[A National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) report on prevention of atrocities against the Scheduled Castes found that the tradition of divine prostitution, popularly known as the Devdasi system, was still alive in many parts of the country.
The decadent custom under which girls are offered as dedications to temples to propitiate the deity "is far from dead; the dedication ceremonies have shifted from main temples to the house of priests or smaller temples with no publicity and fanfare", the report stated.
Once offered to the temples, these girls are considered the wife of the presiding deity or more simply public property. They live in temples and can be used by men, usually belonging to caste Hindus, as they like and whenever they like.
Saying the system has become more commercialised today, the report pinned poverty as one of the main causes for its continued practice. It also blamed the government for the failure to enforce the relevant laws to prohibit the system.
In some cases, Devdasis are also pushed into brothels.
The Devdasi system was first made punishable under the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment Act, 1927 of Mysore, a princely state then. This was followed by a blanket ban on the system by the British Raj in the 1930s.
"Implementation of law as well as rehabilitation of liberated Devdasis in various states has been unsatisfactory," the report said.
"Recently, a tribal girl who was ordered by the village community into prostitution as a result of violation of some customs was reported. The girl later committed suicide," it went on to say, but did not give details of where and when the incident occurred.
The NHRC report, however, said the Devdasi system was still prevalent in parts of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and the northeast despite the respective governments undertaking rehabilitation programmes for the those who had been liberated.
"The rehabilitation programme suffers from adhocism and inadequacy... does not provide adequate means of livelihood and skill development for this purpose," it said.
At several public hearings held as recent as 2001, liberated Devdasis complained of "lack of response from government for demands of various assistance, particularly relating to housing and health care and loan for maintenance of family".
Besides, there was also the social stigma faced by children of such women in getting admission to schools.
It also said that cases of sexual exploitation were not restricted to just Devdasis, but also reported among the socially underprivileged women from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
The NHRC suggested that the entire gamut of practices leading to sexual exploitation of the women be brought within the ambit of central law, which should not only include the Devdasi system but also other customary and social arrangements which promote or sanctify such practices.
