Kerala HC: Person availing services of sex worker in brothel can be prosecuted

A person utilising the services at a brothel cannot be termed a ‘customer’, as a sex worker is not a ‘product’, the bench of justice V.G. Arun said

Kochi: The Kerala high court has ruled that a person availing the services of a sex worker in a brothel can be prosecuted under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956, as he/she is inducing the sex worker to carry on prostitution by paying money.

The investigation revealed that two other accused in the case had procured three women and were inviting interested individuals for the purpose of prostitution. (Representative photo)

A person utilising the services at a brothel cannot be termed a ‘customer’, as a sex worker is not a ‘product’, the bench of justice V.G. Arun said while hearing a petition filed by a man who was charged under Sections 3 (punishment for keeping a brothel), 4 (punishment for living partly/wholly on the earnings of another person’s prostitution), 5(1)(d) (inducing a person to carry on prostitution), and 7 (punishment for prostitution in or near public places) of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956.

The petitioner and a woman were allegedly found without clothes in a house in Kudappanakunnu, within the Peroorkada police station limits, during a police search in March 2021. The investigation revealed that two other accused in the case had procured three women and were inviting interested individuals for the purpose of prostitution.

The petitioner’s counsel argued that he was only a customer at the brothel and could not be charged for inducing prostitution.

“In my view, a person utilising the service of a sex worker at a brothel cannot be termed as a customer. To be a customer, a person should buy some goods or services. A sex worker cannot be denigrated as a product,” the judge noted in his order delivered on July 21 this year.

The payment offered by such a person at a brothel can “only be perceived as an inducement to make the sex worker offer his/her body and act in accordance with the demands of the payer.”

“Thus, a person availing the services of a sex worker at a brothel is actually inducing that sex worker to carry on prostitution by paying money and is therefore liable to be prosecuted for the offence under Section 5(1)(d) of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956. If the inducer is termed as a customer, that would be contrary to the object of the Act, which is intended to prevent human trafficking and not punish the persons compelled to indulge in prostitution,” the order said.

The high court bench allowed the plea in part by quashing the proceedings against the petitioner for offences under Sections 3 and 4 of the Act, and permitting the prosecution to continue for offences under Sections 5(1)(d) and 7 of the Act.