Report No. 64

1.3. Evil of prostitution.-

Prostitution is beyond doubt, a social evil. It has been an obnoxious feature of every society. It has been observed in recent study1 of prostitution that2 "in a theoretically good society, where sexual fulfilment ought to be possible as are other kinds of personal satisfaction, no one would be a prostitute or a client". Despite the attempts made from time to time to check it, the evil of prostitution persists. The Act is one such attempt to check the evil. Prostitution is also thought of as a threat to the marriage-family institution,3"Law-makers are afraid that the delicate threads which bind society together will be broken if People, re free to engage in sexual activity for pleasure. Laws, it is stated, are often not enforced adequately because the police have too many other things to do. Judges also know that jail will not rehabilitate a prostitute. Nevertheless, laws exist to emphasise that prostitution is not a 'socially acceptable form of behaviour."

Thus, being a threat to the family as an institution, and a means of exploitation of females, prostitution is a social evil which leads to social injustice.

1. Charles Winick, author of the book The Lively Commerce (Quardrangle, 1971).

2. Publishers Weekly (24 May, 1971), Vol. 199, No. 21, p. 53.

3. Charles Winick, as quoted in the Publishers weekly (24 May, 1971), Vol. 199, No. 21, p. 53.