Sex workers to get shoulder to cry on

THERE WILL now be a body that is exclusively devoted to listening to the complaints of sex workers, redressing their grievances and investigating cases regarding them.

Published on: Jan 17, 2006, 11:53:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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THERE WILL now be a body that is exclusively devoted to listening to the complaints of sex workers, redressing their grievances and investigating cases regarding them.

The Centre has decided to constitute a nodal authority at the central level to effectively prevent and combat human trafficking. “The state governments can also constitute similar bodies to check trafficking,” a senior government official said.

Other changes

All children below 18 will be considered children

Soliciting will no longer be an offence

Magistrate won’t have power to remove sex worker from civic limit of area where she resides or works

Trafficking will invite 7 years imprisonment (first offence) or life (second offence)

Client of victim of trafficking can be jailed for 3 months or fined Rs 20,000 or both

According to officials of the department for women and child in the human resources development ministry, a provision has been made in the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Amendment Bill, 2005 for the constitution of such an authority. “The Act is being amended to give sex workers more respectable lives,” said Lovleen Kacker, joint secretary in the department.

The authority — to be headed by a chairperson — is expected to have police officers from different state cadres. “The authority will have the power to take suo moto cognisance of any offence committed under the Immortal Trafficking (Prevention) Act, 1956,” an official said.

Unlike other authorities, this body will also have the power to investigate cases. “The police normally say they don’t take up cases of sex workers because of a huge workload of law and order problems.

That’s why we plan to give the authority the power to investigate cases and for that purpose, we propose to depute police officers,” said a senior official.

The official added that framing of rules would take some time. Reason: Cabinet had earlier this month approved the controversial Bill and it would now have to be placed before Parliament. Once that’s done, the rules would be framed.

The government will also consider the suggestion of a GoM on the issue, that cases related to sex workers should be handled by women police officers, wherever and whenever possible.

Many sex workers had opposed several sections being proposed in the Bill and had stated that it would harm their business interests. A section on penalising the client had drawn the most flak with the sex workers saying it was a way to completely kill the profession.

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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