OTHERS

OTHERS

HATE CRIMES

Hate crime is a crime, typically involving violence, that is motivated by prejudice on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation, or other grounds. It targets a victim because of their membership to a certain social group or race.

Hate Crime

Recent incidents of Hate Crime

• Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the violence against people of Asian origin significantly increased on the background of accusation of spreading the virus.
• Anti-Sikh crimes in USA – Sikh men shot in New York [April 2022]
• “Bulli Bai” app which reportedly featured a humiliating mock auction of more than a hundred Muslim women active in public life.
• “Sulli Deals” was an open-source app which contained photographs and personal information of some 100 Muslim women online.
• Vandalization of a church in Roorkee and a Muslim shrine in Neemuch
• December 2021 saw the now-infamous Haridwar Dharma Sansad, where dozens of Hindutva priests came together to make genocidal calls against Muslims for three days.
• Ethnic cleansing calls in Myanmar against Rohingyas.
• In 1939, Adolf Hitler, delivered a speech to the Reichstag proclaiming the annihilation of ‘European Jewry’ from the earth. Two years later, mass-scale genocide had been committed by Nazis across Europe.

Laws against Hate Crimes

1. Constitutional Obligations
   • Preamble – “fraternity assuring dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the nation” – Dignity of individual and unity and integrity of the nation are linked, one in the form of rights of individuals and other in the form of individual’s obligation to others to ensure unity and integrity of the nation.
   • Article 19(2): While Article 19 (1)(a) avows all citizens freedom of speech and expression, Article 19(2) allows reasonable restrictions on these rights on certain grounds, including public order, morality, decency, or incitement to an offence.
   • Article 21: It encompasses the idea of right to life with dignity which is fundamental right of every person, irrespective of his caste, religion, creed, sex to be accorded dignity.
2. International Obligations
   • Article 20 (2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966: It requires prohibition by law of any advocacy of national, religious or racial hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.
   • Article 4 of the International Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, 1966: It mandates punishing dissemination of ideas based on racial superiority, hatred or incitement to racial discrimination.
   • Article 7 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR): Right to be protected against any form of discrimination and against incitement to discrimination.
   • Rabat Plan of Action [UNHCR]: It requires the member states to focus on relationship between freedom of expression and hate speech and implement legal and non-legal policies that protect freedom of speech and prevent hate speech.
3. Statutory Obligations
   • Indian Penal Code, 1860 – Sections 153A, 153B, 295A, 298, 505 declares that word, spoken or written, that promotes disharmony, hatred, or insults on basis of religion, ethnicity, culture, language, region, caste, community, race etc., is punishable under law.
   • Representation of People’s Act 1951 – Under sections 8, 8A, 123(3), 123(3A) and 125, hate speech is classified as an offence committed during elections into two categories: corrupt practices and electoral offences.
   • Other Laws: UAPA, IT Act 2000

Supreme Court on Hate crimes

1. Pravasi Bhalai Sangathan v. Union of India: Supreme Court connoted hate speech with attempts to delegitimize people solely due to their affiliation with a particular caste, race or religion.
2. Tehseen Poonawalla vs Union of India: Supreme Court passed elaborate directions to deal with mob crimes and lynching.
   • No mob justice: No individual in his own capacity or as a part of the group can take law into his or their hands and deal with a person treating him as guilty.
   • Nodal officer: There will be a nodal officer appointed in each district to prevent incidents of mob lynching and cow vigilantism.
   • Identification: State Governments are required to identify the affected districts where lynching incidents have taken place.
   • FIR: An automatic FIR under Section153A, IPC (promoting enmity between different groups) will be registered against individuals who incite people and spread fake news on social media.
   • Compensation Scheme: The State Governments shall prepare a lynching/mob violence victim compensation scheme under Section 357 A of CrPC.
   • Fast track courts: The cases of lynching/mob violence shall be tried in fast-track Courts in each district – the trial has to be completed within 6 months. 
   • Separate offence: The Court recommended that the Parliament should create a separate offence of lynching which should be duly punished. 
3. Amish Devgan v. Union of India [2020] Supreme Court held that hate speech is a flagrant offence of lynching which should be duly punished. violation of the unity and fraternity of India and impinges upon human dignity, which is an essential element of right to life under Article 21.

