4.4.2 Law enforcement practices Police conduct Nationally, the police charge sex workers more frequently using ITPA than the sex work provisions of the Indian Penal Code.148 Police raids are frequently reported in red-light areas. Raids are ostensibly conducted to rescue minors. Incidents of police violence against sex workers have occurred in the context of raids. Large communities of sex workers were forcibly evicted from their homes in 2002 and 2004 in Nippani, Karnataka in 2002, and Baina, Goa in 2004, and police targeted the hijra community in Bangalore in 2008.149 In Goa, efforts to introduce risk reduction practices among sex workers were interrupted after the red-light area was demolished. According to the Lawyers Collective, for several months after the raid “displaced sex workers were seen soliciting on the streets for survival, at the cost of condoms and HIV protection”.150 Police use threats of prosecution under ITPA and local regulations to harass sex workers. Anecdotal evidence from Gujarat indicates that the police have used powers under ITPA and the Gujarat Prevention of Anti-social Activities Act, 1985 to harass sex workers, raid brothels and commit violent abuses of sex workers.151 According to the Lawyers Collective: Arbitrary police raids, seizure of money and material belongings, extortion, physical assault, torture and rape by police personnel, all of which are common experiences of sex workers, significantly impact HIV prevention efforts…When sex workers are forced to negotiate their livelihoods in conditions of fear, insecurity and exploitation, health and HIV/AIDS concerns become low priorities. Penal sanctions also breed corruption within the law enforcement system, making persons vulnerable to extortion and harassment from law enforcement agencies…the criminality associated with soliciting diminishes the ability of the sex worker to negotiate the terms of services, including rates and condom use.152 According to Project Parivartan: Upon rescue, rehabilitation, and reintegration, women are further subject to human rights abuses: some are rescued even if they do not want to leave prostitution; rehabilitation homes are more like prisons, and women are abused, denied legal rights, and not allowed to leave without a parent (or madam) to take them away, whether or not the rescued are adults; finally, women are sometimes repatriated against their will, as they find a livelihood in sex work that they would not find at home.153 A study conducted in Tirupati and Kolkata found that sex workers complained far less about customers than police harassment.
148 Kotiswaran (2011), op cit., pp.124-125. 149 Rao S., Sluggett, C. (2009), op cit; and see: Human Rights Watch, Stop ‘social cleansing’ in Bangalore, news release, 18 November 2008. 150 Bose A., Bhardwaj K. (2008), Marginalised populations: outside the pale. (published on line: infochangeindia.org) 151 Grover A., Kukke S., Bhardwaj K. eds. (2003) op cit, p.125. 152 Ibid. pp.125-126. 153 Project Parivartan (2006), Sex Work and HIV in India: An Annotated Bibliography, Durham: Duke Global Health Institute, p.6.
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