New Delhi: Catholic nuns working among distressed women have joined social activists to welcome a recent Supreme Court order to aid commercial sex workers, one of the groups made most vulnerable during the coronavirus pandemic.
“We wholeheartedly welcome the Supreme Court verdict in favor of sex workers,” Says Sister Thresiamma Philip, a member of the Sisters Adores, a congregation that has been working for decades for the advancement of women and girls trapped in prostitution.
These vulnerable people “have been in distress since the lockdown began, as they have no means of survival,” Sister Philip, who is based in Kolkata, told Matters India September 25.
Four days earlier, India’s apex court urged the federal and state governments to make immediate provisions for monetary sustenance, supply of food and basic amenities to sex workers amid the pandemic without insisting on them producing identity documents such as ration cards.
“They are under severe distress now, something urgent has to be done. This deals with the survival of lakhs of people… You (Centre and State governments) should do something without waiting for our directions,” said a three-judge Bench led by Justice L. Nageswara Rao.
Sister Philip said her congregation “greatly acknowledges” the apex court’s steps to alleviate the pain and suffering of these marginalized women” and “the recognition given to their human dignity.”
The apex court move was hailed by the right to food campaigners. “This is certainly a good move. This was what we have been demanding,” says Sister Sujata Sena, a lawyer and activist based in Bhubaneswar, capital of Odisha.
She said the Right to Food Campaign has urged India to universalize “the Public Distribution System irrespective of caste, creed, sex, color, creed, or profession. Obviously sex workers are included in there.”
Sister Jena, a member of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, said although the commercial sex workers belong to the marginalized category they are kept out of all welfare projects since they do not have ration cards, identity cards or bank accounts.
“I strongly feel that the ration card should be given to all,” she told Matters India September 25.
Sameet Panda, convener of the Right to Food campaign in the Odisha region, regrets that social stigma has deprived the sex workers of ration cards for a long time. “They are poor, but the pandemic has made them destitute,” he told Matters India.
According to him, “the sex workers have a right to live with dignity under Article 21 of the Constitution of India since they are also human beings and their problems need to be addressed.”