Motivation of Hate Crimes 

Sociologists Jack McDevitt and Jack Levin’s 2002 study into the motives for hate crimes found four motives:

1. Thrill-seeking – Perpetrators engage in hate crimes for excitement and drama. While the actual animosity present in such a crime can be quite low, however, 70% of the thrill-seeking crimes studied involved physical attacks.
2. Defensive – Perpetrators believe they are protecting their communities and are triggered by a certain background event. They believe society supports their actions but is afraid to act and thus they believe they have communal assent in their actions.
3. Retaliatory – Perpetrators engage in hate crimes out of a desire for revenge. The “avengers” target members of a group whom they believe committed the original crime, even if the victims had nothing to do with it. Example – Crimes against Sikh community in 1984
4. Mission offenders – Perpetrators engage in hate crimes out of ideological reasons. They consider themselves to be crusaders, often for a religious or racial cause and believe that there is no other way to accomplish their goals.

Causes of Hate crimes

1. Socio-Economic causes
   • Hierarchal structure: Hate-based violence is a systemic rather than an individual response to difference, embedded in a particular social and cultural context with hierarchical social relations.
     • For example: Hates crimes against Dalits in India
   • Expression of marginalization: Hate-based violence is often an expression of the marginalization and stigmatization of racial, national, cultural, gender, sexual identity, or other sub-groups within a society.
     • For example: Crimes against Africans in India, targeting of LGBTQ Community
   • Perception of competition: Perceived competition over jobs, housing and other resources often leads to prejudice.
     • For example: Targeting of refugees
   • Perception of fear: In May 2020, U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said “the pandemic continues to unleash a tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scare-mongering”. The rise in hate crimes targeting Asian communities is global post-pandemic.
2. Other reasons
   • Growth of social media: The globalization of discrimination in the form of hate speech through the internet and social networks is a cause of increase in hate-based violence.
   • Administrative failure: Fear of collusion between those in power and the vulnerable section; delay in law enforcement process, etc.
   • Isolation: Online hate is associated with isolation — a report from the UK charity Ditch the Label found that online hate speech in the United States and the U.K. increased by 38% during lockdowns in the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Impact of Hate Crimes

1. On Individual:
   • Attack on identity: Hate crimes are typically experienced not only as an attack on one’s physical self but also as an attack on one’s identity.
   • Affects dignity of an individual: Dignity “refers to a person’s basic entitlement as a member of a society in good standing, his status as a social equal and as bearer of human rights and constitutional entitlements”. Hate crimes take away the aspect of equality as well as violate constitutional rights.
   • Violates Article 21 of the Constitution: Article 21 encompasses the idea of right to life with dignity. It is the fundamental right of every person, irrespective of his caste, religion, creed, sex to be accorded dignity.
   • Health issues: Exposure to different forms of hate-based violence has been associated with a variety of physical and mental health problems, including PTSD, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, etc.
   • Psychological issue: Survivors of hate-based violence also experience feelings of powerlessness, isolation, guilt, shame, anger, and loss of faith in law enforcement.
   • Fear: There is a persistent fear for one’s own safety and that of their family which may lead to physical and psychological constraints, such as changes in appearance, attempts to construct personal safety measures, damage to self-confidence, etc.
2. On Family:
   • Family Conflict: The burden of fear and personal pain, coupled with the inability to share it, results in impairment in marital and family relations, reduced family cohesion, social dysfunction, and heightened family conflict.
   • Impact on parents: For parents, constant anxiety relating to the safety of their children and a perceived inability to protect them are associated with a sense of powerlessness, anger, shame, and frustration.
3. On Community:
   • Deidentification: For communities who are struggling with hate-based prejudice and discrimination experiences may prove particularly destabilizing.
     • Ex: Latinos who were initially low in ethnic identification deidentified even more strongly with their ethnic group if they read about pervasive prejudice against their group.
   • Segregation from democratic process: Hate crimes often aim at making minorities segregated from the social and participatory democratic processes through psychological insulation.
   • Decreasing feeling of security & safety: Acts of prejudice and discrimination are messages to members of targeted group that they are unwelcome and unsafe in the community, decreasing feelings of safety and security.
   • Lowering of self-esteem: Witnessing discrimination against one’s own group can lead to psychological distress and lower self-esteem.
     • For example: Knowledge of anti-lesbian, gay, and bisexual hate-based violence has negative and negative effects on the psychological and emotional well-being of non-victims in the LGB community.
   • Retaliatory crimes: Chances for retaliatory crimes are greater when a hate crime has been committed. It becomes a spiral and continues.

