Sunday Times E-Edition

NO IDEOLOGY IS WORTH THE LIVES OF SEX WORKERS

The debate around decriminalising sex work is due to get even more heated, and form unlikely alliances among its opponents. But it’s time SA got this done, write Sally Shackleton, Nosipho Vidima and Rebecca Walker

Over the next two or three years South Africans will be subjected to a lot of conflicting information about sex work, or as some call it, prostitution. Some people will call for the continued criminalisation of those who buy and sell sex, appealing to the government to fight prostitution as part of a moral or religious crusade to protect the heterosexual family unit.

Others will characterise “women in prostitution” as victims of men. They will call on the government to use surveillance and criminal prosecution against clients and the people who provide venues for sex work. For this group, prostitution represents the oppression of women the consent of individuals involved in selling sex is irrelevant. They propose that while people selling sex should be decriminalised, all other aspects of sex work must remain illegal.

And then there are sex workers themselves and their allies in NGOs and other institutions, who are demanding an end to the criminalisation of sex work and for the labour rights of sex workers to be recognised. They argue that criminalising adult, consensual sex work leads to harm and perpetuates stigma against those in sex work.

The government has finally listened to sex workers and has begun the process to repeal a law that has long criminalised the buying and selling of sex as well as venues offering sexual services. The new bill will also expunge the records of the people who have been prosecuted under the current law.

Moral/religious conservatives find some unlikely common ground with radical feminists when it comes to sex work. While they disagree on most things, they have an awkward alliance on their ideological approach to prostitution.

They argue that decriminalising sex work will lead to a rise in trafficking and child sexual exploitation (there is no credible evidence that this is true).

The moral/religious groups will warn about moral decay and the fall of the traditional family, while “radical feminists” will caution that prostitution is incompatible with women’s emancipation.

Both will argue that choice is irrelevant, and suggest that sex workers who say they want decriminalisation are delusional, brainwashed or being manipulated.

These groups have had their way for more than 50 years, with sex work criminalised in various ways during this time, and the buying of sex explicitly banned since 2007.

Our economy has worsened and unemployment is at an all-time high. We continue to face very high levels of sexual and gender-based violence, and crime rates remain a significant issue for all of us, but particularly for people without the protections that wealth offers. Inequality based on racial and gender lines is still a stark feature of our society.

Evidence has shown that the legal sanction against buying and selling sex affects sex workers most, and not in the way anti-prostitution groups say it does. There have been very few prosecutions for selling sex or buying sex, and very little justice for women in sex work who have experienced violence.

The deputy minister of justice, John Jeffery, said at the International Aids Conference in 2016 that only 241 people had faced prosecution in the previous three years, and half of them were men. That is a tiny number given reports from sex workers of widespread abuse at the hands of police. It would seem that all this police action has not resulted in the bad guys facing consequences.

In a survey of female sex workers from 12 sites around the country in 2021, 70.4% said they had experienced physical violence in the past 12 months and 57.9% said they had been raped. Of those reporting rape, 14% said the rapist was a police officer.

The results show criminalisation of sex work did not prevent assaults by clients and other men, but it certainly contributed to sex workers not reporting the assaults to the police or seeking help and counselling.

The law is wholly ineffective at stopping people from selling and buying sex, but very effective at sanctioning the harassment of sex workers, raids on sex work venues and abuse of sex workers. It is also very effective at preventing women who have experienced violence from seeking help or laying charges against perpetrators. Criminalisation allows those who abuse and exploit sex workers to operate with impunity.

Of course laws don’t exist in a vacuum; criminalisation arises from, and reinforces, stigma against women who sell sex.

Those who want to target clients and brothels for prosecution say this is a way to “end prostitution” (which is inherently bad).

In their suggested legal framework, police would still be empowered to violate the privacy of sex workers, and since more than one sex worker in a venue makes it a brothel, women working together for safety can be arrested. This means sex workers will still be forced to work alone, on the streets, at home or in illegal venues.

We know from current practice that this does not protect them.

Worryingly, in the legal framework supported by anti-prostitution groups, consent to the selling and buying of sex between adults is irrelevant. For sex workers, many of whom have experienced violence in and outside of sex work, consent is everything.

We know that stigma contributes significantly to the high rates of HIV and sexually transmitted infections this country has faced for decades.

We know that providing sex workers with nonjudgmental and empowering health services makes a significant difference to the rates of HIV among sex workers.

Criminalisation inhibits our investment in preventing new HIV infections. This is why many leading institutions working with HIV support decriminalising sex work, including UNAids, the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society, the Sex Workers Education & Advocacy Task Force and the South African National Aids Council.

Our focus in reforming of the law on sex work must be on the safety of the women (including trans women) and men who sell sex.

What we have learnt from the criminalisation of the buying and selling of sex is that it doesn’t work. It doesn’t help those who sell sex, especially those who suffer multiple forms of stigma, such as migrants, trans and gender-diverse people, gay men and drug-users.

No ideology is worth the lives of sex workers, and no morality trumps the higher good of preserving people’s lives.

The decriminalisation of sex work is a prerequisite for addressing the injustices that sex workers have faced and for building a more just future.

Shackleton works in public health and rights; Vidima is a sex worker, rights activist and field research assistant; Walker is a research associate with the African Centre for Migration & Society at Wits University and a gender, migration and health consultant

Comment & Analysis

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2023-01-29T08:00:00.0000000Z

2023-01-29T08:00:00.0000000Z

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