The Call For Determining A Middle Ground Between Paternalism And Autonomy: A Critical Analysis Of The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956
Gayathri Singaraju, School of Law, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bengaluru
ABSTRACT
Human trafficking for sexual exploitation is an offence against the bodily integrity and dignity of thousands of people who are driven into this web each year. Several times, the law regards it as a duty to protect those falling prey to sexual exploitation but while doing so, it fails to identify a middle ground between determining the victimhood of persons and giving due respect to their autonomy in deciding the course of their lives. The absence of such a middle ground has led to several gaps and errors in the overall approach toward tackling the menace of sex trafficking. Through this paper, the author seeks to highlight and analyse some basic conceptual loopholes present in the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956 that hinder the purpose for which the Act was enacted, i.e., to prevent immoral traffic among persons. Through its outdated provisions and presumptions on the nature of trafficking, the Act ignores the human aspect of this crime focusing only on the moralistic elimination of prostitution rather than addressing the issue of the well-being of the victims along with the care and rehabilitation mechanisms so integral to the victim’s life post-rescue. The paper will engage in a systemic, critical analysis of the various provisions of the Act that seek to conflate sex work and trafficking that visibly attribute both guilt and victimhood to the victims. In doing so, the author argues for the creation of a middle ground to address the key issue, namely, the objective standards for determining the subjective experiences of both victims and sex workers.
Keywords: Autonomy, middle ground, prostitution, rehabilitation, sexual exploitation, victimhood.
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