Programme Director
SANAC CEO, Dr Fareed Abdullah
Senior Management of the Department of Health,
Sex Workers’ Education and Advocacy Task Force (SWEAT) Director: Ms Sally-Jean Shackleton
All Leading International Stakeholders present here
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
On 24th May 2012, on their invitation, I had met with SWEAT (Sex Workers’ Education and Advocacy Taskforce) and SISONKE (South African Sex Worker Movement). These two organisations wanted to meet with the Ministry of Police to raise issues of their specific concerns, such as police harassment and abuse of sex workers; the quality of police services to sex workers when they are victims of crime; and decriminalisation of sex work in South Africa.
Indeed, this meeting was fruitful, as it yielded to a much broader and inclusive public engagement with some 200 sex workers in the Western Cape on 15th August 2012. Issues that were raised by these ordinary sex workers had moved me. They had made sure that I honour the invitation extended to me, in my capacity as the Deputy Minister of Police, to attend this Seminar.
Yes, I am here to attest that, South Africa has a democratic police system, and as such, the mandate given to the police must be used according to this country’s Constitution and according to the rule of law. Therefore, my immediate response to all sex workers’ complaints against the police is that, the power given to police officers must be used with restraint and proportional to the crime it seeks to address or enforce.
Indeed, we cannot run away from the fact that, currently sex work is still criminalised in terms of Section 19 of the Sexual Offences Act, No 23 of 1957 as amended. Therefore, police officers are expected to oversee that laws are not broken, and those who break it, must still face the might of the law.
Notwithstanding, in this immediate instance, we are saying as Police Leadership that the unnecessary use of force or violence against civilians is criminal as well, and thus, cannot be tolerated.
We are a leadership which is committed to accountability, and which understands that police must be exemplary in their use of force, and police officers are expected to uphold human rights at all times.
That is why even our police recruitment standards have drastically changed in the last couple of years. To avoid recruiting on a blanket slate determined only by a certificate and a driver’s license, the new SAPS potential recruits are subjected to a raft of screening background checks, including compulsory rigorous vetting to avoid enlisting applicants with pending criminal cases.
Thus, the process of recruiting trainees is now conducted by a committee comprising of Community Policing Forums, religious groups, and schools, to avoid recruiting tsotsi cops.
As I now begin to talk on the theme the Seminar organisers requested me to focus on: Sex Work, HIV and Human Rights: “The Role of the South African Police Service (SAPS) in reducing stigma among sex workers”, I would like to take this particular opportunity to thank SWEAT and SISONKE for bringing matters of concern of ordinary sex workers to the national agenda.
We all know that police officers are ordinarily the sex workers’ first contact with the criminal justice system, and as we have heard during the public engagements with sex workers, this particular first contact is not only horrendous but it is also horrific, with near fatal consequences.
The sex workers are alleging that members of the SAPS are responsible for abusing, discriminating against, physically and sexually assaulting sex workers in the course of their duties, with sex workers having very little recourse to accessing justice in those instances.
Specific details given by the sex workers were: police using of pepper spray on sex workers, of which some sex workers have lost their sight in one or both eyes. Police are also alleged to confiscate and use condoms to profile, stigmatise, investigate and arrest sex workers.
As the SAPS Leadership, we have instructed the SAPS Provincial Commissioner of the Western Cape to investigate these serious allegations, and to report back to the Ministry of Police no later than 31st August 2012.
For, confiscating of condoms not only heightens the HIV/Aids crisis that South Africa is experiencing, as nearly of 18% of the population of South Africa is currently infected with HIV. Also, confiscating and destroying un-used condoms grossly undermines our Government’s efforts to reduce infection rates amongst key and vulnerable populations.
And, sex workers and their clients have been identified as high risk populations for HIV/ Aids by the South African National Strategic Plan 2012-2016. So, the practice of condom confiscation and destruction cannot be helping to curb the HIV/ Aids pandemic at all.
The main and critical question is then: What is the role of SAPS in reducing the stigma amongst sex workers? This surely must be Human Rights question for law enforcement.
Notwithstanding, as we are addressing this question, we must still all remember here that, the Constitutional Court in the case of State v Jordan and Others 2002 SACR 499 (CC) held that sex work is still an offence in terms of the law and that the policing of this offence is constitutional. So, whatever SAPS Leadership recommends here to you will still be done within the confines of the law.
The following recommendations are then tabled in this Seminar for your consideration:
- Organised sex workers to seek meeting appointment and further engagement with the National Commissioner of Police on the instruction circulated to Station Commanders of the Western Cape Police Stations regarding a Court Interdict against SAPS, Metro Police and City of Cape Town restraining them from “arresting sex workers in terms of Section 40 of the Criminal Procedure Act No.51 of 1977, for a purpose other than to bring arrestees before court of law, there to face due prosecution”.
- SAPS will intensify its existing training programmes on matters of human rights, and to provide specialised training to police officers in visible and sector policing. We believe that police officers need to be equipped and sensitised in order to build relationships of trust between community sectors and the police.
- Organised Sex Workers must consider participating in the National Council Against Gender-Based Violence (NCAGBV), which will be launched by the Deputy President on Saturday, 25th August 2012. It is a fact that the sector of sex workers does also become victims and survivors of gender-based violence in their line of trade.
The above three recommendations are informed by the dire need of specific details on the alleged cases against some of the police officers. The SAPS Management will only be able to investigate these complaints if specific details of each case of unlawful arrest of a sex worker, is provided so as to ensure that the misconduct or unlawful arrest is addressed appropriately and police officers found guilty of this gross misconduct can either be disciplined or criminally charged.
Lastly, I would like to comment on the issue of decriminalisation of sex work. Perhaps the point of departure on this topic would be to align the concept of decriminalisation with the process of exiting the sex industry for those sex workers who might wish to do so.
SWEAT estimates that South Africa has an estimated 250 000 to 500 000 sex workers operating illegally under the Sexual Offences Act, and thus, the issue of management and control of sex work regulation becomes imperative if not critical. For, we are not only dealing with sex workers in this instance, but also with their respective clients, who at most times are criminally invisible, and thus off-the-hook in the criminal procedure.
On one hand, research has shown that many poor women (and men) resort to exchanging sex for cash, food, clothing and shelter and to provide for their families. Economic determinants and continuous client demand means that sex work cannot be eradicated through a criminal law approach, and attempting to do so is futile.
On the other hand, many advocates for women’s rights assert that sex work is simply a form of violence against women and girl children. They understand that sex work is a form of gender based violence and exploitation, and condoning such practice is a violation of women’s human rights and a failure by the State to protect them from degrading treatment.
It seems then though that those who advocate against sex work and its legalisation believe that a flood of women and girls will join the ranks of the sex work industry in our cities.
Certain people like Dr. J O’Connel even goes far as saying: “Everywhere in the world, the commercial sex trade is parasitic upon human misery.
Quite apart from the fact that the vast majority of sex workers in both economically developed and underdeveloped countries have been forced into prostitution by some combination of economic desperation and or abuse, prostitution is, at best, a job which is tedious as well as intrusive and demeaning and, at worst, involves the repeated experience of personal violation, pain and degradation.”
In conclusion, Programme Director, I would like to say as Police Leadership, we will not tolerate police that continue to harass and abuse sex workers. Failure to rebuke violation of human rights will surely send a confusing message to police that police brutality will continue to go unpunished.
Looking towards the future, post-this-Seminar, we would hope for the situation in which sex workers have positive experiences of police, where police respect the constitutional rights of all people and where there is much closer cooperation between sex workers and the police to prevent crime, child prostitution and trafficking.
I thank you all.
