Cutting Edge I Sex Workers

The delay in legalizing sex work makes, sex workers vulnerable to abuse.

[TheVoiceOfSeniors]

No sex workers everybody should go to work and avoid the spread of infections from sex workers to house wives.

[Duor]

No to sex work people have to earn income in decent way

[Dude-]

So why hide if what you do should be normalized 😢

[MickeyMeji]

As someone with first hand experience of the sex trade as well an active survivor of the system of prostitution was disheartened while watching this interview. First by the media’s misinformation that South Africa is the first country to remove the “derogatory, discriminatory and defamatory term” prostitution/prostitute and started referring to it as “sex work/ers” in 2015, let’s be clear prostitution and prostitute are legal words, it is misleading to suggest otherwise as this suggests that this country has accepted the sex trade as work which it has not. I would also like to point out that in saying that all prostituted persons are calling for full decriminalisation of the prostitution system is a lie, as those of us who have never recognised this as work but a means of survival are sidelined by the media, government and other institution in our call that this system needs to be done away with by decriminalisation of only prostituted persons, continued criminalisation of the men who is in this system as well as the pimps and brothel-keepers who take advantage of our vulnerabilities and sell us for their own sexual gains and propose that instead of “equipping” us with condoms and lubricants they should invest in our economic development and empowerment. We heard from testimonies that this was not a choice for all those interviewed but rather a means of survival when there were none or few other options, nowhere do we also hear in the testimonies that any of these persons dreamt of this as work but the legal situation is making it difficult, rather they have all testified to experiencing a lot of violence from the men who buy them and some testified to police harassment, these men are not murdering us because they are criminalised they do so because of their misogynistic tendencies because all men who buy women for sex are misogynists. The call for the full decriminalisation of the sex trade has nothing to do with the realisation of prostituted persons rights but all to do with enriching the government, pimps and brothel owners, let me explain for one to become a “worker” one needs to be employed and in this case the employer would have to be the pimp and or brothel-keeper and the government will add more “workers” to the tax payers. What will happen is the “sex worker” will earn less and loose their freedom (they will be controlled by the capitalist that is the pimp and or brothel owner. We also need not to discard findings of reliable studies one by the Sex Worker Education Taskforce (SWEAT) that found that “female sex workers” we’re close to 18 times more likely to be murdered than women the same age and race in the general population, the same study found that close to a fifth of these deaths were due to murder 19%, while 18% was drug related, 8% HIV/AIDS related and very few of natural deaths, the average age of death amongst this group was at 34 years. Now looking at this alone one can conclude that the prostitution system threatens the right to life directly and indirectly first by increasing the vulnerability of prostituted persons to violence which tends to end up in death as well as their increased risk of being infected with sexually transmitted diseases including but not limited to HIV/AIDS, not to mention how much all this is costing the taxpayer in the justice system trying to solve these cases as well as medication to manage and or treat these diseases. A cost that can be avoided by providing exit support and economic development and empowerment. Another study found that 4 of the nine factors that increases the probability of men beating or raping a women being men who engage in transactional sex 3, 5 more likely, men who buy sex being 2, 8 more likely, men who feel sexually entitled being 2, 4 more likely and men with multiple concurrent sexual partners being 2, 3 more likely. This is supported buy another evidence in the courts example of Philani Ntuli, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Jason Rohde and Rob Packham to name a few.

Prostituted persons do not wake up one day and “choose” to be prostituted. Prostitution is chosen for us by the injustices of our colonial past and apartheid, persistent inequalities, poverty, past sexual and physical abuse, pimps who take advantage of our vulnerabilities and the men who buy us in prostitution.

We dream of a life free from oppression, patriarchy and economic inequalities; A life where we have access to a wider array of dignified and decent employment options; where we can participate as citizen; and where we can exercise our rights as human beings, not as a key population of “sex workers” for HIV intervention.

Most women are drawn into prostitution at a young age, some as young as 13 years old. Victims of prostitution have almost no resources to help them exit. There is currently no government psycho-social support and economic empowerment programmes to provide alternatives for prostituted women.

