How govt's bill for trafficking victims will make sex workers less safe
Hoping
to protect women from sexual
exploitation, Indian lawmakers are pushing a bill that amends the
criminal code to harden legal and financial penalties for sex trafficking.
The
“Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection and Rehabilitation) Bill,”
which passed the lower house of India’s parliament in July 2018 and may become
law in 2019, seeks to make combat this lucrative, illicit trade.
Not
everyone thinks harsh deterrence will work.
Days
after it passed in the lower house of India’s Parliament in July, two United
Nations experts said the bill leans too heavily on the criminal justice system.
Without more of a “human-rights based and victim-centred approach,” the UN special
rapporteurs on human trafficking and modern slavery warned, India “risks
further harming already vulnerable individuals.”
India’s sex
trade
According
to the Indian government, 4,980 victims of sex trafficking were rescued in the
country in 2016.
Sex
workers in India oppose the bill that’s ostensibly meant to protect them,
saying it inaccurately conflates human trafficking with consensual sex work. Read
More
Comments
Post a Comment