Prostitution and the law: India
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Kaustubh Nandan Sinha, Legal Service India
The Devadasis are illegal
A Devadasi is a servant (dasi, feminine) of one or more deity (dev). Goddess Yellamma is the best-known of these deities. She is worshipped mainly in ten districts of north Karnataka, 14 districts of Andhra Pradesh and the adjacent districts of Maharashtra.
By the early 20th century—indeed, much before it—the Devadasi system had degraded into prostitution with a veneer of religious sanction. The Bombay Devadasi Protection Act, 1934, banned this practice. This law was followed by the Madras Devadasis (Prevention of Dedication) Act (later, the Tamil Nadu Devadasis (Prevention of Dedication) Act), the Bombay Protection (Extension) Act, 1957, and the Andhra Pradesh Devadasi (Prohibition of Dedication) Act, 1988. The Government of Karnataka declared the system illegal in 1982.
Is prostitution legal or illegal?
Lawyer Kaustubh Nandan Sinha writes: The Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act, 1956 ("ITPA"), the main statute dealing with sex work in India, does not criminalise prostitution or prostitutes per se, but mostly punishes acts by third parties facilitating prostitution like brothel keeping, living off earnings and procuring, even where sex work is not coerced.
Definitions
Brothel
According to the Act a brothel is any house, part of a house, room or place in which two or more females carry on prostitution, or in which any girl under the age of eighteen years [unless such girl is the daughter of an inmate of such house or place] is kept with intent that she shall at any age be employed or used for any immoral purpose.
Prostitute
According to the Act:
a prostitute is any female available for the purpose of prostitution [male prostitutes are not covered];
and prostitution is promiscuous sexual inter course for hire, whether in money or kind
Public places
According to the Act:
a public place includes the site of any haat [market place], bazar or mela [fair]], the banks of any river and any docks, jetties and warehouses to which the public have access, [all] public buildings, gardens, monuments, [all] places of public amusement, [all] places of public entertainment and [all] places accessible to the public for drawing water, washing or bathing, or for purposes of recreation.
The word place of public entertainment include any place to which the public is admitted, and where any kind of food or drink is supplied for consumption on the premises for the profit or gain of any person owning or having an interest in or managing such place and includes a refreshment-room, eating-house, coffee-house, liquor-house, boarding-house, lodging-house, hotel, tea-shop, tavern and a wine, beer, spirit, arrack, toddy, ganja, bhang or opium shop.
