COSATU to make Sex Work Decriminalisation Submissions in Parliament at 12pm today

5 March 2018

COSATU will present its proposals on the need to decriminalise sex work to Parliament’s public hearings at 12pm Monday 5 March, Old Assembly.Sex work is currently illegal in South Africa.  Sex workers face horrendous conditions, including extreme levels of exploitation, violent crimes, lack of labour rights, no access to social security, and an inability to ask the SAPS for help.

We support decriminalisation because it will help to ensure sex workers are treated as human beings and that they are able to access their full constitutional, labour, human and other rights and opportunities.

Government needs to support sex workers in exercising their constitutional, human and labour rights.  Decriminalisation will assist government to focus on and tackle the scourge of human and child trafficking and abuses. To delay decriminalisation is to delay dealing with the many challenges sex workers and as a consequence society face.

Issued by Mathew Park, COSATU Parliamentary Officer, 5 March 2018