It is not sex workers but those who push women into it who should be prosecuted, High Court judge N. Kumar has said.
Inaugurating a two-day workshop on ‘Perspectives on marginalised women and law’ for judicial officers here on Saturday, Mr. Kumar said the majority of the women involved in sex work had been pushed into it because of their poor economic status, illiteracy and fraud.
Mr. Kumar said he had heard sex workers complain about being humiliated by magistrates when they were produced for offences under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956. The magistrates did not listen to them nor did they ask if they had been harassed. He asked magistrates to be sensitive.
Taking the police to task, Mr. Kumar said he had, so far, not seen the police booking any other person apart from sex workers under the ITP Act. He said he had not seen police booking the persons who had pushed the woman into sex work. There had not been any cases against persons living on the income of these marginalised women. The police had failed to book cases against those running brothels and those renting their premises for sex work. “If this is done, then this will prevent women from being pushed into sex work,” he said.
Police view
Police Commissioner S. Murugan said that standard operating procedure had been put in place in the CID, while dealing with cases under the ITP Act.
The police term visits to brothels rescues and not raids. CID sleuths do not mechanically book cases against the women.
High Court judges Mohan Shantangoudar and A.N. Venugopala Gowda, Deputy Commissioner A.B. Ibrahim and Mangaluru City Corporation Commissioner Hephsiba Rani Korlapati also spoke.
Judicial officers from Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Uttara Kannada participated in the workshop.
