Himalayan News Service

Kolkata, March 15:

In staid Kolkata, prostitution is set to be recognised as a trade by the city mayor in a move that is fraught with political and social consequences.

Mayor Subrata Mukherjee has said he would grant trade licences to about 16,000 sex workers and their family members living in Sonagachi, one of Asia’s biggest brothels in the city’s north.

“I don’t want to know who is into what trade or whether it’s right or wrong. That the government will decide. I only know if you are trading, then you must have a licence,” Mukherjee has argued.

He said he had decided to ask sex workers to get trade licences subject to the fulfilment of some conditions.

Prostitution is considered a crime in India that can fetch an offender up to one year in prison and a fine.

But, political observes say, Mukherjee is throwing the law to the winds due to political considerations.

Mukherjee will be contesting from the Kolkata North-west constituency on the Nationalist Trinamool Congress (NTC) ticket.

The brothel at Sonagachi falls under Mukherjee’s constituency and its sex workers have long been demanding an industrial worker’s status for prostitutes.

Political analysts feel Mukherjee could benefit politically from making the announcement to grant trade licences to sex workers.

Again, Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee’s constituency — South Kolkata — has two large pockets of sex workers whose numbers run into several hundreds.

Mukherjee said certain conditions would apply for granting of licences to those in the flesh trade.

Licences would be given to only brothel-based sex workers and they would have to pass health tests.

The licences would be renewed only if holders pass the medical tests every three months. The mayor has avoided dealing with the question of legality of his action because

it would ostensibly flout existing laws.

“I believe in the right to work and it holds good in this case sex work too,” said Mukherjee, himself a trade union leader.

However, the actual exercise of distributing ‘flesh-trade’ licences will begin after the state’s May 10 parliamentary election because such an action now would amount to violation of the poll code of conduct.

State election officials are examining if Mukherjee’s announcement of an intended action could influence voters.

An umbrella organisation of sex workers operating out of Sonagachi has welcomed the mayor’s move.