Criminalization of Prostitution
In this day and age, where pretty much anything goes and everything is accepted, on what basis is the government criminalizing prostitution? It is harmless business transaction between consenting adults. Why is it criminal because money is involved when the government would completely accept it if there was no money involved? There don't seem to be too many clear thinkers in government these days.Prostitution is never going to be stopped and frankly I don't see anything wrong with it. The girls that work on the streets do so to fund a drug habit the parlours and agencies won't employ them. The street girls are the cheapest form of prostitution and just a very small percentage of this industry. In every hotel every night of the week women are working as prostitutes with business men. Most of these women get paid around INR 1000/ an hour. The real problem is how to we solve the rampant drug problem this country has and stop women having to work on the streets.
I have lived in the Far East, where prostitution is not seen as anything other than a service. It is an accepted part of the culture. I knew many of the girls as friends and for most of these, prostitution was a means to an end - they wanted out of their situation and this gave them financial means to do that. Personally I have never had the "need" to use the service, but I would have no moral problem if the need did arise.
This concept of the girls being exploited is rubbish - anybody that has to work for a living is being exploited by the owners of that company. If you wish to look at exploitation then look at the youngsters starting out in life being paid INR 1000/ (or less) for work that nobody else will do.
As pointed out criminalising the buying of sex will only create greater opportunities for criminals; whilst doing nothing to increase the safety of those women who make their living within the sex trade. The sole reason largely based on biased studies and tabloid scare stories, rather than being provided with the facts on the issue.
In reality, all independent studies indicate that the policy has been a failure, increased dangers to sex workers and done nothing to tackle the problem of trafficking.
We agree entirely with prostitution being illegal and the men being punished for it, that is not to say the women need to be somehow taken out of that life of exploitation and abuse, be it a jail sentence or a rehabilitation process. We highly disagree with the comment, the welfare system needs to be vastly reduced, surely all the free money given to people who haven’t the drive to get a real job fuels the desire to get some tax free pay by prostituting your body.
You ask "How do [the men] justify it?". Why should they have to justify it? The majority of prostitutes are not trafficked, not violently forced into prostitution. They don't like the job? Most of us don't like our jobs. But, like them, we do it willingly and for the money. And we don't blame our customers for that.
Do these men seriously believe that every Rupee they hand over goes to the women they encounter. Money is taken from these women by pimps or "escort agency fixers" much of it being used to fund organised crime. As for not coming across any trafficked women they are delusional if they think the women are going to tell them, these women are physically abused time and time again, they are mentally traumatised and live in terror of their abusers 24/7.
