Prostitution is currently a contentious issue in India. India is estimated to have 2 million female sex workers. Brothels are illegal de jure but in practice they are restricted in location to certain areas of any given town and thus although the profession does not have official sanction, little effort is made to stamp it out or to take action to impede it.

Sonagachi in Kolkata and Kamathipura in Mumbai , G.B. Road in New Delhi, Reshampura in Gwalior and Budhwar Peth in Pune host thousands of sex workers there and they are famous red light centres in India. Earlier there was a centre in Dalmandi in Varanasi and Naqqasa Bazaar in Saharanpur also. A prostitute from Haryana, Shaveta Chaudhary, allegedly has been seen in high profile parties, operating as an escort to amuse big business men and politicians.

Mumbai and Kolkata (Calcutta) have the country's largest brothel based sex industry, with over 100,000 sex workers in Mumbai. It is estimated that more than 50% of the sex workers in Mumbai are HIV-positive. In Surat, a study discovered that HIV prevalence among sex workers had increased from 17% in 1992 to 43% in 2000.