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Indian News, Media and Reports from Sex Workers about issues of concern to the sex worker community.
"UPA divided over amendments to Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act" 2007 The Swedish Model is considered in India, sex workers campaign against it.
"Bangalore Raid", Manohar 2 June 07
Feb 2006 Indian Parliament Pushes Ahead with Anti-Sex Work Legislation Update by Tripti Tandon, Lawyers Collective, HIV/AIDS Unit. Ignoring protests by sex workers and HIV/AIDS service organisations, the Union Cabinet cleared the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Amendment Bill, 2005 late last year. The bill is slated to be introduced in Parliament in the upcoming budget session. The amendments were moved by the Department of Women and Child Development (DWCD), Ministry of Human Resource Development, a second time round, after receiving comments from a Group of Ministers (GOM) comprising Tourism, Law and Home Affairs, that had been set up in July 2005 at the instance of the Cabinet to review the earlier bill.
Kolkata, 9 Dec 2005 Former Indian prostitute vows to fight HIV/AIDS Krittivas Mukherjee, Reuters A former prostitute has taken over as head of a global HIV/AIDS project in eastern India, promising to completely wipe out new infections in one of Asia's biggest red light districts. Bharati Dey, 40, took over as director of the World Health Organisation-funded HIV/AIDS project for some 6,000 prostitutes of Sonagachi, a teeming red light district in northern Kolkata, formerly known as Calcutta. "My chief goal is to ensure that not a single sex worker offers her service without condoms. We want to bring down the infection rate to zero," Dey, who took over on Dec. 1, told Reuters. Sonagachi's HIV/AIDS control programme has brought infection rates down to around five percent from around 90 percent a decade ago, partly by encouraging prostitutes to refuse sex without condoms.
New Delhi, 10 Dec 2005 Sex workers seek changes in anti-prostitution law (India Times) Asserting that they were like any other labourer and got paid for their services, a group of sex workers in the capital Friday protested a proposed amendment to an anti-prostitution law they say will hurt their livelihood. The sex workers, gathered under the National Network of Sex Workers, a federation of sex workers' organisations in the country, stated at a press conference that the proposed amendments to the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956, go against their interests and would lead to higher prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the country. Facing a large gathering of journalists and television crews, the six sex workers, including a eunuch, did not in any way look like the gaudily painted versions seen in films.
New Delhi, 17 Oct 2005 Plan panel sires a sex revolution (SUBODH GHILDIYAL TIMES NEWS NETWORK) 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 fructify. 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.