Major relief for sex workers

The Parliamentary Standing Committee decides to recommend deletion of Section 5 (c) of Immoral Trafficking Bill, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Oct 23, 2006, 22:37:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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In a major relief to sex workers, the Parliamentary Standing Committee has decided to recommend deletion of Section 5 (c) of the Immoral Trafficking (Amendment) Bill, 2006.

The section allows prosecution of any person found to be exploiting a trafficked person. The offender can be booked under other sections of the Act, a committee member explained.

Number of NGOs representing sex-workers, especially from West Bengal, had objected to the section claiming that it was against their basic rights to flesh trade. The section allowed prosecuting agency to book anyone including clients found to be harassing sex workers.

The committee was flocked with representations from NGOs stating that the police can misuse the section to books clients and even NGO workers. “The section provides too much suo motto power to the prosecuting agency. It can be misused to drive away clients,” a Parliamentary committee member said.

At a meeting on last Wednesday, the committee made the decision after hearing the Women and Child Development ministry officials led by secretary Deepa Jain Singh.

In a bid to strengthen investigation in trafficking cases, the committee has reportedly decided that only inspector level officials should be allowed to conduct raids and carrying investigation under the Immoral Trafficking Act. The Bill had entrusted the job to sub-inspector level officials.

The committee also didn’t agree with the WCD ministry on keeping a trafficked woman for seven years in a remand home as part of a rehabilitation package. The committee wanted that the period should be reduced to five years, or even lowered, and stressed on providing employment avenues and compensation to trafficked person once send back home.

However, the committee members agreed with other provisions of the bill like increasing an age of a minor to 18 years and imposing heavy penalty on those found guilty of trafficking human beings. The WCD ministry had proposed 19 amendments in the Immoral Trafficking Act in a bill tabled in the monsoon session of Parliament.

The ministry is expected to reintroduce the Bill in the winter session of Parliament after the committee’s report is tabled. “We will try our best,” a ministry official said, while stating that the entire process of consulting the stakeholders will have to be undertaken once again.

Email Author: chetan@hindustantimes.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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