by Javed Jamil
abominable, most exploitative and most threatening manifestation of economic fundamentalism. Sex, in varying degrees, is being used by large number of newspapers, magazines, films and consumer industries for their own growth. The worst form, of course, is the prostitution and pornography that have become big industries. If mankind is to be saved from death, diseases, distress and destruction, an end will have to be brought about to the commercialisation of sex without any further delay. This nonsense cannot be tolerated in a civilized society.
The first step that has to be taken is to declare sexual exploitation in all forms illegal all over the world. Resolutions to this effect must be duly passed by the United Nations. The world must clearly know that human beings including women and children are not meant for sexual abuse. The feminist groups, if they are really interested in the welfare of women, must rise and pressurise international organisation to take all possible steps to thwart the designs of the merchants of sex.
The owners of brothels and the middlemen must be severely punished; the clients visiting the brothels or soliciting call girls must also be penalised and their names made public. Prostitution is so heinous a crime and its adverse impact on health, family peace and social order is so dangerous that the owners of brothels and middlemen deserve no less punishment than hanging in full public view. But before putting that into practice, a period of amnesty should be given during which time (that must not be more than a few months) they must wound up. The prostitutes must be dealt with compassion and efforts should be made to rehabilitate them so that they can lead a happy family life. The best course would be to keep the prostitutes in special asylums for a period of 3 months. During this period they must be given vocational training in accordance with their capabilities so that in case they wish to earn their own livelihood, they can do so without much problem. At the expiry of this period they must be thoroughly examined to detect the presence of sex-transmitted diseases including AIDS. Those who are HIV negative and do not have any other disease must now be helped in finding suitable matches, and also jobs, for themselves, or should be reunited with their families. Those who have an STD but are not HIV positive, must be treated before being allowed to join the social mainstream. The women who, unfortunately, test HIV positive must be kept in hospitals with all medical aids provided to them.
The arguments that it is impractical to ban prostitution, and it would continue despite ban, are fallacious. Similar logic is not given in relation to population control, which is an infinitely bigger problem than controlling the flesh trade. The truth is that the real problem is not in the impracticability but the lack of will to eradicate it. If there is a will, and the government decides to put an end to it, there is no reason why it cannot be brought to a negligible level. The question of legalising the flesh trade does not at all arise. There cannot be a bigger travesty of human justice than the idea that women sell their body under legal protection only to ensure that their male customers do not contact certain diseases. I wonder when would women realise that the modern era is more male chauvinistic than ever before; never before in the world, had women been slaves in such numbers of men’s desires as now. There are others who argue that poverty must first be removed if women have to be stopped from falling prey to the flesh traders. This is only a ploy to perpetuate 'the business'. Prostitution is more dangerous than poverty and has no direct relation with it. There are several rich countries where the flesh trade is running at a very big scale. And there are many poor countries where prostitution is uncommon. While the poverty alleviation programmes must be pursued at war footing, at the same time, all possible loopholes in the legal and executive setup must be plugged to bring an end to the ugliest trade.
Tourism has, unfortunately, been thriving in recent years vastly on commercial sex. The visitors are lured with the prospects of sharing moments on the beaches with beautiful, scantily clad women, and having “sexiest” partners as bed fellows. Tourism industry has to be cleansed of all this filth. It may cause loss in revenue; but once sex market becomes unavailable all over the world, healthier methods to attract visitors would bring life back to the industry. Even if the desired results are not achieved, commercial profits will have to be sacrificed to preserve sanctity of women, to protect health and safeguard the institution of marriage.
Prostitution and promiscuity are promoted by pornography. Pornography survives on prostitution, because if women are not available for acting in these films (in case prostitution is effectively banned) or for posing nude before the camera, it would automatically scale down. Pornography fans sexual frenzy. To alleviate promiscuity from society, pornography, in all its forms including eroticism, has to be effectively banned. No man or woman must be permitted to appear naked at any place other than in absolute privacy. Strict dress code has to be formulated for men as well as women. Freedom of nakedness in public must be shunned because its effects are not confined to the person appearing naked; it sends electrifying signals in the bodies of all the watchers intensifying their sexual appetite. Needless to say that nakedness breeds promiscuity; promiscuity leads to commercialisation of sex, which invariably means commercial exploitation of women and children; and commercialisation of sex threatens the very survival of human beings as individual, as family and as society.
The censors must not restrict the use of their scissors for obscenities in the films; they must also ensure that the practices harmful for society -- promiscuity, gambling, drinking, smoking, etc -- are not glorified. In addition to the censors, there should be legal provisions for punishing the producers, directors, cameramen, story writers and actors in case they over-ride the guidelines. All forms of literature publishing nude photographs and other sexually provocative materials must be banned; those violating the ban must be appropriately punished.
Moralisation of Education
The hijacking of the whole educational system has also been one of the steps taken to boost economic fundamentalism. The aims of education are now three fold: to earn money by commercialising education, to train employees of different kinds for the industries, and to produce good consumers. In order to groom hard-core commercial approach among the students, moral education has been successively eliminated from the curricula; it has been replaced by either purely technical or managerial subjects or by programmes like sex-education, family planning awareness, etc.
If society has to progress in the right direction, education has to be freed from the slavery of the economic fundamentalists. Feeling the necessity to mend the education, Milton, in "Ready and Easy Way," says: "To make the people the fittest the choose, and chosen fittest to govern, will be to mend our corrupt and faulty education, to teach the people faith, not without virtue, temperance, modesty, sobriety, parsimony, justice, not to admire wealth or honour; to hate turbulence and ambition: to place everyone his private welfare and happiness in the public peace, liberty, and safety", To achieve this the government must intervene. Small children are being compelled to go to schools and shoulder an unnecessary burden, just because it helps the managers of schools. A child below 6 must not leave home, and must be trained by the parents, not the teachers. There is no need for courses like nursery, kindergartens etc; education must commence with class I. Steps must be taken to bring uniformity in educational standards of all schools. The emphasis must not be on the outward appearances like dress, shoes, belts etc., but on the quality of education. Moral education must form a part of syllabus at all levels -- primary, secondary, graduate and postgraduate. Children must learn how to become decent human beings and not corrupt consumers or partisan salesmen. Their training must be directed at keeping them away from all the social evils like drinking, smoking, gambling and promiscuity. They must be instructed that honesty and obedience are the most important treasures of a successful and peaceful life. They must be encouraged to lead a virtuous and not an aristocratic life. What must be clear in their minds is that the goal of life is to attain and maintain Grand Peace
. Assistance of religious teaching and history should be taken to inculcate moral values among them.
There has been an animated debate on the desirability or undesirability of sex education in colleges. More important than whether the students should be imparted sex education or not, and at what level should it begin, is its form and contents. If it is aimed at training the students in the science or art of sex so that they can indulge in sexual activities without physically harming themselves, it cannot be permitted; for it would encourage young boys and girls to experiment with sex before marriage. But if its aim is to make them aware of the potential risks involved in illicit sex, to remove their misconceptions about their physical developments, and to make them stand on high moral pedestals, it must be welcome. The adolescent boys and girls tend to be tense about menstruation and nocturnal ejaculations and have other fears and doubts. These must be allayed. But this must be done in separate classes for boys and girls; the teacher should also preferably belong to the same sex. They