What does CDA stand for?

of Toronto, Canada) offers a history of legal regulation of prostitution in Bombay (now Mumbai) in pre-independence India, covering the regulationist phase of the Contagious Diseases Acts, from around 1860 until 1890; the antitrafficking phase, emerging at the turn of the 20th century and lasting into the 1920s; and the abolitionist phase, combining antitrafficking and nationalist discourses, from around 1917 to 1947.

In 1869, Josephine targeted the Contagious Diseases Acts, which were designed to control the spread of venereal disease in the armed forces and allowed police in any garrison town or port to detain any woman on the slightest suspicion of her being a prostitute.

You might be interested in finding out about Butler's life, in particular her long campaign to abolish the Contagious Diseases Acts, eventually all repealed by 1886.

In 1869, Josephine targeted the Contagious Diseases Acts, which were designed to control the spread of venereal disease in the Armed Forces and allowed police in any garrison town or port to detain any woman on the slightest suspicion of her being a prostitute.

Adds Marian: "Perhaps Josephine Butler is best remembered for her active involvement in the campaign to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts.

Rather than re-examine legislative measures to mitigate against the effects of prostitution like the Contagious Diseases Acts or those that attempted to curtail vice like the Criminal Law Amendment of 1885, Bartley documents the development of methods to keep girls from engaging in the trade and to reform those already involved.

She devoted her life to helping prostitutes, to fighting the 'white slave' trade in young girls and, most famously, to campaigning against the infamous Contagious Diseases Acts.

The Contagious Diseases Act was created to prevent the spread of syphilis in the armed forces but, instead of testing the men, the government ordered all prostitutes to be arrested and made to sign a submission form for an intrusive, and usually very painful, examination.