‘Treated Like Criminals’: Adult Sex Workers Not Allowed to Leave Protective Homes in Most States, Amicus Curiae Tells Supreme Court

Adult sex workers are being treated like criminals in most states and not being allowed to leave the protective homes under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act despite the Supreme Court’s directions to the contrary, amicus curiae and senior advocate Jayant Bhushan told the top court on Thursday. The senior counsel said:“Adult women wanting to leave cannot be held against their will in these protective homes. These protective homes are like jails. Most of them do not want to be there. These are adult women, not criminals. States should not be allowed to treat them in this patriarchal manner and say this is for their protection, even when the women are not willing.”A bench of Justices BR Gavai, Vikram Nath, and Sanjay Karol was hearing a plea by the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, a collective of 65,000 sex workers. The organisation originally raised this plea in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic to highlight the lack of access of sex workers to governmental schemes to distribute dry rations. The interlocutory application was filed in a 2011 petition in which the top court had taken suo motu cognisance of the rights available to and the conditions of sex workers in the country.Last year, in a significant development, a bench headed by Justice L Nageswara Rao (retired) issued a slew of directions for the rehabilitation of sex workers. Among other things, the court specifically said that adult women who are detained against their will in ITPA protective homes would be permitted to leave. Not only this, but it also directed state governments to conduct surveys of these protective homes. The amicus curiae today alleged that the affidavits of most of the states that had submitted their responses revealed a picture that was far removed from the ground reality. “Surprisingly, many states have submitted that they found out that no one wants to leave. This is against the ground reality. Most women would not want to be kept in these protective homes,” he told the bench. “We have interacted with a large number of sex workers while spending several years on the report,” added Bhushan, who headed a panel constituted by the top court to advise on issues relating to the prevention of trafficking, rehabilitation of sex workers wanting to quit sex work, and the conditions conducive for sex workers to live with dignity in accordance with Article 21. This committee submitted its final report in 2016. To illustrate his contention, Bhushan used the examples of the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, saying: “The state of Bihar has been more forthcoming. It has been submitted that all the women in the protective homes in the state want to leave. But, even the state of Bihar does not want to let the women go, on the ground of some training it plans on conducting to help them lead more respectable lives. Effectively, it is allowing no one to leave. The state of Uttar Pradesh has revealed that the women were not allowed to leave because they could not tell their parents’ addresses. These are adult women.” Senior advocate Anand Grover, representing Durbar, also echoed the sentiments of the amicus. “It is shocking that women are being kept beyond the period mandated under the Act, which is three years,” he exclaimed. Saying this, he urged the bench to pass an appropriate order to address this issue. Advocate Aparna Bhat, however, forcefully objected to the allegation levelled by the amicus curiae as well as the counsel for the sex workers’ collective. Bhat, who was representing an applicant running one such protective home in Hyderabad, told the bench that… “I can say with experience that all the women who are rescued from brothels, on the date of rescue, say that they want to go back. This is because they do not know any better, and their belongings are also with the brothel owners,” she said. Bhat also alleged: “Under the guise of conducting surveys, people who support commercial sex work in the country come and harass us, asking us to release the women. This court’s order directed a survey, not the release.” Grover interjected, “They cannot be kept there beyond three years.” “We will need to hear this at length and take a call,” Justice Gavai said, issuing notice in another application in which Bhat appeared. What happened to the bill on sex workers: Justice BR Gavai asks Centre Besides this, the bench also sought an update on the legislative front. In 2016, the Supreme Court was told that the committee’s recommendations were considered by the union government and a draft legislation was formulated. After this, the Centre assured the court a number of times that a comprehensive legislative enactment would soon be passed. This ultimately resulted in the top court passing directions relating to the rehabilitation of sex workers that would ‘hold the field’ till the proposed legislation is finally enacted by the Parliament. “What ...

‘Treated Like Criminals’: Adult Sex Workers Not Allowed to Leave Protective Homes in Most States, Amicus Curiae Tells Supreme Court

Awstika Das

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