Before I begin I need to talk about an episode of Crime Patrol Dastak on SET India that showed how a mother forced her two daughters into prostitution.

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Story in brief

A family of very poor parents tries hard to sustain their life with four daughters. The father, Raghu needed to struggle to get a new job every day and slowly the daughters had to drop out of their schools. In the trying times of the family the mother in the family, Mala leaves everyone behind and started living with another man. A social worker, Fauzia Parveen found that out and admitted the two elder daughters to a school where they were staying in a hostel and studying. That school admitted only girls above ten years of age and hence other sisters being younger did not get admission. Fauzia however, promised to admit other sisters to the same school when they became older to 10 years of age.

But one day Raghu came to the school and took away the elder daughter Kiran saying that she needed to take care of the youngest child Pooja as there was no one else at home to take care of her. He instead agreed to admit another daughter Rohini to the school.

Poornima and Rohini continued their education in the same school for two more years. After two years, Kiran came to school in a car before summer vacation to take her sisters home. She had completely changed. Her dress and behaviour created some suspicion in the mind of the Fauzia. Kiran, however, promised that she would bring her sisters back before the school reopened. When they didn’t return in time Fauzia tried calling their relatives and came to know that the sisters were staying with their mother.

Concerned for their education Fauzia called up their mother and requested her to continue their education and promised all help they needed to get their children transferred to a local school. However, when Mala never bothered to collect the school leaving certificate for them Fauzia became concerned and went to their home. She was told by their neighbours that Raghu was taken into custody for some crime and other daughters were staying with their mother Mala.

After one month Fauzia gets a call from Poornima pleading to rescue her. Poornima was forcefully confined in a house from where she was forced into prostitution.  Initially, Fauzia tried hard to rescue her with the help of police and CID. But Poornima was running out of time. Sensing grave danger for Poornima, Fauzia decided to act on her own and rescued her without the help of police and CID.

When they were with police the complete story was revealed. To get custody of her children Mala had initially filed a false sexual assault case on their elder daughter Kiran by her husband Raghu and sent him to jail. She won custody of her children and sold them one by one to a prostitution racket. Police eventually arrested the kingpins of the prostitution racket including the mother Mala.

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This episode ended with the channel giving an opinion that how Mala was forced to sell her daughter into prostitution due to poverty. The channel blamed poverty for the fate of these children. In a way, the channel tried to save the mother saying she was FORCED by poverty to do what she had done. It was also shown that in-spite of Rohini saying that her father was a very good and caring father and he had never done anything wrong with them the father was still not released from jail.

It is shameful to note how the mainstream media tries to justify a crime committed by a woman and never criticize the misuse of laws by a woman. This channel failed to uphold the values of honesty, love, and care and instead tried to justify a criminal woman simply for her gender. This clearly shows the moral degradation and hypocrisy in our mainstream media. The same media would have otherwise blamed all Indian men and raised questions about their moral values if in this case, the father had sold the daughter for money.

Now let’s evaluate this story in light of a recent amendment sought by NCW. Here is the news from the Times of India –

In this case, if prostitution was already legal the cruel mother, in this case, wouldn’t have been punished at all, whereas the father would have still sent to jail for false rape complaint. We understand that our legal system that is already heavily loaded against men in India, is going to further demean men and send them to jail for no fault if such amendments are brought.

It is time to decide whether we are ready to see prostitution as legal in India. This also means that now a wife can openly continue prostitution and her husband will have no legal recourse and still have to pay her maintenance. This will be worse as prostitution being a business will not have any evidence of income. Hence a husband will always be asked to pay such women maintenance no matter whether one is unemployed. Already IPC section 497 and adultery is a big joke in the name of seeking divorce by the husband. Even today women carrying illicit children from their extramarital affairs force their unsuspecting husbands to pay child support and maintenance. They will openly get another legal weapon to extort their innocent husbands if such provisions are passed.

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