• For example: The riots in Los Angeles, California, that followed the beating of Rodney King, a black motorist, by a group of White police officers.

1. On Nation
   • Conflicts: Hate crimes are most likely to create or exacerbate tensions between groups, communities, or entire nations and cultures, which can trigger larger community-wide or nation-wide and international racial conflict, civil disturbances, and even riots.
   • Hampers Right to equality: In a polity committed to pluralism, hate speech and crimes cannot conceivably contribute in any legitimate way to democracy and, in fact, repudiates the right to equality.
   • Impacts tolerance level: Loss of dignity and self-worth of the targeted group members contributes to disharmony amongst groups, erodes tolerance and open-mindedness which are a must for multi-cultural society.

Challenges in dealing with Hate Crimes

1. Invisibility: This type of violence is rarely reported or considered a crime, either by the authorities or by the survivors.
   • For example: Data from US statistics from 2014-2017 suggest hate crimes are rising in prevalence; however, the data is thought to be incomplete in part because it is based on voluntary reporting by law enforcement agencies across the US.
2. Lack of information: The actual scope of hate-based speech and crimes has not been comprehensively assessed due to a lack of systematic information and data collection in the legal system.
3. Lack of tracking: An attempt was made in 2017 by Hindustan Times to start a hate tracker to document victims, but it was soon taken down. A similar fate met the Hate Tracker created by online website IndiaSpend.
4. Subjectivity: In absence of an objective standard and definition of hate speech, an element of subjectivity is introduced in the treatment of hate speech.

Initiatives taken to curb Hate crimes

• UN Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech: Its objective is to enhance UN efforts to address root causes and drivers of hate speech; and to enable effective UN responses to the impact of hate speech on societies.
• United Nations World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance, 2001: It was a landmark event that aimed to more accurately estimate the prevalence of hate-based violence and improve the lives of millions of human beings around the world who were survivors of racial discrimination and intolerance.
• Durban Declaration of Programme of Action: It was adopted during the 2001 conference which provided an important new framework to identify and combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.

Way Forward

• Amendment to Indian Penal Code: It proposed inserting Sections 153 C (promoting or attempting to promote acts prejudicial to human dignity) and Section 505 A and Section 509A IPC (word, gesture or act intended to insult member of a particular race) [Bezbaruah Committee 2014 and Viswanathan Committee 2019].

• Specialized legislation: Hate crimes are not defined anywhere in the law. A special legislation dealing with it should be brought by the Parliament.
• Training: Important stakeholders such as law enforcement, first responders, legal and justice system professionals, and health personnel should be trained in culturally responsive methods of responding to hate-based victimization.
• Community Policing: Since hate crimes are a result of societal problems mostly, community policing can give an idea about the disturbance and disruptions before any major event takes place.
• Awareness: Community-based educational and awareness-raising programs outlining impact of experiencing hate-based violence should be developed and implemented in order to increase awareness and to support survivors in
• Research: Research is needed to increase understanding and to test the effectiveness of trauma-informed treatment for the adverse physical and mental health consequences of hate-based violence.
• Role of youth and civil society should be recognized and harnessed to bring about an end to the menace of hate crimes.

Best Practices

• ‘LGBTI safe spots’ [Slovenia]: A project by Slovenia Government which aims to improve awareness and knowledge within law enforcement of hate crimes against LGBTI people, including by training ‘LGBTI liaison officers’, establishing a support system for victims of hate crimes against LGBTI people, etc.
• Click-of cyber violence [Slovenia]: The project aimed to raise awareness; combat gender stereotypes; and prevent, reduce and change attitudes towards cyber violence and harassment against girls and women.
• Sewick [Sweden]: It addresses under-reporting of hate crime. It aims to increase awareness about what a hate crime is; encourage hate crime reporting and improve awareness of available support services; and build trust in the judicial system and confidence in civil society organisations among groups that are exposed to hate crime.

Conclusion

Hatred and hate crime are the most destructive affective phenomenon in the history of human nature. Hate is a bit like debt, it can start very small but it can compound quite quickly, and it does similar things to us that debt does. It takes away more than we think. Sometimes it’s that same disempowerment that fuels it further. It can spiral and that’s always a challenge. From a wider perspective, how do we manage that? And therefore, it needs to be controlled timely.

