NEW DELHI: An overwhelming majority of prostitutes in the country come from six states. There are 70000 to one lakh prostitutes and 86% of them come from Andhur Pradesh Tamil Nadu Kamataka Maharashtra West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh according to a status report of the Central Advisory Committee constituted by the Human Resource Development Ministry to study the problems of the oldest professor afresh
While the six states are the major providers several others are minor contributors: Assam Bihar Gujarat Goa Madhya Pradesh Kerala Meghalaya Orissa Pondicherry Rajasthan and Delhi supply a marginal share of sex workers.
The report is quite categorical that the remaining states-particularly Punjab which has no beggars cither-do not seem to be contributing at all to the proliferating population of prostitutes.
The report presents an interesting profile of prostitution in the country. For instance the Ministry’s survey has found that nearly 30% of the prostitutes are below 20 years of age between 21-30 years. There is a sharp decline after 30 and 18% of the prostitutes belong to the
of 31 to 35 only 12% prostitutes are 35 years and above are MS es The status reports states that the average age of a stepping into the flesh trade is 18. Most of the professionals lose their appeal by the time they reach 35 and become either brothel owners or-which» is Worse-initiate their daughters into the trade. The surveyors also found that several of the prostitutes had ambivalent feelings about their daughters stepping into their shoes. Contrary to popular opinion the survey has also found that 43% of the sex practitioners did not want to leave their trade and had actually come to like it. While some liked to sell sex for its own sake others did not want to leave the profession either because of economic reasons or because of stigma they had come to acquire.
Article extracted from this publication >> July 1, 1994
