Page 117 - KDU Law Journal Volume 4 Issue 2
P. 117

KDU Law Journal                                  Volume 04 Issue II
                                                               September, 2024
              120 sex workforces now give 350,000 condoms to 5,000 women who
              work in gender in six regions in deuce conditions. More than ten years
              later, it has grown to be one of India’s most popular peer education
              programs for condom use. 24

              SANGRAM  launched  a district-level  HIV/AIDS intervention
              program for the rural population in 1997. The project now spans
              eight tehsils and 713 villages in the Sangli district. In the tehsils,
              there are nine centres run by trained Social Workers. The district
              has ten rural hospitals and 59 primary health centres. Ten workers
              are assigned to the rural hospitals and 53 women managers are
              allocated  to the Public Health Clinics.  Sangli is the only civil
              hospital in the district, and a counsellor is stationed there.  The
              VAMP knowledge has improved the living  circumstances of
              sex workforces in the Sangli Region. It has contributed to the
              formation  of  a  unified  identity,  which  has  led  VAMP  members
              to make their personal stresses on a nationwide and home-grown
              level. Additionally, there are a few unintended  advantages  that
              result  from  SANGRAM’s  efforts  as  activists,  VAMP  members
              and, sex workers have developed broader identities for themselves.
              This, in turn, has resulted in ordinary sex workers challenging the
              rude experts of the dames and afterthought pimps within the sex
              workers’ community itself.
              Rights of Sex Workers in India
              Prostitution  in India  is legally  recognized  but  subject  to certain
              restrictions.  The  Indian  constitution  outlines  specific  offences
              related  to prostitution  that  are punishable  by law, including  the
              operation of brothels, solicitation, trading, and pimping under the
              ITPA, despite  prostitution  not  being  entirely  outlawed. The  law
              categorizes  a brothel as any place used for sexual exploitation
              or  abuse  for  commercial  purposes  and  defines  prostitution  as


              24  Kabra, H., “HIV and the Hive of Security”, <http://www.outlookindia.comjad.asp?fodnaj=12
              0040719&fnaj =lMaking&sidequal1.htm> accessed on 05 March 2023
               law.faculty@kdu.ac.lk
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