Padma Shri Sunitha Krishnan condemns SC’s ‘sex work is profession’ order

Sunitha Krishnan, the prominent social activist and Padma Shri recipient, has condemned the recent Supreme Court verdict that sex work is a legal profession. If sex workers are doing consensual sex with their clients, there is no case for the police to interfere, the SC said.

The activist has stated in her blog that the distinction between voluntary and forced sexual activity can’t be established easily by police and other agencies in most cases. Victims of trafficking tend to hide the truth due to the intimidatory environment in which they are trapped.

“It is not very uncommon that the combined forces of social stigma and criminal intimidation coerces most victims to normalize the exploitation and they are easily tutored to say that they are doing it voluntarily or by their free choice,” Krishnan wrote in her blog.

She further added, “When the Supreme Court directs that all Protective Homes should be checked and all adult women should be released, it indicates the myopic perspective that only minor girls are trafficked and adult women do it voluntarily.”

Krishnan is a co-founder of Prajwala, an NGO that rescues, rehabilitates and reintegrates sex-trafficked victims.