The Assembly committee on women’s empowerment will begin an inquiry into the plight of sex workers in Meghalaya, the committee Chairperson, Ampareen Lyngdoh, told Highland Post today.
“We will start the inquiry to find out whether or not it is a fact of what Home Minister Lahkmen Rymbui said in the house whereby he clearly indicated the numbers of registered commercial sex workers in the state and also claimed there are the various agencies that have conducted studies on the matter and are working towards rehabilitating the state’s sex workers,” Lyngdoh stated. “We need to find out that if they have had the numbers available at their disposal what redressal approaches and steps have been taken for this problem,” she added.
Lyngdoh favoured some form of redressal that would not involve punitive action taken against sex workers, as this is a women’s welfare issue.
“This is not about enabling anyone and neither are we going to support condemnation on this matter. After the evaluation of what was presented by Rymbui and with all this knowledge in the hands of the government, we will go back and revisit all of those details and see what the line departments have in mind,” the Congress legislator and East Shillong MLA said.
She also remarked on the about-face by Rymbui, who, when the issue of sex workers in Khyndailad was first raised by North Shillong MLA Adelbert Nongrum, denied any knowledge that the area is frequented by sex workers. On a later day, however, he presented the official numbers about prostitutes in Meghalaya.
Meanwhile, Lyngdoh informed that the committee will convene a meeting with concerned officers on April 7 to find out the detail of the case related to the murder of a student of Class 10 studying at Wapungskur Secondary School and various other cases.
