{"id":244848,"date":"2022-12-06T11:48:43","date_gmt":"2022-12-06T09:48:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/sex-workers-react-to-governments-decriminalisation-plans\/"},"modified":"2022-12-06T11:48:43","modified_gmt":"2022-12-06T09:48:43","slug":"sex-workers-welcome-governments-decriminalisation-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/sex-workers-welcome-governments-decriminalisation-plans\/","title":{"rendered":"Sex workers welcome government\u2019s decriminalisation plans"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Ashraf%20Hendricks\/sexwork-20210914-img_8502-2hr.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/sex-workers-welcome-governments-decriminalisation-plans.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Activists from the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) at a march for sex workers\u2019 rights in September 2021. Archive photo: Ashraf Hendricks<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Cabinet has released a bill that would decriminalise sex work for public comment.<\/li>\n<li>Sex workers and activists have been calling for decriminalisation for year.<\/li>\n<li>Sex workers say that decriminalisation will help to protect them, in particular from police abuses.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Last week, Cabinet announced that a bill to decriminalise sex work would be published for public comment. If brought into law, the \u200b\u200bCriminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Bill of 2022 would decriminalise \u201cthe sale and purchase of adult sexual services\u201d by repealing Section 11 of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offenses and Related Matters) Amendment Act, 2007.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"leave\" height=\"1\" id=\"gu_counter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/sex-workers-welcome-governments-decriminalisation-plans.gif\" width=\"1\"><\/p>\n<p>GroundUp spoke to sex workers about the possible decriminalisation of their livelihood, and how it would affect their lives.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have been advocating decriminalisation for over two decades,\u201d said Constance Mathe, a sex worker and national coordinator of the <a href=\"https:\/\/asijiki.org.za\/about-us\/\">Asijiki Coalition<\/a>, which advocates for sex work\u2019s decriminalisation. \u201cThe issue doesn\u2019t affect the sex workers alone but society as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In October 2002, the Constitutional Court delivered its decision in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.saflii.org\/za\/cases\/ZACC\/2002\/22.html\">Jordan v State<\/a>, which found that the state was entitled to criminalise sex work. This was a split decision, with five of the eleven justices putting their names to a dissenting opinion in favour of decriminalisation. The effect of this ruling was to place the responsibility for decriminalising sex work in Parliament\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n<p>Since then, sex workers and human rights groups have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/sex-workers-campaign-law-be-changed\/\">campaigned<\/a> to have parliament repeal laws that criminalise sex work. For Mathe, like many sex workers, decriminalisation is a life-or-death issue.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am very happy because as a sex worker, I was living my in fear for my life. I am a target to the police, I am a target to the society, I am rejected by the family and discriminated against by everyone. But now if my work is being recognised by the government, I can gain constitutional rights,\u201d said Mathe.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis decriminalisation bill we are calling for will benefit the new generation too. Sex work is an old profession that will never fade. Many sex workers have died and this bill will save many lives.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Joanna*, 38, has been a sex worker for 17 years and is member of the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT). She says discrimination against sex workers is a big challenge.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe bill means a lot to us,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have criminal records against our names. Even if I think of quitting [sex work], my criminal record can\u2019t be erased. As sex workers the bill will allow us to gain our freedom.<\/p>\n<p>Joanna wants the government to go beyond decriminalisation and for the sex industry to be recognised by the Department of Employment and Labour.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDuring Covid, people got Unemployment Insurance Fund money but because sex work is not registered we couldn\u2019t get any money. The government didn\u2019t think about how we were going to get food and survive with our children. No one cared about us. We believe that if people comment positively it will assist us to have sex work decriminalised and recognised like all other workers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Joanna told GroundUp that the current laws give police room to abuse their powers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you run to the police officer to seek help, they ask for sexual favours or bribery money. The money you have been working for the whole night to feed your family and children, they take it away \u2026 Because we are scared to be arrested we end up doing whatever they ask us to do. They force us to sleep with them without protection. We are used to rape and we just let them as long as our lives are safe.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tracy*, 32, is a member of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sisonke.org.za\">Sisonke<\/a>, a national sex workers\u2019 movement, and has been a sex worker for six years. She supports her siblings who are at university and her three children who live in KwaZulu-Natal. Tracy says that if the bill becomes law, she will be able to work freely.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI will be able to report if a client violates me or refuses to pay for the service. The bill would change my life for better, eliminating stigma and discrimination.Police will stop harassing us and the people buying sex from us. We would now have power to go and report them and get justice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tracy also told GroundUp that the criminalisation of sex work puts her at risk of mistreatment by the police. \u201cPolice arrest us and demand too much money from us so that they don\u2019t lock us in cells. Sometimes police demand free sex, beat and pepperspray us \u2026 I have slept in the cells four times at the police station. They say you stay until the weekend is finished. If you don\u2019t give them money you stay in cells for a long time \u2026 They don\u2019t give receipts for the money you pay. They also arrest us for not carrying our IDs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>SWEAT spokesperson Megan Lessing said, \u201cWe are hoping that when the bill goes through the parliamentary process, a moratorium will be placed on the way sex work is policed, the arbitrary arrests, fines and the subsequent violations, like extortion, physical and sexual violence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>*Names changed to preserve anonymity.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"article_copyright\">\n<p>\u00a9 2022 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.<\/p>\n<p>We put an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We do not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We do not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, <b>not tracking<\/b> users. If you republish, please do not delete the invisible pixel.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/sex-workers-welcome-governments-decriminalisation-plans.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Activists from the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) at a march for sex workers\u2019 rights in September 2021. Archive photo: Ashraf Hendricks Cabinet has released a bill that would decriminalise sex work for public comment. Sex workers and activists have been calling for decriminalisation for year. Sex workers say that decriminalisation will help [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":244849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-244848","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"tag-groundup","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/sex-workers-welcome-governments-decriminalisation-plans.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}