Click to play videoNew Delhi: A Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resource Development (HRD) wants pimps, and not the prostitutes, to be given out severe punishment.
The Committee has asked the Women and Child Development Ministry that the punishment should be seven years in case of trafficking of women and 10 years if children are being pushed into the flesh trade.
However, this is only when the offence is committed for the first time. For subsequent offences, the jail term could even be life imprisonment.
But the Committee has also found loopholes in the Immoral Traffic Prevention Amendment Bill prepared by the Women and Child development department. Even the Ministry has admitted that on the basis of the Bill, a distinction can not be made between a person forced into the trade and a person who has voluntarily taken up the profession.
The Bill also does not clearly define the term sexual exploitation and therefore it could lead to harassment of any person who visits a brothel irrespective of the object of the visit.
The Government's proposal to lower the rank of police officers authorised to conduct anti-trafficking operations from inspector to sub-inspector has also been turned down.
In the end, the Committee has considered this attempt by the Government as a halfhearted measure as cross-border trafficking has been left untouched.
(With Nilanjana Bose)
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