The Sex Worker Advocacy Task Force (Kringet) and the Sisonke National Sex Worker Movement welcomed the Cabinet’s approval of the draft law to abolish criminal penalties for sex work.
On 30 November 2022, the Cabinet approved the Criminal Law Amendment (Sexual Offenses and Related Matters) Bill. It scraps the crime of buying and selling adult sexual services.
After getting Cabinet approval, the bill is now up for public comment.
The moralist lobby has seized the opportunity to push back hard. He wants the law to continue punishing those who engage in sex for reward.
Also read: Sex workers tell police they raped, robbed and tortured them
But parliament must pass the bill – and as soon as possible. Punishment in adult sex work is a hangover from a rougher, more stupid, less public health-conscious era. They have no place in a healthy democracy.
All the bill does is eliminate the crime of sex work.
Of course, the government expects further legislation to regulate sex work: where and how and under what conditions sexual services can be sold – just as we regulate other commercial exchanges.
Sweat and Sisonke’s National Sex Workers Movement have long called for decriminalization.
They argue, convincingly, that making this type of crime work exposes (especially) women to blackmail, police malpractice and client abuse. Decriminalization allows sex workers to seek and assert legal protection.
However, some claim that it will stop the crime of exploiting sex work licenses and will increase the sex trade.
Many propose instead of the “Nordic model”. This decriminalizes the type of work for those who provide it – but target clients who use it.
We really need to be concerned about the safety and dignity of sex workers.
Many women are poor or queer, often more vulnerable because of their racial or cross-border status. Their work is often difficult and sometimes dangerous.
RELATED: Decriminalization of sex work could save lives, reduce exploitation, but ‘God doesn’t approve’
The people who say “crime destruction” are not blind to this. Because many who sell sexual services as a livelihood strategy are marginalized or stigmatized, or the poor who throw the weight of the criminal law on top of other burdens become cruel.
Sex workers themselves are strongly calling for help to get rid of these laws. They have first-hand knowledge of the hardships and dangers of their daily tasks.
Proponents of decriminalization point out that, throughout history, criminal laws have never stopped sex work. It has flourished in every legal system.
Criminalization is only a “symbolic” removal – an ineffective legal measure that cruelly marginalizes sex workers.
As SWEAT just stated, “criminalization kills”. While sex work is illegal, sex workers are condemned for unsafe, unregulated working conditions and access to health care.
In interviews with sex workers across South Africa, Human Rights Watch found them to be vulnerable because criminalization forces them to work or to go to dark or dangerous places “and because criminals, sadists, thieves and rapists, posing as clients, know that they are have a bad relationship with the police”.
Sex workers described being laughed at by police when they tried to report rape, “or told that, as a sex worker, they couldn’t be raped”.
In Revolting Prostitutes, sex workers Juno Mac and Molly Smith convincingly show how the Nordic model undermines sex workers. The criminalization of buyers of sexual services leads clients to seek more secrecy. This increases the risk.
Savvy Minister for Justice and Correctional Services Ronald Lamola echoed this view.
READ MORE: Sex workers are cautiously optimistic as decriminalization moves closer
He explained how the bill embodies our country’s National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide.
The reason is simple, but terrible – “the criminalization of sex work contributes” to gender-based violence and femicide.
The government believes – and sex workers agree – that the Bill will reduce stigma, discrimination and violence against sex workers; helping them access health care and bringing sex workers closer to health, safety and labor laws.
The evidence supports that expectation.
Cameron is a Correctional Service Examining Judge. The view shown is not necessarily GroundUp.
This article first appeared on GroundUp and is republished with permission. Read the original article here.