Prostitution in India

Prostitution in India

Prostitution in India is almost the same as in the rest of Asia, involving women and child trafficking and catering to the booming sex tourism.


Research shows that most women who enter the trade tend to come from urban slums and poor rural areas. High prostitute supply regions in India include Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh,Tamil Nadu and West Bengal and some very poor North Eastern states.According to a study, over 50% of prostitutes come from across the border from countries,like Nepal and Bangladesh.

Women trafficking and prostitution

In a majority of cases in India, extreme deprivation and lack of education seems to be the cause of prostitution, not sexual and psychological aberrations that these sex workers are branded for.

Major Indian surveys on women and child prostitutes reveal that they were sold or tricked by their relatives or agents working for brothel owners and pimps.The agent who brings the girls sells them as commercial sex workers(CSW) to the brothel owner. Once the deal is struck the girls have to work for the brothel owner to pay off their cost. Though the agent pays a petty sum to buy the girls from their source�be it from parents, husband, boyfriend or siblings, repeated trafficking of such women means a lucrative business for the agents and the brothel owners.

"Breaking in" Rites

The life of a prostitute living in the "red light areas" in India is terribly difficult and painful. The initial "breaking in" rites include savage beatings, rapes, and other forms of psychological and physical torture.

The sooner they get the hang of the trade, the easier for them because life can get much worse with resistance, depending on the conditions of the brothel and the viciousness of the clients, pimps and brothel owners.

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