Parda is a platform for consenting adults to meet each other. It is not, and will not become, a marketplace for sex. This policy states what that means in practice and what we do about it.
Nobody on this platform is paid for their company. No money changes hands between members, for any reason. There are no rates, no allowances, no “gifts expected”. A platform where money moves between members is a different kind of business with a different kind of legal exposure, and we have deliberately built ours so that it cannot become one.
The law we operate under
- Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956 — which criminalises running or assisting a brothel, living on the earnings of prostitution, and procuring or inducing a person for that purpose.
- Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 — Sections 143 and 144 (trafficking of a person and exploitation of a trafficked person), and the related offences.
- Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 and Section 67B, Information Technology Act, 2000.
- IT (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules, 2021 — our duties to act on unlawful content and to cooperate with lawful requests.
Design choices that make commercial use difficult
Policies are easy to write. These are structural:
- There is no payment rail between members. The platform cannot transfer money from one member to another. There is nothing to build a transaction on.
- Prices and rates are prohibited content in profiles, display names and photographs, and are screened at upload.
- Contact details are stripped from messages automatically, which removes the fastest route to moving a commercial negotiation off-platform.
- Every listing is identity-verified by a person, against a government photo ID and a live selfie. Operated and managed profiles are the mechanism by which exploitation reaches platforms like this, and identity verification is the main defence against them.
- One person, one account, enforced by a one-way hash of the identity document number, so one operator cannot run many listings.
What we look for
Our moderation team is briefed on the recognised indicators of trafficking and coercion, not merely on prohibited words:
- Several profiles verified against documents controlled by the same person, or sharing a device, IP or photograph background.
- A profile whose messages read as though written by somebody other than the person pictured, or which switch voice.
- Scripted or identical replies across accounts; immediate pivots to price.
- A member who appears to be reporting to somebody else, cannot make their own arrangements, or shows signs of being monitored.
- Indications of recent arrival, dependence, debt or lack of control over their own documents or movement.
- Any account where age seems inconsistent with the document, which is escalated rather than approved.
What we do
- Immediate permanent removal of any account offering, requesting or arranging paid sex. First occurrence, no warning, no refund.
- Preservation, not deletion, of the account data where we suspect an offence, so that it is available to a lawful request.
- Reporting to the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, and to the local Anti-Human Trafficking Unit where we suspect trafficking or coercion.
- Mandatory reporting of anything involving a minor, without exception and without internal debate.
- Treating a suspected victim as a victim. Where we believe a person is being coerced, our first step is to disable the account so it cannot be used against them — not to accuse them.
If you are being coerced
If somebody is making you use this platform, taking money you earn, holding your documents, or threatening you:
- Anti-Human Trafficking helpline: 1098 (Childline, for anyone under 18) · Women’s helpline: 181 · Emergency: 112
- National Cyber Crime Portal: cybercrime.gov.in or 1930
- Write to our Grievance Officer through the grievance page. Mark it urgent. It is read by a person, not a queue, and you will not be asked to justify why you were on the platform.
If you see something
Report it from the profile or the chat. You do not need to be certain, and you will not be penalised for a report made in good faith that turns out to be wrong. We would much rather review a hundred unfounded reports than miss one real case.