New Delhi: Taking a tough stance on immoral trafficking, the Centre has decided to amend the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act, 1956.
The Centre wants to make it more stringent for traffickers and brothel keepers to prevent trafficking and sale of girls for sexual exploitation.
Informing the Rajya Sabha about this, Minister of State for Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdhury further said that the Government has also drawn up Plan of Action to combat trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation of women and children.
“The Plan of Action consists of action points such as Prevention of Trafficking and Awareness Generation etc. The State governments have been requested to implement the Plan,” Chowdhury said.
According to official sources, following the amendments, Sections 8 and 20 of the existing law may not feature anymore in it.
Section 8 provides for punishment for those seducing or soliciting for the purpose of prostitution while Section 20 relates to removal of a commercial sex worker from any place.
However, experts feel that the proposed amendments, which are aimed more at avoiding sanctions by the US than combating human trafficking, may have some serious impact on the livelihoods of about 10.5 million commercial sex workers in the country.
The Centre’s decision to amend the law had come in the wake of a decision by the US State Department to include India among 33 countries in a tier II watch list for evaluating the efforts made by these countries to curb human trafficking.
In an interim report released in February, the US State Department had warned that sanctions might be imposed on India if it slips to tier III status as the country in curbing trafficking made only ‘limited progress’.
Earlier, the Central Social Welfare Board had listed Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh as the high-supply zones of women in prostitution.
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