In February, a Bench of Justices Markandey Katju and Gyan Sudha Misra directed the Centre and all States to prepare a rehabilitation scheme and sought their response. At the resumed hearing on Tuesday, the Bench was informed that the Centre and certain States were yet to file their response.
In its order, the Bench said: “To get rehabilitation done and implemented properly, it is necessary to carry out a survey for ascertaining how many sex workers want rehabilitation, and to find out a mechanism for rehabilitation. The States, the Union Territories and the Union of India will carry out this survey through their agencies.”
The Bench appointed a committee comprising senior counsel Pradip Ghosh, who will be its chairman; senior counsel Jayant Bhushan; the Usha Multipurpose Co-operative Society, which runs a microcredit programme for sex workers; the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, a forum of sex workers and their children; and the Roshni Academy, New Delhi, through its founder Saima Hasan, to render assistance to the court in giving suitable directions.
The committee would go into aspects of prevention of trafficking and rehabilitation of sex workers who wish to leave the work, and creation of conditions conducive to others who wish to continue as sex workers with dignity.
The Bench asked all the States, the Union Territories and the Union of India to co-operate with the committee.
“We may reiterate that this exercise has been done by us because the word, ‘life,’ in Article 21 of the Constitution has been interpreted in several decisions of this court to mean a right to ‘life with dignity.’ It is only if a sex worker is able to earn a livelihood through technical skills rather than by selling her body that she can live with dignity, and that is why we have requested all the States and the Union of India to submit schemes for giving technical training to these sex workers.” The matter is listed for further hearing on August 2.