ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Prostitution in colonial India

Prostitution in colonial India means that a long, long time ago, there were some people who lived in a country called India, but at that time, some other people from a faraway land came and took control of it. They were called colonizers, and they made a lot of changes in India. One of the changes they made was that they began to allow women to sell their bodies for money, which was called prostitution.

Prostitutes were usually women who were very poor and didn't have any other way to make money. They would have to sleep with men for money, and sometimes they had to do things that they didn't want to do. It wasn't a happy or safe life for them, but they didn't have much choice.

The colonizers made it legal for women to sell their bodies because they thought it would be good for their soldiers and other men who were away from their families for a long time. They also thought it would make them money. But it was a bad idea because it made a lot of women suffer, and their families suffered too.

In recent times, people realized that prostitution is not good for women, and it is not right to buy or sell them like objects. So many countries have made it illegal, and there are organizations that help women who used to be prostitutes to find other ways to make a living.