/ 10 February 2010

New approach to sex work

Marlise Richter has started an important debate that has divided feminists and that political parties would rather avoid (Body Language, January 29). It reminds us of the debate on pornography in which MPs had to balance the dignity of women and the right to freedom of expression after years of censorship in South Africa.

The debate is important because by now we, as South Africans, know that what good laws are meant to do and what they achieve in reality are not always the same.

The South African Law Reform Commission has begun a process to review the law on adult prostitution that will culminate in a Bill with one of several options, such as decriminalisation and legalisation.

When talking about prostitution, some use the hackneyed justification that it is the “oldest profession” and therefore “inevitable”, so we need only decriminalise the ­”profession”. But Sweden has chosen a different path, which serves as an example to South Africa and other countries attempting to end violence against women.

In 1999, after years of research, Sweden adopted a two-pronged legal strategy, criminalising the buying of sex and decriminalising the selling of sex. The third and essential element of Sweden’s prostitution legislation provides for a comprehensive social-service fund aimed at helping any prostitute who wants to get out — and additional funds to educate the public.

In the Criminal Justice Index of 2009, Marie de Santis wrote that the “rationale behind this approach is that in Sweden prostitution is regarded as an aspect of male violence against women and children. It is officially acknowledged as a form of exploitation of women and children [that] constitutes a significant social problem and that gender equality will remain unattainable as long as men buy, sell and exploit women and children by prostituting them.”

Flowing from this analysis, Sweden has invested hugely in educating the public and changing the mind-sets of police and magistrates “to counteract the historical male bias that has long stultified thinking on prostitution”.

Some have argued that the Swedish model is not suitable for South Africa, with its high levels of poverty and unemployment. They also suggest that the Swedish law could be regarded as discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional in South Africa.

They would argue, like Richter, that “for poor women ‘sex work’ [our quotation marks] is a rational choice for survival in an environment where not many viable options exist and that it should be treated like other work”. They therefore call for a pragmatic approach.

But we would argue that it is not just poverty that leads many women into prostitution but the status of women in our society. Women working on the streets are not there just because of poverty but also because of continuing gender inequality in South Africa. In a society blighted by high levels of rape, child sexual abuse and domestic violence, we cannot help but see a relationship between this and prostitution.

The Swedish example is attractive in that, in just five years, Sweden has dramatically reduced the number of women in prostitution, reduced the number of brothels and “massage parlours” and eliminated sex-trafficking of women into Sweden.

In contrast, a University of London study for the Scottish government that looked at outcomes of prostitution policies in other countries found that legalisation or regulation of prostitution led to dramatic increases in all facets of the sex industry, the involvement of organised crime in the sex industry, child prostitution, the number of foreign women and girls trafficked into the region and violence against women.

What makes Sweden different is not that it possesses the resources that poor countries lack to offer women more choices and thus improve their material conditions. Rather, Sweden stands out as having the highest proportion of women at all levels of government.

As a government, Sweden made a switch from the male-dominated view that sees prostitution as inevitable and desirable to a feminist view that sees it as an extension of male sexual violence against women and children.

Richter says the prostitute on the street “could do with less feminist talk, ideological indecision and fascinated stares”. Deliberative democracy is not about winning the debate but about opening up the space for different voices to be heard so that we pass an informed law.

Feminists such as Catharine McKinnon have both engaged in feminist debate and worked on practical solutions such as the Swedish Model Law. The debate needs to be open to information and law needs to change in a practical way that addresses the inequalities that prostitution feeds on and breeds.

Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge is an ANC national executive committee member and socialist feminist. Loveday Penn-Kekana is a researcher at the Centre for Health Policy at the University of the Witwatersrand. Both write in their own capacity