Should Prostitution be legalized in India ?

                                                 I know a very bold topic to be discussed, But hey as you know i don't do anything that is normal. Ok this is first Debate in my blog and i really like to bring  professionals before you. Our guest for today would be  Mr. Abhay Agarwal.  Abhay is copywriter for Experience Commerce and he gets the credit for writing copy at Royal Challengers, Super Popular Friend  and was pretty difficult competitor to have debate with. So finally we called a neutral judge Shazia Shaikh to give the final verdict for our debate. So here is how it goes.

Dhavalyours: Prostitution has been the second most ancient occupation in india since agriculture. Since the ancient times it has been going on and we do find cultural references of it. Its been high time that we accept it and make it legalized. 
 

Abhay: Just because it's been an "ancient proffesion" in India, and there have been cultural refrences to it, it isn't nesicerily mean that it should be legalised. using that rationale, even Sati should be legalised. I agree that there were many good traditions in ancient india, but prostitution, wasn't one of them.

Dhavalyours: Sati is been almost eliminated in India. The percentage of women being raped is much more than a women performing sati ritual. We had taken an initiative to stop sati 200 years ago and we have been successful to eliminate most of it. So its high time we take initiative for this cause.  

Abhay: But was sati abolished, by legalising it? or was it abolished, because the british government clamped down hard on a ritual that it considered barbaric? The british government, was able to abolish the practice, since they didn't profit from it in any way. 

Dhavalyours: Agreed Abhay the issue of feminine respect has been of high concern. Statistically it is proved that the rape percentage in India is increasing as ever. Women are not safe. Delhi is the raping-capital of india, Sense of security has been of major Issue. I would'nt wish to come home and find that my wife, mother,sister n the worse case even my daughter is been raped by some sex-seeking maniac, ruining life of my entire family. If Prostitution is Legalized and is open to public, Men can get a proper official place to relieve themselves which would eventually reduce the rape percentage in our country what say ? 

Abhay: But prostitution is not an answer to prevent rape. Men get sexually frustrated, because of our famous ancient tradition, that make pre-marital sex a taboo. Anyways your as good as raping a prostitute, the only difference is: she agrees to have sex because you throw money at her.
 

Dhavalyours: Abhay i agree with you on this, but the question of women respect is what i wanna resolve. People denote these women as 'prostitutes' and you know what in hindi. If prostitution is legalized :

1. They would be referred as Sex-Workers.
2.  There would be an age limit to women or men entering the profession of prostitution. This would save the small girls who are thrown into this business in their teens.
3.  Proper contraceptions such as condoms would be used. This would avoid the sexual diseases such as AIDS.
4.  Middle Level people such as Dalal's would be eliminated providing profit directly to the person as  well as the government. 
5. High taxes would be taken from each session.
6. Most importantly consent of the sex-worker would be taken in mind.
7. Since Sex worker would be benifiting goverment greatly Her future would be taken care of.
8. They would be given opportunity to part away from profession whenever she wants. 
9. Monthly check ups would be oraganized to make sure their health and also if a person is healthy enough to mate.
10. They can do service to community by providing sex-education to youngsters OR whom we call ( the  jumping hormones. )

Now if in this way prostitution is legalized the sexworkers would find it really  good. Its a bad bad world where sex-workers are harrassed by both the customers as well as sex-agents as well as by Police and society. They are like officially rejected every where and this is one ray of light which should help them.

 

Abhay: Instead of flatly legalising the problem, why not rehabilitate them? Give them an education & alternate means of living.It doesn't matter what you call them. At the end of the day, they still have to sell their bodies to earn a living.If you want to prevent small children from entering the business, then why can't the government do any thing now? Because they are hand-in-glove with the pimps.No woman  would turn to prostitution on her own. It always comes down to an ultimatum. This is just an easy way for the government to ignore poverty: "why should we take care of impoverished women; if they want money, they can just become prostitutes."  

• Even if you legalise it now, you'll still have illegal redlight areas like you have now. If prostitutes don't have any choice now, then what choice will they have once, their pimps get more power?  
• You can talk about: their health, their rights, their "welfare" etc. But
  the question still remains: why should any woman have to sell her body
  to earn a living? Don't we have better options today? 
• What would you do if some girl in the future said: "I want to be a sex-worker when i grow up!" As far as Sex Education is concerned, why can't the teacher impart the
  same knowledge? Are we, as a society, so sex-starved that we cannot
  teach our own kids about sex?

Dhavalyours: See abhay as far as it goes we have a really close approach on this issue. Parents slap their kid when he/she asks the question "Mom what is sex ??" Or else intelligently he is been answered that it refers to gender. Result little boy goes to internet and searches porn. No no it is not to promote prostitution as a profession. It is to increase the self respect of sex workers. Their image in society. Now we cannot change the whole system in one day. What do we do is we try to control it by imposing strict rules and slowly go towards the path of eliminating it. 

