Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956

The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956 penalises activities connected with commercial sexual exploitation, especially organised prostitution and exploitation by third parties. It defines prostitution as the sexual exploitation or abuse of persons for a commercial purpose. Prostitution by an adult, by itself, is not made an offence; the Act criminalises specified exploitative conduct and prostitution in prohibited settings.

Principal offences

The Act covers both organisers of commercial sexual exploitation and persons who knowingly facilitate or profit from it.

• Section 3 punishes keeping or managing a brothel and knowingly allowing premises to be used as a brothel.
• Section 4 punishes an adult who knowingly lives wholly or partly on the earnings of another person's prostitution.
• Section 5 punishes procuring, inducing or taking a person for prostitution, including attempts to cause such conduct.
• Section 6 punishes detaining a person in premises where prostitution is carried on.
• Section 9 punishes a person having custody, charge or authority over another who causes, aids or abets that person's seduction for prostitution.

Location-based and public-order offences

The Act also restricts prostitution where it affects specified public places or involves public solicitation.

• Section 7 penalises carrying on prostitution, and specified connected conduct, in or near notified or designated public places.
• Section 8 penalises seducing or soliciting for prostitution in a public place or in a manner visible or audible from such a place.

Protection and enforcement scope

Offences involving a child or minor attract enhanced and, in some provisions, mandatory minimum punishments. The Act also authorises search, rescue, protective custody, closure of brothels and eviction from premises, subject to its prescribed procedures; these are protective or preventive measures rather than separate offences.

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