Planning Commission’s Plea to legalise prostitution

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Plea to legalise prostitution

NEW DELHI: The contours of sexual behaviour in the country may

change radically if the Planning Commission's recommendations to

sharpen the campaign against the spread of HIV/AIDS fructifies.

The plan panel has pitched for legal sanctity to prostitution and

homosexuality to bring the sections vulnerable to the deadly HIV

virus under the purview of the AIDS scanner.

Fear of legal action pushes underground the two high-risk categories

of HIV/AIDS— sex workers and homosexuals. It, the plan panel says,

puts them out of the reach of " social interventions " to check the

killer disease, which is threatening to take epidemic proportions.

The Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act deals with prostitution while

homosexuality remains a crime under section 377 of IPC.

The suggestions to remove these legal constraints, called

the " impediments in the anti-AIDS programme " , were made officially

to the Prime Minister in the ongoing exercise to prepare the 11th

Plan paper.

Pitching for shedding the taint of criminality from the two groups,

Syeda Hameed, Planning Commission member incharge, told TOI, " It is

time to look at them in an enlightened way. We should not regard

prostitutes as criminals and homosexuality needs to be viewed with

greater sympathy. "

Morality, however, may continue to underline the sensitive subject.

The views for change are at odds with the prevailing opinion within

the government. The home ministry recently opposed a PIL in the

supreme court, seeking " decriminalisation of homosexuality " , saying

public opinion and Indian societal context was against the deletion

of section 377. To the PIL's argument of violation of right to

privacy, the home ministry argued that the right could not be

extended to defeat " public morality " .

Interestingly, the legal prohibition on prostitution and

homosexuality is at odds with the strategy to fight AIDS which seeks

to identify and target these two groups. Experts say it creates a

predicament for the anti-AIDS programme. While the National AIDS

Control Organisation (NACO) supports targeted intervention in

brothels and at sites of homosexuality, sex workers and facilitators

are prosecuted as these activities attract punitive action. Experts

and civil society underlined this discrepancy during the preliminary

deliberations with the Plan panel.

Empowerment of sex workers is being pushed as the best antidote to

HIV. Hameed said: " Sonagachi in Kolkata has proved that the best way

to check the spread of the HIV virus among sex workers is to bring

them overground. "

Dubbing as " horrible " the treatment of homosexuals as criminals, she

asked: " We say we are a great power but where are we as far as

sexual preferences of men with men are concerned? "

While the debate continues, the government is examining the

recommendations of the Law Commission's 172nd report on the `review

of rape laws'. The report, too, has sought the deletion of section

377 besides changes to sections on rape laws, i.e. sections 375 and

376. That provides hope to the proponents of these changes.

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