Sex workers can also say ‘no’ to their service: SC

NEW DELHI: NP NEWS 24 ONLINE– If we recall the day when the capital of country was shattered because of the gruesome gang rape that of 23 years old which took place in the year 2016, and the protests, since then the country has been trying to enforce laws to eliminate such acts from society though it is still prevailing at a large extent in our society.

After that day, feminism and sexual abuse issues started been raised up more prominently in which issues related to the rights of sex workers were also included. On Tuesday, Supreme Court announced that even sex workers have right to refuse to their duties and can seek redressal when forced, overturning a 2009 Delhi High court verdict and restoring to 10 years of imprisonment to four persons by the lower court.

On the case of 1997 gang rape, asked the convicts to surrender within four weeks to serve the remaining sentence.

The bench said that the trial court had held rightly that, “even if the allegations of the accused that the woman is of immoral character are taken to be correct, the same does not give any right to the accused persons to commit rape on her against her consent”.

It held that even in cases where there is some material to show that the victim was habituated to sexual intercourse, no inference such as the victim is of a “loose moral character” can be permissibly drawn from that fact alone.

It noted that “a woman of easy virtue also could not be raped by a person for that reason.”

The bench of justices included R. Banumathi and Indira Banerjee said the High court made a mistake in brushing aside the evidence of victim by substituting its views and also by freeing the accused on the ground of they being falsely implicated, since they had lodged complaint accusing her of being a woman of bad character, who indulged in prostitution.

It also set aside the High Court ordering its registry to lodge complaints against three police personnel for prosecuting them in regard to falsely implicating the four persons.