We – Sonke Gender Justice, Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce, Women’s Legal Centre and Sisonke National Sex Worker Movement – are eagerly awaiting to see the national Department of Health’s plan to address HIV and AIDS in the sex worker community, which it is scheduled to launch this Friday, 11 March 2016.
As civil society organisations we are calling for reforms that include the decriminalisation of sex work, as sex workers face exceptionally high levels of violence, including gender based violence. They suffer risk of rape, abuse and murder.
This is largely due to the on-going criminalisation of sex work, which makes sex workers easy targets of abuse. In South Africa, all aspects of sex work are criminalised and this drives sex workers away from accessing social services, health care and police protection.
But will the plan that will be launched on Friday address this issue? We will be watching this development very closely.
Read the full article on GroundUp here.
