Campaign on Violence against 
Women in Prostitution

Since 2001, we have been integral to a process of putting together a support group of NGOs including lawyers, women and human rights activists, that extends support to women in prostitution who are victims of various forms of violence that are not usually addressed as they live on the fringes of a society that does not view them as normal women and legitimate citizens of our society. Our focus now is to help the women organise themselves into a collective such that they are not only a support to each other but also a public voice that will confront the violence of a social order built on double standards of morality and justice.

Marginalised and criminalised into invisibility

Women in prostitution are another community in whose lives violence is far more intrinsic than in those of women in mainstream society. There are several well-set positions on the issue of prostitution. The age old positions on prostitution ranging from the preventive, abolitionist and retributive to the reformative and rehabilitative are today being fundamentally questioned. Questioned by those seeking to recast it in terms of choice, in terms of work and asking for it to be declared as a legitimate industry and in doing so are attempting to destigmatise and decriminalise women in prostitution whose own agency is also sought to be affirmed within the framework of rights.

Others while not advocating for declaring prostitution as an industry, speak for the rights of the women within prostitution, who because of abuse by a mainstream patriarchal society, have chosen this occupation as a way of life and continue to remain in it. And irrespective of the 
apparent violence and brutality within the institution have evolved a female paradigm within which women are not mere role players within a family set up but have with quiet strength and resilience created a strongly womanist space. A space from where they are also attempting to fight a system in which their sexuality has been put up for sale in the commodified market that is shifting the control on their lives from traditional members of their community to criminal syndicates.

Whatever the position one holds, it is commonly agreed by almost all that prostitution needs to be separated from trafficking and that work needs to be done to de-stigmatise and de-criminalise the women in prostitution. For criminalisation by the State is what reinforces social stigma and sanctions violence unleashed on them particularly by the police as the enforcers of law and order. Of particular concern is the law on trafficking (Prevention of Immoral Trafficking of women and children Act - PITA) in India, which as in other South Asian countries, does not differentiate between trafficking and prostitution. Consequently the law is used to further victimise the women in prostitution holding them as criminals in a criminal activity, even as the men involved, get away with no action. The law also becomes a tool for 
the police to abuse and terrorise the women on the streets. The very fact that most cases under PITA are booked under the section for soliciting and hardly any other section which covers trafficking is evident that in the perception of the police the law is to catch the women in prostitution - which means not just apprehend them and book them as the law requires but exploit their vulnerability to demand free sex and money. 

Who they are

In Bangalore, there is no red light area (as in Bombay, for example). The most common practice is of women who work on the streets either on their own or in groups of two or more. Hundreds of women also come in the morning to Bangalore from neighbouring villages and after earning during the day, return home in the evening. There are women who earn to support their family, either to add to the husband’s income or to provide the income that the husband does not provide to run the family. Young women who work during the day in low paying jobs supplement their income with two or three hours after work, taking in clients on the streets. The women have their own survival strategies - they live with men who help them in their trade with protection or they obtain the patronage and support from the local police inspector / sub-inspector / constable or local gang members. In all cases, they face the risk of being exploited financially and sexually by the very men protecting them. 

The women turn to us for help in addressing the problems with the police, the courts, the gangs and their families. It is in this area that we are required to intervene as well as into the problems they face in providing education and a trouble-free life for their children. 

The Support Group

In 2001, when we began to address the issue of violence against women in prostitution in a more specific way we helped initiate a support group of NGOs including lawyers and women’s and human rights activists, to extend help to the women at different levels. Through organising weekly meetings in which programmes and actions to advocate for the rights of women in prostitution are evolved ,the support group continues to work in four ways :

· helping individual women charged by the police under the PITA for soliciting get bail and fight their case in the court with other legal help;

· helping the women to lodge FIRs in cases of complaints of violence from their husbands or families, rowdies etc; 

· approaching the police commissioner / DCPs in cases of harassment and abuse from police personnel; 

· helping the women organise into a group so that in future they can help themselves as a collective since they all face common problems.

The support group meets once every week. At the beginning, only women in prostitution who are also working as field workers, group leaders and animators with NGOs working on the AIDS issue (to disseminate information about AIDS prevention, control and treatment amongst women and their clients) were attending the meetings and actively participating in all the activities of the support group. The recent two years saw a change, with more and more women in prostitution who are not working in any NGO attending when they require assistance and some of them continuing to associate with the weekly meetings. The support group has also held a number of workshops to educate the women of their rights and also of the nuances of the law on trafficking. They are also involved in identifying the women arrested under the Act without any evidence by the police and helping such women to challenge the police action in the court. Vimochana’s role in the support group has been to take up the cases of individual women who face violence from the police, street gangs or from the families / men who they live with.

Collectivising the women

The short term objective of our intervention will be to, in collaboration with other groups, reduce the levels of violence in the lives of women in prostitution. The long term objective is to support efforts to collectivise the women in prostitution to strengthen their bargaining power vis a vis State and society. Sadhane, a collective of women in prostitution has been the first initiative in this direction. Vimochana has supported Sadhane through facilitating scholarships for two women who have taken the initiative to sustain the group. 

The ultimate goal is to work towards a notion of rights rooted in dignity that will equip them better than moralistic polices like that of rescue and rehabilitation to face the violence and discrimination in their lives and that of their children and enable them to evolve genuine life choices. Rights that will go a long way in destigmatising women in prostitution and give them a dignified space through which they can redefine discriminatory social structures. Rights that will create spaces not only for their voices to be heard but also actively determine the kind of State interventions they require.

The goal is to enable the women in prostitution to create spaces in civil society and in structures of State policy and implementation where they are able to speak about the violence in their lives and find solutions that are relevant and rooted in their lives and their realities.

more     back     home