ONLINE GAMING

Importance

1. Revenue Generation: The Indian gaming industry is generating $1.5 billion in revenue and is expected to triple to over $5 billion by 2025.
2. Youth led industry: The gaming industry is largely driven by the youth in both consumers and creators thus utilising the demographic dividend.
3. Employment: The industry’s growth indicates that a good number of employment can also be created.
   • Example: The sector directly or indirectly employs 3,000-4,000 people and generated advertising revenues of 2,500 million rupees (US$ 33 million) in May 2019
4. Digital Penetration: The growth of the gaming industry is directly linked to the growth of the digital penetration in India, thus it can act as a driver of digital and internet penetration in India.
5. FDI: High growth rates have and will attract FDI in the sector in 2019 alone $200 million was recorded as FDI in the sector.
6. Content Creators: Gaming’s explosive rise has contributed to the growth of the individual content creator industry. YouTube gaming has reached over 100 million users in India, opening up a new revenue stream. According to this estimate, streamers earn approximately $1 million per year.
7. Better Education: Educational online games can help children to learn different things, cultures etc. through greater engagement (concentration) and motivation.
8. Digital Socialisation: Video games can promote teamwork and social engagement with other players, making it a modern form of socialization for kids and young adults.

Challenges

1. Health
   • Mental Health: It has been seen that excessive gaming can lead to social exclusion and thus impact the mental health of the youth.
   • Eye Strain: It puts a strain on the eyes especially through continuous gaming for many hours and can lead to issues in eyesight.
   • Sleep Issues and Obesity: The lack of sleep and exercise cause insomnia and obesity which in turn lead to heart and other diseases.
   • Example: One of the most well-known professional Chinese gamers, Jian Zihao, has recently quit video games due to his diagnosis of type 2 diabetes and other health-related problems from a fatty diet and lack of exercise.
   • Poor Emotional regulation: Studies show that excessive gaming can lead to poor emotional regulation. Poor emotional regulation contributes to mood problems such as anxiety, depression, and aggression.

1. Social
   • Social Anxiety: A study found that playing video games for more than 2 hours daily significantly increased the risk of depressive symptoms in gamers. Due to a lack of real-world interaction.
   • Addiction: WHO has described “Gaming disorder” as recurrent video game playing that leads to “impaired control over gaming” and an “increasing priority given to gaming to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other life interests and daily activities.
   • Poor Educational Performance: Easy access to online games, particularly among children, can interfere with the school and educational performance of children due to time constraints.
   • Legal Issues: Betting and gambling rules may not be understood properly and create legal issues for the youth.
   • Sexual Harassment: Youth children can be faced with sexual harassment from predators, especially in games with multiplayer and interactive modes.
2. Others
   • Piracy: Globally, India has the highest number of pirated games. Video game publishers hadn’t recognized India as a challenging market before India’s game industry boomed. Since international game companies had little control in India, pirated, secondhand, and knockoff arcade games spread.
   • Hidden Fees: Some online games use the “freemium” model, which means they give us some content for free, however, for full game features, functions and access payment is required. In most of these cases, the games require users to attach a credit card to their gaming profile. Their card is automatically charged whenever users purchase new items or service.
   • Malware: Malware such as adware and Trojans may modify a legitimate app and upload the malicious version to Google Play or another legitimate marketplace thus infecting our devices.

Government Initiatives

• India banned PUBG Mobile under the Information Technology (IT) Act Section 69A in 2020.
• Following a military stand-off between China and India in Galwan Valley in September 2020, the Indian government banned PUBG Mobile, PUBG Mobile Lite, and over 100 other Chinese applications.
• AVGC Centre for Excellence and Collaboration with IIT Bombay was established.
• Gaming can also accept 100% foreign direct investment (FDI).
• An industry consultation program was held by the NITI Aayog on September 14, 2020, to facilitate sound governance, growth, and innovation.
• Gaming has also benefited from India’s flagship program, Digital India.

Way Forward

• Mainstreaming: Online courses and employment streams must be explored and integrated with the gaming sector, this can help in both utilising the talent and also diversifying the educational sector.
• Parent Awareness: Parents need to be made aware of all the tools and means how to seek help for children addicted to gaming.

