India becoming child prostitution hub: Supreme Court

India becoming a hub of child prostitution: SC

NEW DELHI: India is "becoming a hub" for largescale child prostitution rackets, the Supreme Court said on Friday and suggested the setting up of a special investigating agency to tackle the menace.

A bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and A K Patnaik asked Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam to examine the idea of setting up a special investigating agency to combat child prostitution rackets and assured that courts would deny bail to those who engage children in commercial sex.

"It's happening because of abject poverty in the country. This is also because of the very high and largescale unemployment. All our cultural ethos are going down the drain. India is becoming a hub of such activities," the apex court said while dealing with a PIL filed by an NGO Bachapan Bachao Andolan.

The apex court also wanted to know why government is not invoking section 376 IPC (rape) against those exploiting the children in such prostitution rackets.

"Majority of sex workers are children. Why don't you register 376(IPC) against them? If you do it in 10 cases, they will fall like a pack of cards. Courts will also not grant bail to them. Unfortunately, we are putting such sex workers to a lot of problem forcing them to face criminal prosecution," the apex court said.