South Africa Cabinet Minister Calls for Decriminalizing Sex Work

LOS ANGELES—In South Africa, where sex work remains illegal and sex workers have very few protections under any laws, a high-ranking member of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s cabinet now says that decriminalization is the only way to protect the rights of women involved in the trade, according to a report by the South African news service IOL.  In 2017, the government there released a report on sex work that classified the work itself as “violence against women,” and called for “rehabilitating” sex workers, rather than lifting criminal penalties for their jobs. But this week, Social Development Deputy Minister Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu (pictured above) — who served four terms in the cabinet of previous President Jacob Zuma — called for the country to remove laws against sex work, saying that decriminalization was the only way to protect the “dignity” of workers in the profession. She also said that decriminalization is necessary to give the children of sex workers a wider range of choices in life. Currently, she said, the government seizes children of sex workers and places them in foster care as a defauilt response. “I don’t think team social development has understood and internalized that working as a sex worker is not chosen as an inheritance,” she said, speaking at National Sex Worker Dialogue even on Sunday. “Our programs do not look at assisting sex workers to ensure their daughters do not become sex workers themselves.” Bogopane-Zulu admitted that her department had “failed” to protect the children of sex workers, saying, “It was important to provide sex workers with tools so that they may have another choice.” The country has strict anti-sex work laws, outlawing the practice for more than a century, according to Human Rights Watch. The purchase of sexual services, however, was legal until 2007, when that, too, was outlawed. Operating or owning a brothel is illegal in South Africa, as is benefitting from earnings gained by “prostitution.” According to Human Rights Watch, most South African sex workers are poor, black women who depend on the income they earn from the work to support children and other dependents. Last year, Human Rights Watch issued a report that called for sex work decriminalization, saying that continued illegality “fuels human rights violations against sex workers, including by police officers, and undermines their right to health.” Photo By Justus Media / YouTube Screen Capture