Legalise sex work – report

Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Sex Worker Education and Advocacy Taskforce (Sweat) yesterday launched a report titled Why Sex Work Should be Decriminalised in South Africa.

The report aims to document the experiences of 46 sex workers in SA and efforts to change the status quo.

It is “based on research conducted between May and June 2018 by HRW in four provinces of South Africa. Interviews were conducted with female sex workers, including three transgender women, in 10 sites throughout three provinces”.

“Around 40 government and nongovernmental experts in health, law and provisions of services for sex workers were also interviewed,” the report states.

Nosipho Vidima, human rights officer at Sweat, said government needs to act and Bills need to be drafted.

“The SA government has missed opportunities in the past to change the law. Sex workers need the department of justice to take action now to decriminalise [sex work],” Vidima said.

The report, according to HRW, “highlights deep inconsistencies between different government bodies in their approaches to sex work and services for sex workers”.

“The most notable difference was between the national department of health – which makes efforts to support sex workers with access to health care – and the criminal justice system – which takes a punitive approach,” the organisation said.

HRW say that, based on their research, sex workers faced arbitrary arrests and profiling by the South African Police Service (Saps). To avoid this, they were forced to work in areas where they felt seriously unsafe.

Sex workers told the organisation that they were afraid to report crimes for fear of arrest or being laughed at.

A sex worker from Limpopo spoke to the organisation, saying: “I’ve been arrested three times this year. Once I was in jail for two days. Other times I paid fines or bribes. You can’t report to the police. Even with armed robbery the problem still stands – they will not take you seriously.”

– News24 Wire