NGO demands debate on amendments to ITPA

New Delhi, July 12 (UNI) Opposing the proposed amendments to the Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act (ITPA), a city-based NGO today urged Minister of State for Women and Child Development Renuka Choudhary to hold consultations with groups concerned before tabling the bill in Parliament.

The Bhartiya Patita Uddhar Sabha demanded the draft Act be circulated to organisations concerned, NGOs and National Commission for Woman for debate.

''Views of the groups concerned must be sought so that spread of AIDS can be checked and safeguard the rights of sex workers,'' it added.

Sabha President Khairati Lal Bhoia said Section 8 of the Act which allows police to book a sex worker on charges of soliciting a customer and Section 20 which relates to removal of a sex worker from ''any place'' be removed.

He also opposed insertion of Section 5C which would, for the first time, allow action against a client visiting or found in a brothel.

''On the one hand the government is removing the much-misused Section 8 and on the other it will introduce Section 5C. This will encourage unsafe sex as clients will visit those areas where they are unlikely to be caught,'' he added.

Mr Bhoia said the changes proposed by the Government had given rise to fears among sex workers that they will be deprived of their livelihood and police will uproot and harass them.

''The sex workers believe that in the absence of clients, their profession will come to a standstill.... They and their children will die of hunger,'' he added.

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