, armed robbery, and the kidnapping and murders of sex
workers is dismissed because their jobs (a.k.a., their lifestyles) are considered dangerous and
they were asking for it.
Activists have been challenging dehumanization in multiple ways. Recently, Canadian journalist
Joyce Arthur called on editors, opinion columnists, and reporters to revise the style guides for
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terms referring to the sex industry after a Toronto Globe and Mail columnist called prostitutes
lumps of meat.
On Monday this week, a New York Times editorial, Frances New Approach to Curbing
Prostitution, praised the French Parliament for approving a law that would punish the clients of
sex workers. It also dehumanized sex workers. The proposed law would treat prostitutes as
exploited and abused victims, but where are the complaints from sex workers themselves about
abuse and exploitation by their customers? Indeed, neither the NYT nor the commercial press is
reporting on the thousands of French sex workers who are marching and protesting against the
proposed law. By failing to acknowledge that sex workers chose to do the work they do, we
deny them agency and control over their lives. Even saying that we want to help them get
out of sex work is a denial of their agency and self-determination. Sure, some sex workers hate
their work, many would like to change the working conditions, and some would rather do
something else entirely. But so do a lot of fast food workers and even some blog editors.
To say sex workers rights are human rights is to recognize that people have the right to make
decisions about their lives and their work, to say that they have the right to be safe from
violence and harassment, to say that they deserve human dignity and to have a voice in society.

How do sex workers rights relate to

other global human rights issues?

1) Global democracy movements: Sex workers have the

right to participate in government as voters, and as
officials, elected or appointed.
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2) HIV/AIDS: Sex workers are front line adult educators to

prevent new HIV infections worldwide. They can only do
so however, when government officials, health agencies
and law enforcement recognize them as people who
have these skills and bring them into the process, and,
preferably, let sex workers determine the best harm
reduction practices for themselves.

3) Immigration and migration in a globalized

economy: People move from place to place looking for
work and economic opportunity, for money to remit to
their families back home. That women and men would
move from place to place (from Lagos to Cape town to
Amsterdam for example) to work in the sex industry
should not surprise anyone. What should concern us
however is that the criminalization of undocumented or
un-permitted migration makes all migrants vulnerable to
exploitation and abuse. Without a visa or a passport,
public officials as well as criminal traffickers can make
the life of undocumented migrants hell.
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IS PROSTITUTION LEGAL OR ILLEGAL IN

INDIA?
Are Prostitutes entitled to live a life of dignity?

The Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act, 1956 ("ITPA"), the main

statute dealing with sex work in India, does not criminalise
prostitution or prostitutes per se, but mostly punishes acts by third
parties facilitating prostitution like brothel keeping, living off
earnings and procuring, even where sex work is not coerced
Reason Behind the Act.
Government of India in the year 1950 ratified an international
convention for suppression of traffic in persons and of the
exploitation of the prostitution of others.
What the convention says

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 Article 1
The Parties to the present Convention agree to punish any
person who, to gratify the passions of another:
(1) Procures, entices or leads away, for purposes of
prostitution, another person, even with the consent of that
person;
(2) Exploits the prostitution of another person, even with the
consent of that person.
Article 2
The Parties to the present Convention further agree to punish
any person who:
(1) Keeps or manages, or knowingly finances or takes part in
the financing of a brothel;
(2) Knowingly lets or rents a building or other place or any
part thereof for the purpose of the prostitution of others
The Parties to the present Convention further agree to punish
any person who:
(1) Keeps or manages, or knowingly finances or takes part in
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the financing of a brothel;

(2) Knowingly lets or rents a building or other place or any
part thereof for the purpose of the prostitution of others

What constitution says: Article 14 provides for equality in general.

Article 15 Prohibits discrimination on the grounds of religious
race, caste, sex or place of birth, or of any of them.
Article 15 (3) provides for special protective discrimination in
favour of women and child relieving them from the moribund of
formal equality. It states that, nothing in this article shall prevent
the state from making any special provision for women and
children
Article 16 (1) covers equality of opportunity in matters of public
employment.
Article 23 prohibits traffic inhuman beings and forced labour and
makes it punishable under Suppression of Immoral Traffic in
Woman and Girls Act 1956 which is renamed in 1986 as The
Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act.
Article 24 prohibits employment of children in any hazardous
employment or in any factory or mine unsuited to their age.
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 Article 38, enjoins the State to secure and protect as effectively as

it may a social order in which justice social, economic and
political shall inform all the institutions of national life.
Article 39 the state should direct its policy towards securing,
among other things, a right to adequate means of livelihood for
men and women equally and equal pay for equal work their age or
strength
Article 39 (f) provides that the children should be given
opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner and
conditions of freedom and dignity: and that childhood should be
protected against exploitation.
Article 45 makes provision for free and compulsory education for
children. Which is now well settled as a fundamental right to the
children.
Article 46 directs that state to promote the educational and
economic interests of the women and weaker sections of the
people and that it shall protect them from social injustice and all
forms of exploitation.

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