Anti-trafficking, human rights groups to reject amended sex trade bill – The Mail & Guardian

Leaning against a lamppost in broad daylight, Amanda speaks about her earnings. The going rate for “business” is R50 a client, but it varies. Some clients only have R30 or R20, which most of the women are willing to accept.

“When you are hungry, you take it,” she says, adding that business should improve before month end.

Away from Nugget Street, women activists, anti-trafficking and human rights organisations as well as sex trade survivors from more than 60 countries have signed an open letter in which they reject the proposed bill.

The letter, sent to Justice Minister Ronald Lamola and his deputy, John Jeffery, has about 2 000 signatures. It outlines the grounds for opposing the “Jeffery Bill”.

“An estimated 131 000 and 182 000 people are currently in prostitution in South Africa, almost all disenfranchised black women and girls. If the Jeffery Bill passes, that number will exponentially increase,” stated the letter, released on 9 January.

Among other arguments, the letter states the bill fails to understand how prostitution operates in that demand for prostitution fuels the sex trade.

“The sex trade is a market whose success depends on the economic equation of supply, demand and the incentive for profit … Without sex buyers' money, the multi-billion-dollar global sex trade would not exist,” states the letter.

“The Jeffery Bill's elimination of penalties for sex buyers and commercial sex establishments will dramatically grow the sex trade, increasing the demand for purchased sexual acts, which leads to sex trafficking.”

Mickey Meji, a signatory to the letter and human rights activist at the nonprofit Survivor Empowerment & Support Programme in Cape Town, says the bill “does not address the violence, terror, trauma or even death that we suffer at the hands of sex buyers, pimps or because of the system of prostitution itself. In fact, the Jeffery Bill would condemn generations of poor and vulnerable black women and girls to the sex trade with the blessing of my government.”

Hilary Leong, co-founder and chairperson of Awareness for Child Trafficking Africa, says that through legalising sex trading, the abuse and exploitation synonymous with the industry will “become more hidden”. Brothel owners, abusers and sex trade facilitators will hide behind the legality of the sector, Leong said.

A collective of sex trade survivors and grassroots organisations launched a new movement, Sale!SA, to oppose the government's intention to legalise the trade.

“Prostitution is, in itself, a gross violation of human dignity and is inherently exploitative. Through power imbalance it exploits the vulnerability of those who are desperate to survive and/or provide for their family, and turns especially women into products of servitude to a system built on gender inequality,” according to a statement by Sale!SA.

Says Leong, who is part of the movement: “For some reason the government is not listening to us.”

Marcel van der Watt, a former Hawks sex trafficking investigator and director of the Research Institute at the National Centre on Sexual Exploitation in Washington DC, made oral submissions to parliament in 2018 about the “seamless overlap between sex trafficking and prostitution in South Africa's sex trade”.

He told the M&G that under the government's proposal “every ferocious dimension of the sex trade will be decriminalised including buyers, pimps, and brothels, which are zones of sexual exploitation peppered with criminal activities such as drug dealing, extreme violence, and child sex trafficking”.

He agrees with Leong and the National Freedom Network (NFN), the umbrella body for anti-human trafficking organisations, that the government has not had meaningful consultations with all relevant people. “Since every sphere of society will be impacted by the ‘Jeffery Bill', it is prudent that government agencies such as home affairs (irregular migration and undocumented migrants) the department of tourism (sex/prostitution tourism), as well as corporate South Africa be consulted and given the opportunity to respond to the proposed law.”

Van der Watt further says the government has “flagrantly ignored” recommendations made by the South African Law Reform Commission (SALRC) in its 2017 report on adult prostitution.

The report recognised that prostitution is exploitation and not work, and recommended that it remain fully criminalised or, alternatively, be partially decriminalised.

An excerpt from the 2017 report reads: “The commission does not agree that prostitution should be offered as a legal and rational survival and economic choice, given that social science has clearly shown that legalisation creates difficulties in certain respects — such as people working under exploitative conditions and risking human rights violations.”

Former public protector and lawyer Thuli Madonsela said the commission's reports are not binding and only present the government with recommendations on policy options.

Madonsela, who left the commission in 2009, contributed to the commission's interim report on the legislation framework regarding adult prostitution. “The option we were moving towards was to decriminalise and regulate [sex trading].”

She said the report found that decriminalising sex trading would take away the control pimps have over the industry. Second, it would take away the chance of corrupt police to rape or abuse illegal prostitutes. Third, women working in the sex trade can go to hospitals if it is legalised and, fourth, it reduces the stigma associated with the sex trade.

According to detractors, people can get healthcare irrespective of their occupation. Nevertheless, Mandosela said: “When you decriminalise sex trading you can use brothel owners as part of the social accountability network … They are now policing the ones who are abusing or trafficking children and women.”

She added that people would be encouraged to be whistleblowers.

“It is not the role of the state to police morality … but to make sure we do not harm each other,” said Madonsela. “Does prostitution harm society? No, it does not harm society. But what is harmful of sex work [is] children and those who are trafficked.”

Van der Watt says there is evidence that suggests the bill “will amplify harm and predatory impunity, not end it, while law enforcement's ability to detect and investigate sex trafficking will be radically diminished”.

Regarding the 2017 SALRC report, those who are opposed to legalising sex trading suggest partial decriminalisation. It would mean that buying sex — the demand side — will be illegal, but not the selling of sex.

Partial decriminalisation “solely decriminalises those bought and sold for sexual acts, while still holding buyers and exploiters accountable for the serious sexual, physical, and psychological violence they inflict. Intrinsic to this model is the provision of comprehensive services and exit strategies to prostituted persons,” said Van der Watt.

Partial decriminalisation follows the Nordic model — called the Sex Buyer Law or abolitionist or equality model — and has been adopted by countries such as Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Canada, France and Israel.

A short distance from Hillbrow, a brothel in Doornfontein under the guise of a residential home houses dozens of women who offer sex.

Against a white wall, an advertisement gives the option to view four women for R150, and an additional amount allows you to view more.

“You are entitled to freedom”, no one is “forced” to be here, a woman at the brothel said on condition of anonymity.

The woman prefers to be called a working girl rather than a sex worker.

Forced to earn an income after leaving her country in late 2021, she receives 50% of what clients pay for her services.

After contemplating whether legalising sex trading would help create a safer and regulated environment, she said: “I don't think it is going to change. There will still be people who want to make money from girls. It won't be different.”

Send comment and input on the bill to the chief directorate for legislative development at the justice department by 31 January.