In support for legalizing prostitution in India
Supreme Court earlier today suggested that prostitution be legalized as a way to better take care of the folks plying the trade and also to reduce its prevalence.
There are two other really good reasons.
The primary reason is that it is a victimless crime, and it should not be a crime to pay for sex, however hollow it may sound. It is someone’s personal decision to pay rather than woo, and in case there is another person who is willing to trade sex for money (there are all kinds of people in the world, and I dont see much wrong with people who might be willing to do that) it becomes a private contract between two people that the state has no business getting into. There is the cause of people who have been forced into prostitution, and legalizing it will actually help them get out of their tormentor’s clutches because they can approach police without the fear of being put into jail themselves.
The second reason is, as a large and flourishing business, it is a great source for service tax. When the central government admits it is not able to prevent it, for whatever flimsy reasons it may have to interfere in people’s lives, there is no reason why the government should not legalize it and get tax revenues from it. Legalizing prostitution and making condoms available at brothels is likely to promote safe sex, and thus reduce AIDS and other STDs that are completely avoidable.
People often confuse the morality and legality of prostitution with rape. Prostitution is a profession, even if it is not the most respectable one. Rape, on the other hand, is obviously forced (by definition) and needs to be met with the strictest punishment. There are people who have been forced into prostitution, but then there are cases of people who have been forced by others or circumstances into many other professions that are neither respectable, nor liked by the people in it.
The argument for prostitution (I have tried to be gender-neutral throughout) holds valid for women, men as well as transgenders who may be engaged in the profession. The argument holds true for heterosexual as well as homosexual prostitutes.
I hope our spineless government is soon forced by the courts to make prostitution. It will probably be the most progressive and empathetic step we would have taken for those in the trade.
