Patna: Harvard and Michigan University-based law professor Catherine MacKinnon, who has extensively worked on sexual harassment and sex trafficking, was in Patna to attend a programme at the Asian Development Research Institu-te. The Telegraph caught up with Catherine.
You have been working on sex trafficking for a long time. You are pretty much aware of the ground realities of sex trade. What measures would you suggest to address the issue?
Criminalisation of buyers in sex trafficking is the need of the hour. The fact is the buyer is the most powerful in the whole prostitution trade, not the people who are trafficked, who are often disempowered on the basis of caste, class, circumstances and religion. The people who are the reason for the entire sex trade are the buyers. They are the ones who put money. If they don't exist, there won't be traffickers or incentive to do it. It's quite a remarkable thing that the very people who are the reason behind the existence of the sex industry are the ones who are, most frequently, not prosecuted at all, and, in most cases, what they do is buy another human being to use sexually and then use that person in a scene which is a human rights violation. That needs to change.
Many a time, in India and, of course, globally people say prostitution is a case of two adults consenting to have sex with transactions. What is your take on that?
The most reliable studies show that people who are in prostitution when asked what they need the most, frequently answer saying they want to leave prostitution but they don't know how. What that means is that they are sex slaves. They are in a condition of prostitution that they can't get out of. They are the people whose human rights have been violated.
Who is the last girl, about whom you have been talking about in your delhi and calcutta consultations?
She is the one who is vulnerable on the basis of her age, her caste, class, sometimes religion, and understood as most vulnerable to sexual exploitation and sex trafficking. The last girl is highly vulnerable to all these inequalities.
What's your take on the recent Supreme Court judgement that says that sex with a child bride amounts to raping her?
Sex with a child bride is considered rape by definition but no amount of force on someone who is 17 years and 366 days old (an adult) is considered rape. Nothing happens on that day when somebody transforms into someone who can be raped, just because she is in marriage. Marital rape is an issue that needs to be discussed further.
You have been coming to India for a decade now and visited red light areas of Bihar and also Sonagachi in Calcutta. Have you witnessed any positive change in these years?
I have explored the abusive conditions in which the people live and how they can't get out of prostitution, but now I am showing them how to do that. They can grow up and exit from it rather than just allow themselves to be used by people. Organisations like Apne Aap have made this possible.
The Kasturba Gandhi Vidyalaya, the boarding school that Apne Aap runs in collaboration with the Bihar government, is doing a good job. The boarding school is keeping girls of Natcommunity, a community vulnerable to trafficking for sex, safe when they are most vulnerable, between the ages of 9 and 13. The girls of Nat community, who are enrolled into the institution, have grown up and are continuing their education and have their own sense of direction. They are self-confident women. They know their goal and how to achieve it.
