New call to end ban on prostitution in South Africa

Jul 31, 2008, 14:25 GMT

Johannesburg - A report on prostitution in South Africa's tourist capital of Cape Town released Thursday recommending lifting a ban on sex work.

The report by the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies, entitled Selling Sex in Cape Town surveyed 164 sex workers out of around 1,200 in the city.

'While sex workers are often subject to exploitative or abusive working conditions, very few (in Cape Town) are forced to sell sex,' the report, which was carried out in conjunction with the Cape-Town- based Sex Worker Education and Advocacy Taskforce, found.

Most of the prostitutes were black South African women between the ages of 24 and 28. Despite evidence of increased trafficking of women from poor African countries such as Mozambique to South Africa to work in the sex trade, the report's authors said sex trafficking was not a 'significant feature' of the Cape Town sex industry.

Foreign nationals accounted for only about 5 per cent of sex workers in Cape Town.

Calling for sex work to be decriminalized and be governed by the same laws as other occupations, the report said: 'The criminalization of sex work means that the industry is unregulated, and this creates conditions that allow employers to engage in practices that would be considered unacceptable for other kinds of employment.'

Chandre Gould, a co-author of the report, emphasized the ISS was not calling for the legalization of sex work, as this usually entailed the creation of a legal framework for the sex industry.

'Take it off the statute books altogether,' she urged.

The report's recommendation follows several calls in South Africa over the past year to legalize prostitution for the 2010 football World Cup being staged in the country.

Authorities in the port city of Durban proposed earlier this month legalizing adult entertainment venues during the tournament, pointing to the existence of similar facilities in Germany during the 2006 World Cup.

The city has yet to take a final decision on the matter which met with fierce opposition from opposition parties.

Last year, suspended police commissioner Jackie Selebi also proposed legalizing prostitution for the duration of the World Cup.