Global accolade for SA sex worker activist.
South African sex worker activist Duduzile Dlamini has been recognised by the International Aids Society (IAS) for her work in advancing gender justice and health.
Yesterday, Dlamini became the first person to win the Prudence Mabele Award, an endowment made in honour of the first black woman to publicly reveal her HIV status in South Africa. “I am a sex worker, an organiser, an advocate, lobbyist and ambassador for the rights of children with HIV,” said Dlamini, who is from the Sex Workers Education Advocacy Task Force and has started an organisation to help sex workers who are mothers.
“As a sex worker mother, it is very hard. Our children are often ashamed and angry and leave home and go off by themselves. The relationship between us and our children is broken,” she said.
The IAS created the prize, which has the highest monetary value of all awards, at the International Aids Conference in Amsterdam through an endowment from the Ford Foundation and the Open Society Foundations, and in partnership with the Positive Women’s Network of SA, which Mabele headed.
Meanwhile, studies released at the conference showed that “Swedish model” legislation has had a negative effect on sex workers in Canada and France. In 2014, Canada adopted the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, which criminalises sex workers’ clients. Elena Argento of the University of British Columbia said a study found the act resulted in sex workers experiencing a 41% drop in access to health services.
In 2016, France also opted to criminalise sex workers’ clients. But Hélène Lebail from the French Aids research institute, Centre de Recherches Internationales, presented a study that showed the new law had “driven sex workers underground... finding it difficult to get HIV services”. – Health-e News.