User talk:Puja kumari12

Legal status of prostitution across Asia.
Decriminalization - No criminal penalties for prostitution Legalization -prostitution legal and regulated Abolitionism - prostitution is legal, but organized activities such as brothels and pimping are illegal; prostitution is not regulated Neo-abolitionism illegal to buy sex and for 3rd party involvement, legal to sell sex Prohibitionism - prostitution illegal Legality varies with local laws

A brothel in Kamathipura Prostitution is legal in India.[1] A number of related activities including soliciting in a public place, kerb crawling, owning or managing a brothel, prostitution in a hotel,[2] child prostitution, pimping and pandering[3] are illegal.[4][5] There are however many brothels illegally operating in Indian cities including Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata.[6] UNAIDS estimate there to be 657,829 prostitutes in the country.[7]

HISTORY OF INDIAN PROSTITUTION. In ancient India, there was a practice of the rich asking Nagarvadhu to sing and dance, noted in history as "brides of the town". Famous examples include Amrapali, state courtesan and Buddhist disciple, described in "Vaishali Ki Nagarvadhu" by Acharya Chatursen and Vasantasena, a character in the classic Sanskrit story of Mricchakatika, written in the 2nd century BC by Śūdraka. Women competed to win the title of a Nagarvadhu, and it was not considered a taboo[8] The most beautiful woman was chosen as the Nagarvadhu. A Nagarvadhu was respected like a queen or Goddess, but she was a courtesan or prostitute; people could watch her dance and sing.[9] The first reference to dancing girls in temples is found in Kalidasa's "Meghadhoot", that the dancing girls were present at the time of worship in the Mahakal Temple of Ujjain.

Regarding the Devadasi concept, some scholars are of the opinion that the custom of dedicating girls to temples probably became quite common in the 6th century CE, as most of the Puranas containing reference to it were written during this period. By the end of the 10th century, the total number of devadasis in many temples was in direct proportion to the wealth and prestige of the temple. They occupied a rank next only to priests and their number often reached high proportions. For example, there were 400 devadasis attached to the temples at Tanjore and Travancore. Local kings often invited temple dancers to dance in their courts, the occurrence of which created a new category of dancers, rajadasis, and modified the technique and themes of the recitals. A devadasi had to satisfy her own soul while she danced unwatched and offered herself to the god, but the rajadasi's dance was meant to be an entertainment. The popularity of devadasis seems to have reached its pinnacle around 10th and 11th century CE. The rise and fall in the status of devadasis can be seen to be running parallel to the rise and fall of Hindu temples. The destruction of temples beginning of the second millennium CE by Muslim invaders from the northwestern borders of the country and spread through the whole of the country. Thereafter the status of the temples fell very quickly in North India and slowly in South India. As the temples became poorer and lost their patron kings, and in some cases were destroyed, the devadasis were forced into a life of poverty, misery, and, in many cases, prostitution.[10] Many scholars maintain that the devadasi system is not described in the holy scriptures of Hinduism as the scriptures do not refer to any form of sacred prostitution or temple girls.[10] Whether the devadasi girls engaged in sexual services is debated, however, as temple visitors touching or speaking to the girls was considered an offence.[10]

A tawaif was a highly sophisticated courtesan who catered to the nobility of India, particularly during the Mughal era. The tawaifs excelled in and contributed to music, dance (mujra), theatre, and the Urdu literary tradition,[11] and were considered an authority on etiquette. Tawaifs were largely a North Indian institution central to Mughal court culture from the 16th century onwards[12] and became even more prominent with the weakening of Mughal rule in the mid-18th century.[13] They contributed significantly to the continuation of traditional dance and music forms[14] and then emergence of modern Indian cinema.

Goa was a colony in Portuguese India set up in the early 16th century, and this Portuguese stronghold contained a community of Portuguese slaves. During the late 16th and 17th centuries the Portuguese trade in Japanese slaves resulted in traders from the Portuguese Empire and their captive lascar crew members from South Asia bringing Japanese slaves to Goa. These were usually young Japanese women and girls brought or captured from Japan as sexual slaves.[15]

The culture of the performing art of nautch, an alluring style of popular dance, rose to prominence during the later period of Mughal Empire and the British East India Company Rule.[16] During the period of Company rule in India by the British East India Company in the late 18th and early 19th centuries and during the subsequent British Raj, the British military established and maintained brothels for its troops across India. Women and girls were recruited from poor rural Indian families and paid directly by the military. The red-light districts of cities such as Mumbai developed at this time.[17] The governments of many Indian princely states had regulated prostitution in India prior to the 1860s. British Raj enacted Cantonment Act of 1864 to regulate Prostitution in colonial India as a matter of accepting a necessary evil.[18] The Cantonment Acts regulated and structured prostitution in the British military bases which provided for about twelve to fifteen Indian women kept in brothels called chaklas for each regiment of thousand British soldiers. They were licensed by military officials and were allowed to consort with soldiers only.[19] Indian lascar seamen who were forced into the British military to the United Kingdom copied the masters by joining the British forces on frequent visits to the local British prostitutes there.[20][21] In the 19th and early 20th centuries, thousands of women and girls from continental Europe and Japan were trafficked into British India, where they worked as prostitutes servicing British soldiers and local Indian men.