BANGALORE: According to the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act (PITA), "prostitution" means sexual exploitation or abuse of persons for commercial purposes or for consideration in money or in any other kind and the expression "prostitute" should be construed accordingly.
In the Indian context, the victims of prostitution rackets are mainly women. Also, there are persons who run prostitution rackets or who traffic (pimps) women/girls to this business. The city police, mainly the personnel of the Women and Narcotics Wing of the Central Crime Branch (CCB), regularly raid the brothels, bars and restaurants or massage parlours and arrest women and some pimps, alleging that they are involved in prostitution. They release such information to the media. Going a step ahead, they are, nowadays, releasing many details and even photographs of the victims, which is a clear violation of the human rights of the victims and thus not following the PITA properly.
They, like any other police, are more interested in booking women as prostitutes and sometimes register case on the pimps too (Actually, the arrested women are victims to the media and it is evident that they are negligent towards Indian Constitution where respecting women is one among the many fundamental duties of the Indian citizen).Generally, the accused in various cases are produced in the court with black masks as the police do not want anyone to identify them. The police say it's not proper as the law of the land does not allow it. However, the victims of the prostitution rackets are not taken care of by the police in this aspect. "The photographs of the women victims who are wrongly booked as accused for allegedly soliciting customers are easily allowed for publication by the police. They are actually trafficked or forcibly asked to solicit customers by some powerful mafia/persons. The photographs of the persons who actually run the prostitution rackets are not given for publication. Why?" asked a victim of this racket.
Comments
0 comment