Unmarried mother A woman who has a baby while she is not married.

Dowry system In India, dowry is the payment in cash or some kind of gifts given to bridegroom's family along with the bride. Generally they include cash, jewellery, electrical appliances, furniture, bedding, crockery, utensils and other household items that help the newlywed set up her home. The dowry system is thought to put great financial burden on the bride's family. It has been one of the reasons for families and women in India resorting to sex selection in favor of sons. This has distorted the sex ratio of India (940 females per thousand males) and has given rise to female foeticide. The payment of a dowry has been prohibited under The 1961 Dowry Prohibition Act in Indian civil law and subsequently by Sections 304B and 498a of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Laws Dowry became prohibited by law in 1961 with the purpose of prohibiting the demanding, giving and taking of dowry. To stop the offences of cruelty by husband or his relatives on the wife, section 498-A was added in Indian Penal Code and section 198-A in the Criminal Procedure Code in the year 1983. False dowry allegations The dowry law is thought to sometimes have been misused by women to lodge false or exaggerated complaints against husbands and entire extended family accusing them of cruel behavior. As per the data only 2% of the cases registered for dowry demand have led to conviction of the groom or groom's family. This had raised questions about rampant misuse of dowry laws in India by women to harass husband's family. According to one survey conducted by reputed Indian news magazine India Today, over 90% of government servants actively seek and get dowry in marriage. It is a common feature for unmarried government servants to seek dowry relevant to the market rates of their post. These rates are sky-high, with an estimate of dowry rates for a bachelor IAS Officer (Indian Administrative Services) being as high as Rs 50 Lac to Rs 5 Crore (up to USD 1 Million). These high rates are one of the primary reasons for corruption as young IAS officers after marriage are forced to take bribes to maintain their new lifestyle and match the financial status of their wealthy in-laws.

Prostitution Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in sexual relations, in exchange for payment. A person who works in this field is called a prostitute, and is a kind of sex worker. Prostitution is one of the branches of the sex industry. The legal status of prostitution varies from country to country, from being permissible but unregulated, to an enforced or unenforced crime or to a regulated profession. Prostitution is sometimes also referred to as "the world's oldest profession". Estimates place the annual revenue generated from the global prostitution industry to be over $100 billion. Prostitution occurs in a variety of forms. Brothels are establishments specifically dedicated to prostitution. In escort prostitution, the act may take place at the client's residence or hotel room (referred to as out-call), or at the escort's residence or a hotel room rented for the occasion by the escort (in-call). Another form is street prostitution. Although the majority of prostitutes are female with male clients, there are also gay male prostitutes, lesbian prostitutes, and straight male prostitutes. Reason for entry Most of the research done by Sanlaap indicates that the majority of sex workers in India work as prostitutes due to lacking resources to support themselves or their children. Most do not choose this profession but out of necessity, often after the breakup of a marriage or after being disowned and thrown out of their homes by their families. The children of sex workers are much more likely to get involved in this kind of work as well. A survey completed in 1988 by the All Bengal Women's Union interviewed a random sample of 160 sex workers in Calcutta: Of those, 23 claimed that they had come of their own accord, whereas the remaining 137 women claimed to have been introduced into the sex trade by agents. The breakdown was as follows:

Neighbor in connivance with parents: 7 Neighbors as pimps (guardians not knowing): 19 Aged sex workers from same village or locality: 31 Unknown person/accidental meeting with pimp: 32 Mother/sister/near relative in the profession: 18 Lover giving false hope of marriage or job and selling to brothel: 14 Close acquaintance giving false hope of marriage or job: 11 "Husband" (not legally married): 3 Husband (legally married): 1

Young college student selling to brothel and visiting free of cost: 1

The breakdown of the agents by sex was as follows: 76% of the agents were female and 24% were males. Over 80% of the agents bring young women into the profession were known people and not traffickers: neighbors, relatives, etc. Also prevalent in parts of Bengal is the Chukri System, whereby a female is coerced into prostitution to pay off debts, as a form of bonded labour. In this system, the prostitute generally works without pay for one year or longer to repay a supposed debt to the brothel owner for food, clothes, make-up and living expenses. In India, the Government's "central sponsored scheme" provides financial or in-kind grants to released bonded labourers and their family members, the report noted, adding over 2,850,000 people have benefited to date. Almost 5,000 prosecutions have been recorded so far under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act of 1976. Some women and girls are by tradition born into prostitution to support the family. The Bachara, for example, follow this tradition with eldest daughters often expected to be prostitutes. Over 40% of 484 prostituted girls rescued during major raids of brothels in Mumbai in 1996 were from Nepal. In India as many as 200,000 Nepalese girls, many under the age of 14, have been sold into sexual slavery. Nepalese women and girls, especially virgins, are favoured in India. At the other end of the spectrum operate high-class escort girls recruited from women's colleges and the vast cadres of India's fashion and film industries. They can command large sums of money. These services usually operate by way of introduction. However a recent trend has seen the emergence of several snazzy websites, openly advertising their services. Laws In India, prostitution (the exchange of sexual services for money) is legal, but a number of related activities, including soliciting in a public place, keeping

a brothel, pimping and pandering, are outlawed.