Intercourse work in South Africa: why each shopping for and promoting must be authorized

It’s unlawful to purchase or promote intercourse in South Africa. However this will likely quickly be a factor of the previous if a lately printed draft invoice to decriminalise intercourse work is handed. Researchers and activists Marlise Richter and Monique Huysamen set out what’s within the new regulation, what’s good about it and what nonetheless wants work.

What’s envisaged underneath the proposed new regulation?

If the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Bill 2022 is handed, South Africa will turn into solely the second nation on the earth to totally decriminalise intercourse work. It will not be unlawful to purchase or promote intercourse. New Zealand is the one different nation the place that is the place.

The draft regulation proposes the elimination of the criminalisation of shopping for and promoting of intercourse. It additionally proposes to clear the felony information of those that have been prosecuted for purchasing or promoting intercourse.

Predictably, varied teams have pushed again in opposition to the invoice, totally on ethical grounds. Opponents of the invoice suggest that both:

• the present regulation that totally criminalises all features of intercourse work stays in place; or

• that intercourse staff are decriminalised however that purchasers stay criminalised.

This final concept is drawn from what’s known as the “Nordic mannequin” – an method adopted by some Nordic countries, together with Sweden.

Why is full decriminalisation in South Africa so essential?

Girls in South Africa face very excessive ranges of gender-based violence. Feminine intercourse staff are much more uncovered than different girls. A latest study confirmed that 70% of feminine intercourse staff had skilled violence prior to now 12 months. Greater than half had been raped by intimate companions, police, purchasers or different males. Criminalisation normalises violence within the intercourse work context.

One other argument for decriminalisation pertains to well being. HIV prevalence of between 39% and 89% has been documented amongst feminine intercourse staff throughout completely different areas of South Africa within the final decade. That is extraordinarily excessive when in comparison with the nation’s national HIV prevalence rate of 13.7%.

Intercourse staff are particularly vulnerable to HIV an infection due to the various risks related to intercourse work in a criminalised context. Intercourse staff sometimes have many sexual companions. Their working situations are precarious and unsafe. And the unequal energy relationship between intercourse employee and shopper makes it very exhausting to persistently negotiate safer intercourse.

The social stigma hooked up to intercourse work additionally signifies that some healthcare suppliers maintain prejudiced and vindictive views against sex workers. These views can drive intercourse staff away from well being providers, together with HIV prevention, therapy and help.

The repeal of outdated apartheid-era laws would have a far-reaching, optimistic affect on individual sex worker health and well-being and subsequently additionally public well being.

If intercourse work was not against the law, purchasers and police wouldn’t have the ability to abuse intercourse staff. Intercourse would have the ability to frequently negotiate protected intercourse. Police must take their complaints severely. Intercourse staff would additionally really feel extra assured to report discrimination and disrespectful healthcare staff.

Underneath decriminalisation, intercourse work could be recognised as work. Occupational well being and security and honest labour rules would apply. Decriminalisation is especially essential for the dignity of poor black intercourse staff from working class backgrounds, who presently bear the brunt of the stigma related to the criminalisation of intercourse work.

What’s the Nordic mannequin?

The Nordic model is a authorized framework adopted by a number of Nordic international locations, together with Sweden and Norway.

In accordance with this method, promoting intercourse must be decriminalised, however shopping for intercourse stays against the law.

The mannequin assumes that criminalising the purchasers of intercourse staff would dissuade individuals from shopping for sexual providers, and thus finish the demand for intercourse work.

Analysis in international locations which have adopted this exhibits that it has not made sex work safer for sex workers, nor has it eradicated sex work. Proof additionally exhibits that criminalisation of purchasers is bad for sex workers’ health.

If shopping for intercourse is unlawful, intercourse staff have much less time to screen out dangerous clients and purchasers can put strain on intercourse staff to comply with dangerous transactions in compromising conditions.

South Africans have had painful classes about why the state has no business in people’s bedrooms. The apartheid-era state prohibited intercourse throughout “color” and “same-sex” configurations which South Africa subsequently strongly rejected underneath democracy. But this similar regulation nonetheless survives for grownup, consensual intercourse work.

Why arguments in opposition to criminalising purchasers must be resisted

Our analysis exhibits that whereas many of the clients of sex workers in South Africa are males, they’re a various group from all walks of life. Some are violent and abusive in direction of intercourse staff. However many usually are not. Some intercourse staff report having mutually respectful interactions and contracts with clients.

In our analysis, only a few males self-reported perpetrating violence in opposition to intercourse staff. Most actively distanced themselves from the violence related to males who pay for intercourse, making it clear that they did not engage in or condone violence against sex workers.

Primarily based on our analysis and that of others, we believe that the decriminalisation of purchasers would have optimistic spin-offs.

First, recruiting purchasers who’ve been recognized by intercourse staff as non-violent and respectful as peer educators might instil and reinforce optimistic norms amongst purchasers.

Second, purchasers are properly positioned to function whistle-blowers after they discover human rights violations corresponding to human trafficking or little one exploitation within the intercourse trade.

Third, purchasers might be key to reducing HIV transmission. Scaling up antiretroviral remedy amongst purchasers of intercourse staff would avert virtually one-fifth of new HIV infections in South Africa over the subsequent decade.

À lire aussi : Why South Africa’s HIV prevention programmes should include sex worker clients

The Nordic mannequin is flawed and demonises purchasers. Placing intercourse work purchasers in jail punishes them for purchasing a service. That is in the end unhealthy for everybody’s well being.

The draft invoice must be handed as it’s and as shortly as doable.
It’ll make intercourse work much less dangerous and harmful, and our society safer.