6 - From “House of Horrors” to “Sensitive” Governance

Summary

Chapter 5 focuses on NGO-assisted judicial inquiries with rescued women in the magistrate’s chambers at the Mumbai Special Court. These inquiries, prescribed by the ITPA, seek details about rescued women’s backgrounds and entry into the sex trade. Based on the information women provide, magistrates make decisions about their custody – either sending them back to their families or to shelters and economic rehabilitation programs. Per the ITPA, these decisions are based not on the consent or preferences of rescued adult women, but on the evaluations magistrates make. The chapter demonstrates how inquiries do not merely seek information, but use the tactics of counseling and censure to evaluate identity and kinship. It shows how inquiries are framed both by accusations of immorality and by concerns about victimhood, and how women respond with narratives centered on poverty and kinship. By focusing on this site and process, the chapter illuminates how female judges and NGO workers combine state paternalism, moral reform, sexual humanitarianism, and immigration control in the governance of prostitution. The chapter also shows how Bangladeshi women are targeted by, and navigate, a culture of suspicion and regime of documentation that brings anti-trafficking, anti-prostitution, and anti-immigration imperatives together.