The findings are certainly alarming. One in every three truckers visits commercial sex workers. The shocking part is that only 18 percent of them use condoms.

Besides, they must be educated on the use of condoms. They should also be motivated to seek early and complete treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. Communicating messages through peer educators comprising sex workers and fellow drivers needs to be taken up on a large scale.

State intervention just helps to establish discrimination and stereotyping of sex workers as victims. Society should be mature enough to make these choices without the state intervening.

We have hired an entire train and about 1,500 sex workers accompanied by intellectuals and social activists will proceed to New Delhi.

I'd rather have a daughter in a whorehouse than a son in the police force,' Esther used to rage to anyone who would listen.

Prostitution is not exactly a reputable business over there either, even though the girls actually have to pay taxes on their earnings, and submit to regular health check ups. Even the prostitutes have universal healthcare over there. The benefit of legal prostitution is obvious: tax income for the city, healthier girls, and safety. In Amsterdam, each girl has an alarm button next to her bed that she can press if one of her "customers" tries to rape or hurt her. The police will arrive within minutes and protect the girl from harm.