SEX WORK AND THE LAW - HIV/AIDS Data Hub

4.4.2 Law enforcement practices
Police conduct
Nationally, the police charge sex workers more frequently using ITPA than the sex work
provisions of the Indian Penal Code. 148
Police raids are frequently reported in red-light areas. Raids are ostensibly conducted
to rescue minors. Incidents of police violence against sex workers have occurred in the
context of raids. Large communities of sex workers were forcibly evicted from their homes
in 2002 and 2004 in Nippani, Karnataka in 2002, and Baina, Goa in 2004, and police targeted
the hijra community in Bangalore in 2008. 149 In Goa, efforts to introduce risk reduction
practices among sex workers were interrupted after the red-light area was demolished.
According to the Lawyers Collective, for several months after the raid “displaced sex
workers were seen soliciting on the streets for survival, at the cost of condoms and HIV
protection”. 150
Police use threats of prosecution under ITPA and local regulations to harass sex workers.
Anecdotal evidence from Gujarat indicates that the police have used powers under ITPA
and the Gujarat Prevention of Anti-social Activities Act, 1985 to harass sex workers, raid
brothels and commit violent abuses of sex workers. 151 According to the Lawyers Collective:
Arbitrary police raids, seizure of money and material belongings, extortion, physical
assault, torture and rape by police personnel, all of which are common experiences of
sex workers, significantly impact HIV prevention efforts…When sex workers are forced
to negotiate their livelihoods in conditions of fear, insecurity and exploitation, health
and HIV/AIDS concerns become low priorities. Penal sanctions also breed corruption
within the law enforcement system, making persons vulnerable to extortion and
harassment from law enforcement agencies…the criminality associated with
soliciting diminishes the ability of the sex worker to negotiate the terms of services,
including rates and condom use. 152
According to Project Parivartan:
Upon rescue, rehabilitation, and reintegration, women are further subject to human
rights abuses: some are rescued even if they do not want to leave prostitution;
rehabilitation homes are more like prisons, and women are abused, denied legal
rights, and not allowed to leave without a parent (or madam) to take them away,
whether or not the rescued are adults; finally, women are sometimes repatriated
against their will, as they find a livelihood in sex work that they would not find at
home. 153
A study conducted in Tirupati and Kolkata found that sex workers complained far less
about customers than police harassment.
148 Kotiswaran (2011), op cit., pp.124-125.
149 Rao S., Sluggett, C. (2009), op cit; and see: Human Rights Watch, Stop ‘social cleansing’ in Bangalore, news
release, 18 November 2008.
150 Bose A., Bhardwaj K. (2008), Marginalised populations: outside the pale. (published on line:
infochangeindia.org)
151 Grover A., Kukke S., Bhardwaj K. eds. (2003) op cit, p.125.
152 Ibid. pp.125-126.
153 Project Parivartan (2006), Sex Work and HIV in India: An Annotated Bibliography, Durham: Duke Global
Health Institute, p.6.
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