SEX WORK AND THE LAW - HIV/AIDS Data Hub

A study of 673 female sex workers in Andhra Pradesh in 2007 made the following
findings: 160
Police interactions occurred in terms of raids, arrests, and various negotiations
between sex workers and police officers to avoid trouble…46%, reported at least one
police raid where they conducted sex work in the 6 months prior to the interview,
and many women reported multiple raids. About 28% of the sample had ever been
arrested and about 17% of these women had been arrested three or more times in
the last 6 months. While very few women who were arrested actually went to prison,
about 15% of this group reported being forced to have sex while in jail or prison.
A number of women, about 21%, had ever had sex with a police officer to avoid trouble
and among these women, 63.2% had sex with a police officer recently, in the 6 months
prior to interview. Reported condom use with police officers was high and almost 85% of
women said that the last time they had sex with a police officer he used a condom. Women
do not appear to have a problem with police officers in terms of carrying condoms: only
10% said that they stopped carrying condoms because they were afraid that police would
identify them as a sex worker and only 11% said that police had taken condoms away from
them in the past 6 months. Women also reported giving money to the police to avoid
trouble. Sex workers appear to face more problems with police than clients with most
women (82%) reporting that in the last 6 months none of their clients had been fined or
arrested by the police.
Children of sex workers are often refused admission in schools due to lack of identity
papers. Since marriage is considered to be crucial for women, the only option left for many
sex worker mothers is to secretly marry off their daughters at a very young age. However,
when their identity is disclosed, these girls face violence and stigma at the hands of their
in-laws. 161
Criminalization makes it difficult for sex workers to engage in public health work. Many
peer educators have reported harassment and accusations of promoting prostitution as a
result of carrying and distributing condoms. 162 Human Rights Watch has reported incidents
of police harassing or detaining sex workers for carrying condoms and harassment of
peer education and outreach workers at a variety of sites. 163 The Lawyers Collective also
reports that possession of condoms makes sex workers, including those involved in peer
education, easy targets for abuse and extortion by the police. 164
Kotiswaran summarizes factors that influence law enforcement practices as follows:
Police involvement in sex markets is rarely driven by internal demand. Rather, public
pressures and political directives to address the ‘prostitution problem’ push the police
to either expand or retract the level of enforcement of anti-sex work laws. At the very
least, these include political priorities of crime control quotas for police action against
crime, a sense as to the quantity of sex work that is permissible, its visibility, the public
conflict involved, the legitimacy of the police in appearing to take action, the extent
160 Project Parivartan (2008) Results of a cross-sectional survey of female sex workers in Rajahmundry, Andhra
Pradesh, Durham: Duke Univerity.
161 Sircar O., Dutta D. (2011) Beyond Compassion: Children of Sex Workers in Kolkata's Sonagachi, Childhood,
18(3), pp.333-349.
162 National Network of Sex Workers and Lawyers Collective (2011), op cit., p.2.
163 Human Rights Watch (2002) Epidemic of abuse: police harassment of HIV/AIDS outreach workers in India,
Human Rights Watch Report 14(5)c. New York: Human Rights Watch.
164 Grover A., et al (2003) op cit., p.127.
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