Delin king Prostitution A Look at ndia's mmora RAJALAKSHMI La .Loi sur la protection du trafic the largest number of trafficked vic- immoral w. en Indes manque de ckzrth tims come from Asia, with over h n s son concept en kzissant entendre 225,000 victims each year from One of the main conceptual problems in the Act is the misplaced moralistic criminalization of prostitutes at the cost of dealing adequately with the issue of trafficking itself. que le trafic sexuel est dzfftrent de la prostitution. L 'auteure dit que la Cour a pris une attitude moraliste envers h prostitution et le trafic et a occult/ fes kltments d'exploitation auxquels fes femmes dans cessituationsdoiventfaire face. The Immoral Traffic Prevention Act (ITPA), 1956, is the specialized leg- islation dealing with trafficking in India, a country that receives, sup- plies, and transitsnumerous trafficked individuals. In spite of a few amend- ments to the legislation in 1986 it remains an ineffective and ideologi- cally unsound piece of legislation to deal with trafficking.' It suffers pri- marily from a lack of conceptual clar- ity on the issue of trafficking, which has led to injustice being rendered to many trafficked victims. One of the main conceptual problems in the Act, which will be discussed in this paper, . - is the misplaced moralistic criminal- ization of prostitutes at the cost of dealing adequately with the issue of trafficking itself. It is extremely difficult to arrive at the number ofindividuals being traf- ficked in, to, or from India due to rhe secretive and sensitive nature of the subject. The U.S. has reported that SoutheastAsiaandover 150,000from South Asia (Congressional Research Service). The United Nations (UN) reported in 2002 that up to 700,000 children were trafficked in Asia each year and of them about 100,000 in India (cited in Vetticattil and Krishnan). According to another re- port there are an estimated 2.3 mil- lionwomen in prostitution, ofwhich a quarter are minors. There are over 1,000 red-light districts all over In- dia, where cage prostitutes are mostly minors often from Nepal and Bang- ladesh (CATW-Asia Pacific).Several studies in India have also pointed out the extreme magnitude of the prob- lem and its impact specifically on women and children. Significant among these are a study by Rita Rozario on trafficking in women and children in India in 1998, a study on the implementation of trafficking laws and prostitution from 1980-87 by Jean D'Cunha, and studies car- ried out by non-governmental or- ganizations (NGOs) such as Sanlapp (Calcutta), Prajwala (Andhra Pradesh) (see Vetticatil and Krish- nan), the Joint Women's Program (Delhi, Karnataka) (see Shalini and Lalitha), Bailancho Saad (Goa) and others. India is said to have adopted a tolerant approach to prostitution whereby an individual is free to carry on prostitution provided it is not an organized and a commercializedvice. However, it commits itselfto oppos- ing trafficking as enshrined in Article 23 of the Constitution which pro- hibits trafficking in human beings. India is also a signatory to interna- tional conventions such as the Con- vention on Rights of the Child (1989), Convention on Elimination ofall forms ofDisctimination Against Women (1979), UN Protocol to Pre- vent, Suppress and Punish Traffick- ing in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000) and the latest SouthAsian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Convention on Preventing and Combating Traf- ficking in Women and Children for Prostitution (2002). The ITPA, en- acted following the 1950 Conven- tion for the Suppression of the Traf- fic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others in New York, criminalizes the keeping of brothels (Sec. 3, ITPA 4), living on the earnings of prostitution (Sec. 4, ITPA 6), procuring and inducing a person for the sake of prostitution (Sec. 5, ITPA 6) and detaining a person in premises where prostitu- tion is carried on (Sec. 6, ITPA 7). However there are other sections where the Act criminalizes prosti- tutes thereby diffusing the focus on the exploitativeelements ofthe proc- ess and the violations suffered by the trafficked women. Criminalizing the act of prostiru- tion in the Immoral Traffic Preven- tion Act begins in Sec. 7 where pros- titution in or in vicinity of public places is punishable. Here the law is 110 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIEStLES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME