They have a Right to live with dignity
 
The recent film 'Chameli' explored the meeting and interaction between a streetwalker from Garhwal and an investment banker . Refreshingly, this prostitute is comfortable in her life and there is no self-pity or desire to lead a respectable life.
 
Terming prostitution as illegal and an immoral blotch on society ignores the fact that there are near about 2 million prostitutes in India and a quarter of them are minors. Today, assuming that there are 20 lakh prostitutes in India, and the income generated by each one is Rs 1,000 daily, this figure translates into an economy of Rs 200 crore a day or Rs 72,000 crore a year. But prostitutes themselves probably get a tenth of this amount. The rest is pocketed by pimps, brothel madams, and cops on the take, even as sex-workers live wretched lives, are victims of client violence and venereal diseases which shorten their lives, and leave their children even more vulnerable than they are.
 

Women and girls in the commercial sex industry -- including millions who were trafficked, forced or sold into the trade -- are overwhelmingly at risk of contracting HIV-AIDS. In Asia, an estimated 60 percent to 80 percent of those in the sex industry are infected with HIV.

Women in sex work almost always are compelled into it by sexual violence, poverty and discrimination. They often are debt-bonded to pimps and brothel owners, and they are marginalized within society. They are vulnerable to violent abuse, including rape and robbery, by local police. Many are young girls, who are much sought after. They often are unable to speak the local language and incapable of negotiating safe sex -- much less their freedom. Their situations are desperate and their lives short.

In India, prostitution is illegal and comes under the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act,( ITPA) 1986. The act prohibits the trafficking of human beings and forced prostitution. Prostitution itself is technically not illegal. According to the Act, “Any sexual intercourse outside socially-acceptable unions is regarded as prostitution. Procuring, inducing or taking persons for the purpose of prostitution is punishable with rigorous imprisonment of at least three years, but not more than seven years, and a fine of Rs 2,000.”Anyone over the age of 18 engaging in prostitution of her own will, and not in public areas, is theoretically protected. But in fact, sex work is criminalized because every act required to carry out prostitution is characterized as a crime by Indian law. The ITPA punishes anyone maintaining a brothel or living off the earnings of a prostitute. Moreover, police are allowed to conduct raids on brothels without a warrant based on the mere belief that an offense under the ITPA is being committed on the premises. The law also penalizes anyone who solicits or seduces for the purpose of prostitution, or who carries on prostitution near public places.

As a result, sex workers in India are perpetually harassed and arrested by the police. A policeman can pick up any girl who is a sex worker from the street and say that you are violating Section 7A, soliciting in the street. How do you know if she is soliciting or just walking on the street, going to buy something from the shop? You can't differentiate.

The Indian police are themselves active partners in the commercial sex industry and major beneficiaries of the system. Most sex workers must pay bribes to their local police officers so that they will allow them to work. Yet the same officers who are paid off often physically and verbally abuse the women.

Prostitutes' ostracized status remains a fundamental challenge to improving their lot and reducing the threat of AIDS. Being women in prostitution puts them into a caste – a class of their own. This caste-class occupies the lowest rung in the hierarchy and is structured outside the hierarchy, as we know it.

It is important to understand that not all sex workers are women who are trafficked or women who enter the occupation by force. For example, for women from very poor areas where few or no jobs exist, sex work provides the only economic means to support themselves, their children and their extended families. Even in places where mainstream jobs are available, sex work often pays women many times more than they could earn in factory or clerical jobs. For women who have escaped abusive marriages or relationships, sex work provides them with both disposable income and more control over their sexuality and physical safety than they may have had at home. Domestic work or factory work often also involve sexual exploitation, when women are forced to perform sexual favors for their male bosses or male members of a household where they work, in order to obtain or keep their jobs

The human rights approach to sex work. explains that some of the rights particularly at stake for women in prostitution are the right to be free from discrimination (Article 7); the right to be free from torture and from degrading and cruel treatment or punishment (Article 5); the right to equality before the law (Article 6); the right to freedom of movement (Article 13); the right to association (Article 20); the right to freedom of speech (Article 19); and the recognition of their families as legitimate units and sex workers' entitlement to state benefits such as education and housing (Articles 25, 26 and 27).

There is a need for decriminalization as a legal approach that better protects women's rights.Decriminalization means removing aspects of consensual sexual activity (as distinct from forced sexual activity) in prostitution from the criminal code. Consensual relationships might include those between a woman and her client, between a woman and a brothel keeper or between a woman and a pimp. This bears in mind the practical reality that women need agents in sex work. All acts of force, coercion, abuse, and violence should be covered by existing criminal law and penal codes

When prostitutes are treated as second-class citizens, and in extreme cases, as less than human, then all women who dare to step out of their social constructs will be labelled as whores and treated accordingly. For these reasons, the rights of all women are dependent on the rights accorded to the most vulnerable women.