Shefali Das, a commercial sex worker in India, hopes that legalization will also bring safer working conditions for women in the trade, including protections against harassment from clients and law enforcement officers. Credit: Sujoy Dhar/IPS

By Sujoy Dhar
NEW DELHI, Jun 8 2015 (IPS)

Although forced prostitution and trafficking of women remains a huge challenge in India, health experts, policy-makers and legal advocates say that most of the country’s estimated four million commercial sex workers join the trade of their own free will.

While finding alternative employment and providing economic and social safety nets to poor women as a means of diverting them away from the sex trade, advocates say that a more important step is legalizing the industry as a first step to making it a safer, healthier occupation.

India’s Four Million Sex Workers Demand Equal Labour Rights from IPS News on Vimeo.