INSIGHT

Cheryllyn Dudley

PROSTITUTION, sex tourism, trafficking in women and other such practices reduce women to sexual commodities and have a devastating impact on women in developing countries, and oppressed groups in developed countries. Decriminalisation causes an increase in these practices to meet the demand created by a legalised sex industry.

In South Africa prostitutes have the same access to facilities and services as everyone else. However, in line with international evidence which shows that a majority of prostitutes do not want to be regulated, departments cannot force prostitutes to comply. Even in countries where prostitution is legal prostitutes, for various reasons, choose not to use protection or get regular health services.

We must protect the weak and vulnerable in society whom prostitution most targets.

An overwhelming body of international evidence shows that the terrible abuse and exploitation of women and children trapped in prostitution does not decline where there is decriminalisation, and in fact the opposite is true.

Legalising prostitution has less to do with the human rights of women trapped in slavery and more to do with the multibillion dollar industry that it is globally. Prostitution is a wrecker of relationships, families and communities and it cannot be allowed to become a career choice.

Presently, opinion is being gathered by the SA Law Commission on the attitude of South Africans on this issue and we know that there is pressure being exerted to ensure that prostitution is decriminalised before 2010. Not even two years after Germany was announced as the host nation for the 2006 Fifa Football World Cup final, prostitution was legalised in preparation for the tournament. And now South Africa appears to be following suit.

It is appalling that following the disgraceful example of the National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi, Members of Parliament were also calling for prostitution to be legalised. Selebi’s reprehensible calls for prostitution to be legalised for the soccer World Cup in South Africa undermine statements made by other international law officers. The head of operations for the UN Centre for International Crime Prevention, with reference to human trafficking, is quoted as saying that laws decriminalising prostitution help gangsters and “make enforcement tricky”.

The African Christian Democratic Party continues to call for the relatively new laws in South Africa, which target the user, to be enforced. Laws in Sweden protect women in this manner by holding the user accountable and more effectively target the demand for trafficked women.

What is needed in South Africa is a mechanism whereby prostitutes can be diverted into an exit programme, with provision for the criminal offence to be expunged on completion of the programme. This would relieve the system to concentrate on targeting the demand side of prostitution including clients, pimps, procurers and traffickers.

Beijing ensured that this exploitative industry did not feed off of the Olympic games and lessons can be learnt from this example as well.

Legalising prostitution could be likened to legalising assault. In a country that desires a just legal system, it is unthinkable to grant people freedom to harm others. Beyond doubt, prostitution is harmful. Studies show that 75percent of prostitutes in escort agencies have attempted suicide.

Calls for the legitimising of this tragic and demeaning activity take us back to the arguments used to justify slavery. The same people who make a lot of noise over the predicament of Sarah Baartman, the South African woman exploited in Europe in the early 1800s, are now silent over protecting our young women on their own soil.

Countries which have experimented with legalising the practice have found it causes an increase in trafficking in women to meet the demand created by a legalised sex industry.

It also makes it difficult to hold traffickers accountable for their activities, as traffickers and pimps evade prosecution by using the legality as a cover, claiming women knew what they were getting into.

Public sentiment is clearly opposed to legalising prostitution. South Africa is not ready to have the failed policy of other countries imposed on us. The multi-billion dollar industry concerned is naturally looking for friendly territory to ply their lucrative trade, as countries like Holland and Sweden are turning from these destructive policies.

There is some indication that a Zuma administration, as opposed to the Mbeki administration, may well be listening to public sentiment and common sense. We hope, therefore, that decriminalisation of prostitution will not be forced on South Africa against the will of the people as has been done in the past.

We must protect the weak and vulnerable in society whom prostitution targets.

Cheryllyn Dudley is an African Christian Democratic Party MP. She was responding to a Department of Labour survey focusing on prostitution. The Eastern Cape hearings into the decriminalisation of prostitution take place in Port Elizabeth today