For immediate release
10 October 2022
Prioritise decriminalisation of sex work to save lives of sex workers
SANAC Civil Society Forum is restating its call for the urgent and unconditional decriminalisation of sex work to be prioritised to facilitate safe and dignified working conditions for sex workers. This follows a chilling discovery of six bodies of women, believed to be sex workers, at a Johannesburg Central panel beating shop today 10 October 2022.
The Sex Worker sector says the discovery of these bodies comes after three cases of missing persons had been opened at John Vorster and Sophiatown police stations between July and October 2022.
Furthermore, it states that between 2017 and 2019 the Sex Workers Education Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) together with Sisonke Sex Workers Movement, recorded more than 50 cases of slain sex workers on the #SayHerName report, some of which were either never reported or people unidentified. The numbers are on a rapid rise with more cases of GBV.
“For more than 20 years we have been calling for the decriminalisation of sex work, to enable sex workers a safer working environment, but all that falls on deaf ears. Each day we are awoken to news of either a missing person or a body which has been found. To us these are not just bodies, but another family being deprived of a life and income”, says Kholi Buthelezi, Sisonke’s National Coordinator.
Civil Society Forum National Sex Work Sector Leader and National Coordinator of Sisonke Sex Workers Movement, Katlego Rasebitse says, “In our monthly meetups (Creative Spaces) and workshops we hold with our members, we often highlight issues of safety, reporting cases of harassment, police brutality and how to go about opening cases at police stations through the assistance of our human rights defenders. We are aware of numerous cases, not only in Johannesburg of missing persons. It saddens us to know that a number of them have been lost at the hands of someone posing as a client. We are urgently calling for the full decriminalisation of sex work to put an end to such things.”
In South Africa, sex work and its related activities are criminalised in both national and municipal legislation. As a result, sex workers work in oppressive conditions, and experience discrimination, which manifests itself as violence and a denial of access to health and justice services.
Through the Civil Society Forum ‘Communities In Partnership for Human Rights’ programme, the Sex Workers sector is currently documenting human rights violations with a designated focus on sexual and gender based violence with the view to raise awareness and strengthen community-led responses to mitigate human rights violations, gender inequality, including inequality and discrimination based on sex, gender and gender identity and expression.
#ENDS#
For all Media enquiries contact: Nthateng Mhlambiso – CSF Communications Officer
Email: nthateng@sanaccsf.org.za Tel: 012 784 1000 Mobile: +27 72 715 5425
Notes to Editors:
The SANAC Civil Society Forum (CSF) is a formal advisory body established in 2012 by the South African National AIDS Council to facilitate the participation of Civil Society Organisations and networks, including those representing People Living with HIV, in the HIV and AIDS and TB within the National HIV response and for the implementation thereof National Strategic Plan (NSP) on HIV, TB and STI’s through sectors.
The SANAC CSF aims to promote an inclusive, competent, and responsive civil society that effectively serves the needs of the people of the South African communities, by linking and diversifying civil society actors, expanding the sectors and communities where civil society contributes, improving civil society organisations’ operations, and enhancing connections between civil society organisations with their stakeholders and constituents.
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