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NEW DELHI: Poverty forces sex workers to sell their bodies, the Supreme Court said on Monday and directed the Centre and states to impart vocational training to them so that they could earn a livelihood.

"A woman is compelled to indulge in prostitution not for pleasure but because of abject poverty. If such a woman is granted opportunity to avail some technical or vocational training, she would be able to earn her livelihood by such vocational training and skill instead of selling her body," it said.

Vocational training alone will not do, for the goods produced by sex workers would not have buyers, said a bench comprising Justices Markandey Katju and Gyan Sudha Misra, which was hearing the case of a sex worker's murder.

"We direct the central and the state governments to prepare schemes for giving technical and vocational training to sex workers and sexually abused women in all cities in India," it said. The Union health ministry says there are 6,88,751 "registered" sex workers, while Naco estimates their population to be 12.63 lakh.

Andhra Pradesh leads the list with more than one lakh registered female sex workers while Karnataka has 79,000. These two states are followed by Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and West Bengal. Among the metros, Delhi leads the list with 37,900 sex workers.

The bench asked the governments to ensure that goods produced by sex workers had a market. "If technical training is for some craft like sewing garments, then some arrangement should also be made for providing a market for such garments, otherwise they will remain unsold and unused, and consequently the woman will not be able to feed herself," it said.

The court issued notices to the governments and asked them to respond by May 4 detailing the steps taken to implement its order. The order came on a petition filed by one Budhadev Karmakar who was convicted and sentenced for killing a sex worker in Kolkata on September 17, 1999.

Moved by the plight of sex workers, Justices Katju and Misra said, "We strongly feel that the central and state governments should prepare schemes for rehabilitation all over the country for physically and sexually abused women, commonly known as prostitutes, as we are of the view that prostitutes also have a right to live with dignity under Article 21 of the Constitution since they are also human beings and their problems also need to be addressed."