Rehabilitation of sex workers

OFTEN, the rehabilitation programmes initiated by the government cut no ice with the sex workers in India. The reason is that they smell sympathy rather than respect for the persons involved in the world’s oldest profession. The Supreme Court had directed the Centre and the states/ Union Territories to prepare suitable rehabilitation schemes for the welfare of sex workers in April who, the court stressed, are entitled to a life of dignity under Article 21. On May 4, the court again sought reports on what vocational and technical training schemes the states were proposing to ensure meaningful rehabilitation of the physically and sexually abused women. Close on the heels comes the Government of Haryana’s initiative, which has invited applications from the NGOs interested in working for the rehabilitation of sex workers in the state.

The state claims it has close to 14 thousand sex workers, who are to be rehabilitated under Ujjawala and Swadhaar schemes of the Centre. Going by unofficial sources, unprecedented growth of economic centres like Gurgaon has given rise to a lot more numbers involved in the trade in urban and semi-urban areas but in a sophisticated manner, which eludes the conventional surveys conducted on sex workers. Even at the national level, the number of women involved in sex trade largely varies, undertaken by government and private agencies.
If one is to look at the history of success of such schemes taken up in the past, one would realise the schemes have filled sex workers with more scorn and contempt rather than sorting out the complex issue. One reason behind the fact is that sex trade flourishes under police and political protection and hence is largely criminalised. Forced rehabilitations carried out by the government, elsewhere in the country, in the name of “rescuing them from their plight” have not paved the way for their betterment. What is indeed needed is more opportunities for women to choose their means of livelihood from. The proposed training on the lines of ITIs and providing loans for the marketing of their products are well-meaning ideas, but their real test would be in their implementation.