• Support Communities: Game Quitters is an educational resource, support community, and advocacy organization for those who want to quit playing video games or learn healthier gaming habits.
• Gaming Parlours: Regulated gaming parlours can help access gaming and at the same time keep them free from gaming when at home.
• Digital Village scheme: The Indian government aims to increase smartphone penetration and Internet usage in rural areas.
• Enhance employment opportunities: To enhance the employment opportunities for students in online gaming and toys, the Union Ministry of Education is developing policies. Students from India were encouraged to showcase their online gaming skills at Smart India Hackathon.
• Infrastructure: The country’s data centre parks and other initiatives aim to provide gaming companies with digital infrastructure.

SEX WORK AS A PROFESSION

The Supreme Court recently observed that “sex work is a profession” like any other, and sex workers should not be harassed by the police.

Highlights of the Judgment

• Bar Police Interference: Supreme Court has directed that police should neither interfere nor take criminal action against adult and consenting sex workers.
• Article 21: The Supreme Court upheld Article 21 saying every individual in this country has a right to a dignified life under Article 21 of the Constitution.
• Concept of Consent: When it is clear that the sex worker is an adult and is participating with consent, the police must refrain from interfering or taking any criminal action.
• Protection from Arrest: The Bench ordered that sex workers should not be “arrested or penalised or harassed or victimised.”
• Legal Support: Sex workers who are victims of sexual assault should be provided every facility including immediate medico-legal care.
• Protection of Identities: The court instructed the media to take “not to reveal the identities of sex workers, during arrest, raid and rescue operations, or telecast any photos that would result in disclosure of such identities.”
• Child Rights: A child of a sex worker should not be separated from the mother merely on the ground that she is in the sex trade. Further, if a minor is found living in a brothel or with sex workers, it should not be presumed that the child was trafficked.

Associated Laws/Judgements

1. IPC: Section 372 and 373 of the Indian Penal Code 1860 deal with the exploitation and employment of minors and children in any form of sex work.
   • Though under sections 366A, 366B, and 370A of the IPC deals with punishing for offences of procreation of minor girl, importation of girl from foreign for sex and exploitation of trafficked person respectively.
2. The Immoral Trafficking Act (1956): As per Section 2(f) of The Immoral Trafficking Act (1956) gives the definition of “prostitution” as sexual exploitation or misuse of any persons for any business purpose.
3. Judicial Verdicts
   • In Budhadev Karmaskar vs the state of West Bengal, the Supreme Court ruled on February 2011 that sex workers have a right to dignity.
   • In August 2019, the Calcutta High Court stated that no sex worker exploited for commercial sex can be tried as an accused unless there is substantial evidence that she was a “co-conspirator” in the crime.
   • In Kajal Mukesh Singh vs State of Maharashtra (2021), the Bombay High Court said “Prostitution is not an offence, a woman has a right to choose her vocation”.
   • In Manoj Shaw vs the State of West Bengal (2003), the Calcutta High Court observed that sex workers should be treated as victims of crime rather than the accused.
   • Justice Verma Commission: The Justice Verma Commission also acknowledged that there is a distinction between women who are trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation and adult, consenting women who are in sex work of their own volition.

Significance

1. At Personal Level
   • Rights of the Sex Workers: The judgement helps uphold the rights of the sex workers in filing police complaints, preventing arbitrary arrests and general extension of their Fundamental Rights.
   • Human Dignity: By cautioning the police to not interfere in the activities of consenting workers, the court has upheld the dignity of sex workers from police abuse.
   • Medical Aid: The court-mandated medical aid to victims, also helps bring the sex workers to access medical care which is many times denied to them.
   • Children’s Rights: The right of the child to be with his/her mother has also been upheld as also as the rights against trafficking also.
   • Removal of Guilt: Previously, there was a presumption of guilt upon all sex workers, but the court’s verdict has removed it and empowered them.
   • Promotes Safe Working Conditions: Decriminalization makes possible the creation of workplace health and safety regulations that are relevant to the sex industry.
   • Better health Monitoring: Regulated health screenings for sex workers will help to prevent sexually transmitted illnesses, including AIDS, which is all too frequent among sex workers.
2. Legal Level
   • Identifies the real crime: It has also identified that the real crime is the maintenance of a brothel and thus sex workers employed within it are not criminals.
   • Crime Reporting: It will aid sex workers to report genuine cases of trafficking and rape to the police stations.
   • Police Abuse And Violence: Where sex work is criminalized, police wield power over sex workers. Police threaten sex workers with arrests, public humiliation, and extortion.
   • Decriminalised Life: In many countries, the harsh and biased application of criminal law ensures that a large proportion of sex workers will have criminal records. Criminal records are often a source of stigma, and can drastically limit one’s future.
   • Rationalises Laws: Decriminalization of sex work recognizes the right of all people to privacy and freedom from undue state control over sex and sexual expression.
   • Mainstreaming the industry: India’s prostitution industry is estimated to be worth $8.4 billion. The government will be enticed to legalise and tax the process if it is made legal and taxed.

