SEX WORK AND THE LAW - HIV/AIDS Data Hub

Although not all policemen were abusive by sex workers’ own admission, and some
were even their friends, most policemen engaged in some form of verbal, physical,
or sexual harassment. They sometimes registered false cases against sex workers and
trafficked in women. 154
India
A national meeting of sex workers and parliamentarians held in 2011 identified recent
incidents of police harassment including arrest on the grounds of alleged drug offences. 155
For example, a transgender sex worker from Karnataka Sex Workers Union (KSWU)
described police regularly engaging in extortion by filing false cases against sex workers
for possession of illicit drugs, demanding sexual favours and committing assaults. It was
reported:
An incident took place recently in Channapatna, a small town near the highway, where
the police entered the house of a sex worker, forcibly removed her, and later had her
pictures telecast on TV and in print. When the sex workers union went to inquire into
the incident, the police got goondas 156 and had them beaten. In another incident
in Anantpur district in Andhra Pradesh, the police, with the help of anti-trafficking
groups, raided brothels and rounded up around 300 sex workers. The women were
brought out onto the street, in full public view, and were dealt with inhumanely.
An earlier study of hijra sex workers commissioned by People’s Union for Civil Liberties-
Karnataka documents cases of violence, police entrapment and extortion:
Sexual violence is a constant, pervasive theme...Along with subjection to physical
violence such as beatings and threats of disfigurement with acid bulbs, the sexuality
of the hijra also becomes a target of prurient curiosity, at the very least and brutal
violence as its most extreme manifestation. As the narratives indicate, the police
constantly degrade hijras by asking them sexual questions, feeling up their breasts,
stripping them, and in some cases raping them...such actions constitute a violation
of the integrity and privacy of the very sexual being of the person. The police attitude
seems to be that since kothis 157 and hijras engage in sex work, they are not entitled to
any rights. 158
KSWU has reported that in 2008, police from Andhra Pradesh joined with Delhi police to
conduct raids on Delhi brothels. Seventy-five women were detained for three days and
ordered to be returned to Andhra Pradesh. Twenty four were classified as traffickers and 51
as ‘victims’. According to KSWU, most of the so-called victims were adult women working
voluntarily in sex work. The women were sent to state and NGO-run shelters. Many women
complained of abuses in the shelters. Sex worker advocates who interviewed the women
who had been ‘rescued’ confirmed that the working conditions in the brothels had been
very poor. However, only two women were found to have been coerced into sex work.
According to KSWU, the police operation did not improve conditions in the brothels or
rehabilitate the self-identified victims. 159
154 Kotiswaran P. (2011), op cit., p122.
155 National Network of Sex Workers and Lawyers Collective HIV/AIDS Unit (2011), Sex Workers Meet Law
Makers: Report of a dialogue held at the Constitution Club, New Delhi, 1st March 2011, Lawyers Collective HIV/AIDS
Unit.
156 Local thugs.
157 Kothi is a term used in India to refer to a man who assumes feminine traits. A kothi may or may not
engage in sex work.
158 PUCL-K (2003), Human Rights Violations against the Transgender Community: A study of kothi and hijra sex
workers in Bangalore, India Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties, Karnataka (PUCL-K).
159 KSWU (2009), Trade union protections for sex workers, Bangalore: KSWU, p.6.
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