Abhay: Parents slap their children, because they don't know how to answer a question like that.Hiring a prostitute to answer these questions is not going to solve anything. There are many books in the market today that show parents how to teach their kids about "the birds & the bees". If their parents want, the can also search the net for help on explaining the facts of life to children. But by legalising it, you are telling people that it' OK to sell their bodies, and there by promoting it. as far as collecting tax goes:

1.  Who in thier right mind would pay a prostitute, by cheque/card? 
2.  Who would want their bank records to show, that they have visited a prostitute?
3. If prostitue got payed only in cash, then how much of that would she declare to this great government of ours that has reduced her to a sex-worker?
4. Judging by the number of prostitutes in India, how much money would the IT department have to spend in order to conduct raids on all these "workers"?
5.  If you legalise it, then it would become an industry(which it already is), and would be even more difficult to eliminate.  
 

 

Dhavalyours: See again Abhay We have to accept 1 thing. I told you this is an ancient profession they have tried to remove it since centuries man, but just could'nt. Its high time we accept the truth that we cannot remove it from our society. but yes by bounding it to rules we can definitely have to control.

Abhay  Being ancient is irrelevant. It was devised during a time of extreme male dominance. When we, as a society, were ten times more patriarchal than we are today. It was a profession created by men and for men...but using women.
Do you think that a women would want to be a prostitute, if she was qualified to be a doctor or a lawyer? Forget that; what if she had passed her 12th, and was eligible for being a cop? Dhaval, would you become a gigolo, if you had a B.E.? or any other qualification?

Dhavalyours: Again please dont take the privilege of getting personal with that statement. My Idea of Making Prostitution legal does not have pieces to make india rich by that money. Agreed it is a horrible profession and should be stopped. Definitely after taking a BE degree from respectable college and being sexually straight why the hell in the world i would turn into Giglo ?? Dignity of labor is the problem with the profession i completely agree. But millions of those who are already in this profession you can't just say them "Boss dukan band chalo kal se tata bye bye." right ?Yes we need to eradicate it out of our society and Legalizing is just the first baby step to do it.

Abhay: We are saying "dukaan band karo aur, hamaare saat doosra dukaan khol do." We can and we should give them an alternative means of livleyhood. Do you think they would go back to prostitution once they start working in an office?

Dhavalyours: Yes they may go back to where it started from, that concept also stands true. But if we plan to take immediate plan of action, Legalizing it is the option. We will definitely find a solution in future to stop it. Abhay my idea to legalize it is just for 1 generation.

•  But again from a lifestyle perspective it would be really cool enough to have a sex-education parlor. 
•  You know where people from any age and any community can come and talk their sexual problems or would get their doubts solved.
•  There is a difference between a person telling a path and a person walking a path. Even your mother would tell you sex with unknown partner is wrong you may get STD (Sexually transmitted Diseases).
•  But if a you see a guy in person who has been living and struggling with a disease Impact is really deep into your hearts. The men / women so called sex workers would really get a chance to make people know about their stories to the world.
•  People would look at them as hero's, who would be contributing a substantial part in making India a better, mature country. 
  

Abhay: There are already enough of sex clinics in Mumbai, that are run by qualified psychologists and sexologists. We also have many NGO's that teach people about aids; We don't need to use human guinea pigs, to teach children about STDs. Are you saying that you want people to get Aids so that they can teach others about it?
Why do we need to create even more prostitutes to teach kids about the evils of prostitution?
Do you think that a prostitute, would want her children to also grow up to be prostitutes?

 

Shazia: Ok Guys, you have to stop somewhere now. Its been a pleasure to watch you guys having a deep conversation over topic and discussing it from financial, social, educational and cultural perspective but here is what i would like to say I support to ban prostitution as every woman has the right to her dignity. They should be given alternative respectable jobs that do not only hamper their public image but also relieves them of the psychological trauma of being in a disgraced profession. Also it is always said that men need to relieve themselves, well if they are so desperate in life they need to get married n sleep with their wives. Men should not be allowed to let go just because they are men. As stated by Abhay "Prostitution was started by men for men by using women" i would say "let women abandon prostitution for other women using men". Its great to have support from Men like Abhay.


                              And in that manner  Shazia supported Abhay's point of view that finally it should not be legalized. But hey we both shared the same view port that it should definitely be demolished from the society. Thank you Shazia and  Abhay  for joining the discussion it turned out to be a great blog post.


                                  Do you think you have better opinion on this topic ? Do you think you have a solution ? Post a comment and communicate, Even at a smaller level your comments do  make a difference.