It’s a funny old argument: you have not been able to control an activity that is illegal, so legalise it and you will be able to control it. That’s what the Supreme Court presumably meant when it said prostitution should be legalised since in its illegal avatar it has been abusing women in horrible ways.
A moment’s pause for thought here. Why is prostitution illegal in the first place? Presumably because it is immoral, and because it is exploitative. Let us dismiss the first argument straight off. If women choose to sell their bodies for profit it is entirely their own business and morality has nothing to do with it. The operative word is ‘choose’. Something done by an exercise of free will. Most people will argue that nobody really ‘chooses’ to have sex with several unknown men several times a day, but that’s debatable.
And anyway, I use ‘choose’ here as the opposite of ‘forced’.
The second argument against prostitution is the important one. That it exploits women. These women - unempowered and defenceless - are often sold into prostitution by parents, pimps and other unscrupulous persons, and are subjected to deprivation, indignity, abuse, poverty and neglect. Any sane person wants to stop this. The question is: will legalising prostitution achieve this purpose?
Yes, say those who are for it. Legalising it means the prostitutes will be free of police ‘harassment’, will be able to form unions and demand their rights like other workers.
Their working conditions can be regulated - brothels, which will have to be licensed, will have to adhere to working hours, provide health care, hygiene and other benefits, maybe even be forced to ensure that condoms are used in all sexual encounters.
It sounds good and in some countries, it may even work. But frankly I can’t see it working in India. Regulations are more likely to be on paper alone. When nobody bothered to stop the very obvious abuses when prostitution was illegal, how are they going to stop it when it is legal?
But, most importantly, how will this prevent the forcible induction of women into prostitution? In fact, if prostitution is legal, women who are forced into the trade will not have any case at all. Poverty makes many parents push their daughters into the trade. How will legalising stop that? In fact, you won’t even be able to indict the parents since they are not making her do anything illegal. How will it stop trafficking in minors, the most hideous face of the trade? How will it stop the police-pimp/brothel nexus that has allowed an illegal activity to flourish? If the police can turn a blind eye to prostitution per se, they can as well turn a blind eye to the regulations.
The ideal is, undoubtedly, to legalise prostitution and police it with a heavy hand to ensure all rules and regulations are met with and any transgressions are heavily penalised. But policing legal prostitution is a far more complex task than curbing illegal prostitution. And if we have not been able to do the latter, how are we going to do the former?
If prostitution has not been contained it is because of everyone’s indulgent attitude to it. The common perception, commonly voiced, is that it is ‘the oldest profession in the world’ and ‘no country has been able to abolish it’ and other such silly pronouncements.
If there was a real will to do it, it could have been done. But not even its excesses have been checked in the slightest. So, while we may legalise it, and that may make a marginal difference for some, it’s not going to be the magic wand the Supreme Court thinks it will be.