Our patriarchal society is a factor that continues to perpetuate the system of prostitution.

The system of prostitution is in itself an embodiment of violence and sexual exploitation, becoming one of the worst forms of women's inequality and a violation of basic human rights.

Many women who have been prostituted have been severely abused, injured or murdered by their pimps and the men who buy us.

The conditions of prostituted women are worsened by laws and policies that treat us as criminals and the scum of society. On the other hand, sex buyers, pimps, the sex trade and brothel owners are not made accountable. Our conditions are worsened by the lack of political will to implement laws abolishing the buying of sex, pimping, brothels, and other sex trade related enterprises.

We, the survivors of the sex trade do not want the system of prostitution to be decriminalized, legalised and offered to us a solution for unemployment and poverty. We call upon the government and all our countrymen and women to embrace us and to shift the burden of stigma and accountability to the men who take advantage of our vulnerability. We call on our government and our countrymen and women to heed the preamble of our constitution that calls for the healing the divisions and injustices of the past.

Thus we declare that: -

1. The system of prostitution must be abolished. Thus, it should not be legalized, decriminalised and promoted.
2. Prostituted women need services to help them create a future outside of prostitution, including legal and fiscal amnesty, financial assistance, job training, employment, housing, health services, legal advocacy, residency permits, and cultural mediators and language training for victims of prostitution.
3. Prostituted women need governments to punish traffickers, pimps and men who buy women in the system of prostitution and to provide safety and security from those who would harm them.
4. The Law Enforcement Agents and the Police should stop harassing, exploiting, arresting and deporting migrant prostituted persons but should rather offer support and protection.
5. The Law Enforcement Agents and Police should arrest the perpetrators of the system of prostitution.
6. Any form of police harassment of prostituted women, including prostituted migrant women should come to an END.
7. The current law that criminalises prostitution targets the bought, sold and exploited. It further victimises them and does not prevent or provide for exit. Criminalisation of the bought, sold and exploited is not an effective way to eliminate prostitution.
8. Prostitution is not “sex work, ” and sex trafficking is not “migration for sex work.”
9. Our government should not consider decriminalising the sex industry, as that would be giving pimps and buyers legal permission to abuse women in prostitution.
10. Our government should create an enabling legal environment for the prevention and elimination of prostitution as well providing support for exit, by adopting the Equality Law on prostitution, which is the only promising legal framework to end prostitution.
As survivors of the system of prostitution, we will not rest until the basic and fundamental freedoms promised by our Constitution are made real in our lives and the lives of our daughters. We will continue to strengthen and broaden our unity, engage with all stakeholders, including parliament, the government, and the general public until all our demands are met. We will organise, mobilise and stand in solidarity with others who are exploited through the system of prostitution and the sex trade, and will work with our allies to promote equitable legal frameworks to promote and protect the human rights of the victims of prostitution. By the way referring to me or us as "sex workers" does not change our experience our shame and vulnerability.

[VJASK]

Amazing shows but I can’t watch it because more then half the time there’s no subtitles so I have no idea what they saying 🙄 how annoying

[MkhuluGadlela]

Lumasikizi loludaba okukhulunya ngalo.

[CindyGordon-ub]

They need to pay tax everybody else has to.wise decision to legalize the industry .

[boity.bm.]

🙁once you see parts of the gross underbelly of human kind you cannot unsee it.😞

[LindaNgolanyama]

Abakhohlwe njee lento yama sex work ay'soze yaphela ikhona ikhona njee manje futhi 80% uyay'thanda lento so njee abalhohlwe

[rsswynard]

Hey leave sex workers alone they are doing theirs job so why are u disturbing them just leave them other wise we will be angry for u

[lulamasibiya]

manje bazoba under govment or what, i provinded fund bazoyi clamer kubani😂ay

[mlindenigumede]

Audit the Federal Reserve

#phalaphalafarm

#Animalfarm