by Police - Bureau of Police Research and Development

The Indian Police JournalFactors Responsible for ProstitutionSukumari Bhattacharji 96 , has very elaborately dealt with the responsiblefactors and coercive and unavoidable circumstances in which the girlsor the ladies were compulsorily inducted to this ever-existing socialevil since the remote past. She sees in a raped woman and sexuallyexploitedgirl a very little chance of an honourable marriage and socialrehabilitation, and so to reduce to prostitution was her natural fateand she had to accept whatever came her way. 97 Bhattacharjee says,“A young widow or a pretty wanton maid or an unhappily marriedattractive woman could, perhaps, choose her partner and name herprice, at least in the beginning of her career, while she still enjoyedthe protection of her father’s, husband’s or in-law’s home.” 98In ancient India, wife too was almost regarded as a private propertyof her husband. Sometime, a woman used to do sleeping andentertaining others by accepting payment from each of the men sheobliged, and she then became panyastri, one whose favours could bebought with many. 99 Around the eighth or seventh century B.C., wehave references to more regularized form of prostitution recognized asa social institution. Even early Buddhist literature, specially the Jatakasfurnish evidences to the existence of different categories of prostitutes.Another possible channel of the supply of prostitutes was, perhaps,the young virgin girls, given as gifts on special religious and secularoccasions. The number of such girls, given away to Brahmans, guests, 100 In theVedic age, daksinas,and they included horses, cattle, gold, and also women of variouscategories, unmarried, married without children and married withchildren. They used to be in hundreds of such women to a priest,some of which he could marry, others he would enjoy and abandon,and still others he would employ as maid-servants, and many of them 101Yet, other than the above, another source of supply was the royalhouses and palaces themselves. King used to summon pretty maids totheir palaces, enjoyed them sexually for some days and then used tosend them away from there. Sukumari Bhattacharjee had mentionedthat in the Vats-agulama region, Minister’s wives had to oblige theKing by paying visits (on being summoned) to the palace. In Vidarbha,194 January - March, 2013