Ethical Issues

• May give rise to more sex workers: The verdict may cause an increase in the number of voluntary sex workers in the country.
• Increased Trafficking: As sex work has been upheld, it may incentivise criminal networks to increase human trafficking.
• Unemployment-Prostitution Nexus: With high rates of employment and legal prostitution, it may cause many unemployed women and even men to become voluntary sex workers.
• Health Issues: Lack of safe sex practices and poor measures to ensure can lead to a rise in STI transmission rates in society.
• Right to Profession: The constitution upholds the right to profession however not when it may seek to cause person health issues, abuse and impact society in a poor way.
• Increase cases of Abuse: As sex workers are the most marginalised sexual victims, they may be susceptible to more such abuse.
• Reduce Police oversight: With the police caution in dealing with such cases, they may not find it as a priority to ensure the safety of sex workers.
• Societal Acceptance: Although the court has upheld the rights, it has not directed any action to increase societal acceptance.

Government Initiatives

1. Ujjawala: The Ministry of Women and Child Development is implementing “Ujjawala” – a Comprehensive Scheme for Prevention of Trafficking and Rescue, Rehabilitation, Re-integration and Repatriation of Victims of Trafficking for Commercial Sexual Exploitation.
   • Data: As of date, 273 projects including 151 Protective and Rehabilitative Homes have been supported under the Scheme.
2. Other Ministry of Women and Child Schemes:
   • The Rajiv Gandhi National Crèche Scheme for children of working mothers provided daycare facilities to children (age group 0-6 years) of working mothers belonging to families whose monthly income is not more than Rs.12,000/-.
   • The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme provides a package of six services viz. supplementary nutrition, immunization, referral services, health check-up, pre-school education and health and nutrition education to children below six years of age and Pregnant & Lactating Mothers, irrespective of their economic status.
3. State Initiative:
   • Maharashtra: The Maharashtra government has decided to provide financial aid of Rs. 5,000 per month from October to sex workers with identity cards.
   • West Bengal: The proposal of promulgation of Muktir Alo – a comprehensive Scheme for rehabilitation of sex workers and victims of sex trafficking in West Bengal.

1. Legislative Attempts
   • Sex Workers Welfare Bill 2016: To provide for welfare and rehabilitation of sex workers and their families and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.
   • Anti-Trafficking Bill 2021: The objective of the bill is “to prevent and counter-trafficking in persons, especially women and children, to provide for care, protection, and rehabilitation to the victims, while respecting their rights, and creating a supportive legal, economic and social environment for them.”

Way Forward

• Rehabilitation: There is a need to rehabilitate the victims of sexual abuse and trauma within the sex worker industry.
• Link with Society: Society is needed to aid in the rehabilitation of such sex workers who have been abused.
• Labour Rights: It is time we rethink sex work from a labour perspective, where we recognize their work and guarantee them basic labour rights.
• Legislative Changes: There must be changes in legal acts to reflect the courts’ judgements.
• Medical Care: Sex Workers need to be medically diagnosed at fixed intervals to detect any cases of HIV and other STI outbreaks.
• Police Training: There is a need for police sensitisation in such cases so that they do not treat even the victims as criminals.

Best Practices

• Germany: Prostitution is legalised and there are proper state-run brothels. The workers are provided with health insurance, have to pay taxes, and they even receive social benefits like pensions.
• New Zealand: Prostitution has been legal since 2003. There are even licensed brothels operating under public health and employment laws, and they get all the social benefits.
• Greece: The sex workers get equal rights and have to go for health checkups as well.
• Canada: Prostitution in Canada is legal with strict regulations.
• France: Prostitution is legal in France, though soliciting in public is still not allowed.