How many prostitutes are there in india

Religious prostitutes are mainly found in the South. Caged ones are found in Bombay. The girls tend to come from urban slums and poor rural areas. Bangalore and Bombay have a higher proportion of girl prostitutes. We found six others hidden in these bunkers. Ball said the traffickers take girls from West Bengal to Delhi safe houses, then sell them on to brothels in other towns.

Dimly lit staircases, next to ground floor hardware stores, lead up to hundreds of multi-storied brothels. Pimps haggle with customers, older women solicit and younger ones watch quietly.

Instead they are taken by human traffickers and sold to brothel owners, who often break their will, confine them and force them to have sex with strangers.

Few families actually sell the girls to traffickers but some are so poor they unwittingly contract purported employers, who turn out to be connected with the child traffickers. Elizabeth Schroeder wrote in the Encyclopedia of Sexuality: Human trafficking is an issue that has gained wider attention over recent years, particularly in South and Southeast Asia. Girls are sold into sexual slavery by their parents, or leave for India thinking that they are going to get married or have a decent paying job.

NGOs working on this topic in Nepal believe that parents do not understand the true consequences of trafficking until it is too late—and that if they did, there would be less done. Organizations like Maiti Nepal are working to provide alternatives to trafficking, such as viable job options, and to help bring trafficked girls and women home from India, to where the vast majority are sold.

There are very little, if any, data on the prevalence of young boys who are sold into sexual slavery in Nepal. Many of the girls who are sold into the commercial sex trade in India return to Nepal, which creates a number of problems. Cultural attitudes toward returned victims of trafficking are often negative and the Government response often reflects that bias.

In addition, girls who return to Nepal often have sexually transmitted infections STDs. In fact, of the girls rescued in February , somewhere between 60 and 70 percent were HIV-positive. As a result, trafficking not only does extensive physical, psychological, and emotional damage to the young women being trafficked—it also puts a great segment of the population at risk for STDs.

In some cases, parents or relatives sell women and young girls, especially if they are destitute and do not see their daughters as marriageable. Unverified estimates say that approximately 50 percent of trafficking victims are lured to India with the promise of good jobs and marriage, 40 percent are sold by a family member, and 10 percent are kidnapped. If prevention programs are established in a particular district, traffickers simply move to other areas and continue their work.

One victim told the Los Angeles Times, after her family's house was washed away by floods she was asked by a village woman if she wanted to make money working in a garment factory.

The girl, who was 14 at the time said yes, wanting to help her family. She realized something was amiss when she was taken by a bus to the Indian border and handed over to some men who took her across the border to a brothel in Pune, India. The victim said there were 13 other Nepalese girls at the brothel, most around 14 or She said in Pune she was beaten for several days before she agreed to work.

She was confined to a windowless room with little more than bed and a light bulb. She serviced up to 30 men a day. Another victim told the Washington Post that at the age of nine she was married to a year-old drunk.

At 15, she was raped by her uncle. Out of shame her family sent her to India, where she was forced to work in a Bombay brothel. Sometimes they raped or burned me with cigarettes. Afterwards they gave us tips, and we hid them in our clothes to buy food. When the girls returned they are shunned by their families and their communities. Some had AIDS. Some had such a hard time they returned to prostitution because it was the only way they could make a living. There are stiff penalties for child trafficking but the laws are rarely enforced, At some border checkpoints between India and Nepal, former sex slaves keep an eye out for potential traffickers taking women out of the country.

Between and , 70 suspected traffickers with girls were caught,. ABC Nepal is a private including that runs a shelter and training center for former prostitutes and sex slaves. The girls are taught marketable skills such as candle-making, knitting, goat raising and mushroom growing. The charity also tries to find good husbands for the women.

In Bombay you'll be sold into prostitution. You'll be beaten, raped and you'll contact AIDS. However, there are many social and legal obstacles to successful prosecution, and convictions are rare.

Since border guards commonly accept bribes to allow contraband and trafficked girls in or out of the country, many professionals are pessimistic about significantly reducing the trade without true government and legal support. These groups commonly use leaflets, comic books, films, speaker programs, and skits—short plays with a few actors—to convey anti-trafficking messages and education.

Some organizations involved in the rehabilitation of trafficking survivors state that they have been threatened and their offices have been vandalized because of their activities. One of the main factors cited in the spread of HIV-AIDS in India has been heterosexual transmission, primarily by urban prostitutes and migrant workers, such as long-distance truck drivers. The HIV infection rate among the estimated 80, prostitutes in Bombay jumped from 1 percent in to 30 percent in to 53 percent in By this method, the prostitutes can acquire some rights such as the right to medical care, the right to education of their children, right against exploitation and rape, etc.

This method can facilitate the eradication of sex racquet operations, hidden and street prostitution, abuse of prostitute, etc. There shall be protection houses established for those prostitutes who have lost their livelihood, or those who were forced into prostitution but do not want that lifestyle anymore. Also, the government can impart training and basic education to these prostitutes so that they find other means to earn money and sustain their livelihood.

On the flipside, legalization of prostitution could be misinterpreted as the promulgation of prostitution. This could pave the way for easy money for prostitutes and could encourage more women to practice prostitution. There is a great possibility that this could be a revenue-generating industry for the Government.

Thus rules have to be stringent to regulate this industry so that it is not legitimized and that is the least the government can do to address this issue. The issue of prostitution has become the need of the hour and Governmental agencies are required to address this issue at the earliest. The legalization of prostitution appears to be more practical and feasible than trying to abolish prostitution as the government has been trying it for decades and hardly struck that note.

The lives of prostitutes are saddening and it is in the hands of the society to evolve which could be catalyzed by the Governmental Institutions. The male prostitution industry is still unrecognized by law and it calls for due attention. On that note, laws shall be amended to include men along with women. In the present scenario, private prostitution is not recognized as an offence. Thus a customer is not penalized and there is no provision under any statute to do the same. Prostitution is a topic where laws are have not fully evolved yet.

It is silent about male prostitution and bisexual acts of prostitution. The rights of sex workers have no place in any statute. According to Section 7 of the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act, , the existence of red light areas in the vicinity of public places like schools, colleges, temples, etc. However, there is no provision stating that the red light area is illegal as such. The Indian Penal Code of penalizes child prostitution by granting ten years of imprisonment or fine for a person convicted for buying or selling children for the purpose of prostitution.

The answer is no. Operating a website for prostitution will amount to the solicitation and this is an offence under the Prevention of Immoral Traffic Act, They are not allowed as such an act is considered to be solicitation which constitutes an offence. Any person contacting an escort agency will not be punished as there is no law to punish the customers of prostitution. General Legal. Prostitution in India is the oldest profession.

It is a general misconception that prostitution in India is illegal, rather prostitution is legal but pimping, owning and managing a brothel is illegal. Mumbai, Delhi, and Kolkata are the major cities in India where brothels are operating illegally in large numbers. Prostitution in itself is neither illegal nor punishable under the act. This article explores the arena of prostitution and does justice to those weaker sections by legalizing this Act.

Written by: Prachi Darji.