SEX WORK AND THE LAW - HIV/AIDS Data Hub

e.g., devadasis, jogins, bhavins. The traditional roles of these communities have declined,
with the emphasis being on sex work as income rather than as an aspect of cultural and
religious practice.
Nature of the legal environment
The legal environment for sex work is punitive in all South Asian countries, although
there are some important recent examples of progress towards less punitive approaches.
However, no government in South Asia has proposed to decriminalize or formally regulate
the sex industry at a national level.
Examples of progress towards a less punitive approach to sex work in South Asia include:
sex worker-led self-regulatory boards and community legal empowerment
approaches of sex worker organizations in India;
police instructions in some states of India, directing police not to harass or arrest sex
workers;
decisions of the Supreme Courts in Nepal, India and Bangladesh recognizing that sex
workers enjoy human rights as defined by national constitutions;
Development of an HIV/AIDS Curriculum for Senior Level Police in Nepal;
Development of a National Strategy on Female Sex Work in Pakistan, which addresses
the need for directives to prevent confiscation of condoms and to address police
violence and harassment.
The legal situation varies in each country and internally. The constitutions of Pakistan and
Bangladesh include provisions requiring the state to prevent or not promote ‘prostitution’.
Pakistan and Afghanistan have highly punitive laws and police practices. Afghanistan, the
Maldives and Pakistan incorporate sharia 57 principles into criminal law, which can result
in corporal punishment for sex outside of marriage, which in effect criminalizes sex work.
Law enforcement practices are influenced by municipal regulations and local police
cultures. In Bangladesh, Pakistan and India, police and local government acknowledge
the existence of very large red-light districts. Police and other government authorities
have complex relationships with the organized sex industry. In many settings, some police
and other local officials reportedly have a financial interest in the organized sex industry.
In India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, adult sex work is not illegal if it is conducted
privately, by single workers and voluntarily. However, soliciting for sex, operating brothels
and pimping or profiting from others who engage in sex work are illegal. In India the
Supreme Court has acknowledged that sex workers have the right to choose to work in
the sex trade and it is legal to engage in sex work in private. However, soliciting in public
is illegal, and trafficking and public order offences are enforced against sex workers. In Sri
Lanka there is no specific offence for sex work, but the Vagrants Ordinance criminalizes
soliciting in public and brothels are illegal. In Pakistan all extra-marital sex is illegal. In all
South Asian countries, sex workers are more frequently prosecuted than clients of sex
workers or others involved in the sex industry.
Sex workers are often targeted by police for harassment and arrest under public order
57 Sharia refers to traditional Islamic law derived from the Koran. In Pakistan, sharia law applies to Muslim
citizens.
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