Kochi, Sept. 10 -- The Kerala high court has ruled that a person availing the services of a sex worker in a brothel can be prosecuted under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956, as the individual is inducing the sex worker to carry on prostitution by paying money. The bench of justice VG Arun opined that a person utilising the services at a brothel cannot be termed as a "customer" as a sex worker was not a "product". In most cases, sex workers are lured into the trade through human trafficking and "compelled to offer their body to satisfy the carnal pleasure of others", the court said in its order, which HT has seen. The high court gave the ruling on July 21 while considering the petition filed by a man who was charged under various sections of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956. In March 2021, during a search by police officers in Kudappanakunnu area of Peroorkada, the petitioner was found lying naked with a woman in a house. Probe revealed that two other accused in the case had procured three women for prostitution. The petitioner's counsel argued that he was only a customer at the brothel and could not be charged for inducing prostitution. "In my view, a person utilising the service of a sex worker at a brothel cannot be termed as a customer. To be a customer, a person should buy some goods or services. A sex worker cannot be denigrated as a product," the judge noted in his order. The payment offered by such a person at a brothel can "only be perceived as an inducement to make the sex worker offer his/her body and act in accordance with the demands of payer." htc...