A bargain basement strategy to keep ‘cheap women’ safe from gender-based violence and murder

17 Oct 2022

The Department of Justice has not jumped at the chance to implement this bargain basement GBV strategy nor completed its law reform sex work project started in 1997 — and it still seems stuck in ‘doing consultations’ 20 years on.

New converts to the streaming platform Britbox will find a selection of gripping detective and crime series to choose from, with intelligent dialogue, quirky English expressions and engaging plots. This leads to too easy binge-watching and tired eyes the next day.

It is noticeable however how many of these murder mysteries focus on the brutal killing of female sex workers.

The details of sadistic murders (usually accompanied by rape and sexual torture over prolonged periods of time) are often described at length (with close-up shots of mutilated bodies), lacy torn underwear is used as evidence, and colleague sex workers are portrayed in shallow stereotypes, with many a sex worker seen flirting with grinning male detectives. The assumption prevails that while tragic and unnecessary, these murdered women have ‘cheap lives’ and ‘got what they deserved’ by placing themselves in danger by selling sex.

Such storylines are not limited to British fiction only of course and are a popular theme in other genres.

Now turning to recent events in South Africa:

We believe that these fictive worlds have primed the public imagination for the news of the recent discovery of six bodies of women murdered in Central Johannesburg. Regular updates are posted as events unfold.

News reports indicate that the bodies were decomposing near a panel beating shop in downtown Johannesburg, with some of these having been discarded in wheely dustbins. The stench — it is said — permeated the area.

Might it be the gruesomeness of the crime and the callous, arrogant disposal of the evidence that has gripped people’s attention? The macabre setting of a panel beating shop? Might the interest lie in that the women are rumoured to have been sex workers, some of them reported as missing since late June?

We think it could be a combination of these factors, but in the context of the siege of gender-based violence (GBV), it is heartbreaking that this is not a completely novel occurrence. Seldom a day goes by in South Africa without reports of women having been raped, attacked or murdered. In fact, in the first three months of 2022 alone, SAPS reported that 855 women were murdered and 11,000 GBV cases were opened (that is nine murders and 122 GBV incidences every day).

What was discovered last week is tragically not particularly an outlier in our violent society.

Read more in Daily Maverick: ‘Murder of six women in Joburg exposes safety hazards for sex workers in SA’

We believe, however, that the interest in this brutal incident may signify that public opinion has turned. It is calling out the placid acceptance of the stigmatisation and brutalisation of sex workers and that some people deserve to die violently because of their livelihood, or for defying gender roles. Progressively more people are challenging sexual moralism and old colonial laws that uphold the hatred of women and keep the criminalisation of sex work on our law books. Many are thoughtfully questioning what ‘work’ means, who is excluded from being a ‘worker’ and why the state — cruelly and illogically — withholds the protection of labour and occupational health and safety laws from sex workers. Why, for example, can a person choose to become a masseuse or a psychologist or go onto Tinder to find a sex partner for the night, but yet selling or buying sexual services could land one in jail?

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Let us be clear: if the identities of the victims are confirmed as sex workers, the criminalisation of sex work supported and perpetuated the violence in that panel beating shop. And for that, the reticent politicians and civil servants in the Department of Justice, the South African Law Reform Commission and Parliament — and every person who supports the criminalisation of adult, consensual sex work — should shoulder responsibility.

The criminal law initiates and bolsters sex work stigma and discrimination, while it makes law enforcement officers the persecutors of sex workers, rather than their protectors. Criminalisation drives sex work underground where sex workers are exploited, abused and are often without protection or support. It gives clients the opportunity to rape, bribe and hurt sex workers as they know sex workers will have little legal recourse. It drives sex workers away from legal, social, and health services. It prevents sex workers from seeking alternative sources of income as a criminal record precludes employment in the formal sector.

The law helped put those six women — and thousands of others — in those wheelie bins.

In our work this past week, we have found that the brutal deaths have sparked terror in the sex work community in South Africa. Migrant sex workers in particular fear for their lives; sex workers who have been reported as missing persons (‘MisPers’ in Britbox language) in that area of Johannesburg are cross-border migrants. It is believed that they are among those bodies found. The alleged murderer, after all, is a well-known client in the area.

This points perhaps to one of the most menacing components of a hate crime (that is, a harm that involves prejudice or hate against a particular group): it sends a grim message to the victim’s community that they are not wanted, and that they should fear the same harm. Would the passing of the Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill into law have made a difference?

We believe it would have.

But, the Bill was introduced to Parliament in 2016 and still lounges there.

Following intense activist pressure, the government appropriately allocated R21-billion to implement South Africa’s new GBV policy – the Gender-based Violence and Femicide National Strategic Plan (GBVF-NSP) to mitigate GBV in the country last year.

It is agonising that the most powerful intervention for keeping sex workers from harm would divert not one cent from this budget, nor any other government fund. It would merely, cheaply mean deleting a paragraph from the Sexual Offences Act (of 1957 — note the date) to effectively remove sex work from the criminal law.

It could not be simpler.

But the Department of Justice has not jumped at the chance to implement this bargain basement GBV strategy. It has not yet completed its law reform sex work project started in 1997, and it still seems stuck in ‘doing consultations’ 20 years on.

The safety of sex workers — and indeed the safety of society as a whole — requires all of us to push for this much-needed law reform.

We call on you to add your voice to this change, by demanding that the President, the Minister and Deputy-Minister of Justice show political will and decriminalise sex work now.

Let us transform criminalisation from non-fiction to fiction, cheap cheap. DM/MC

Marlise Richter is a researcher at the Health Justice Initiative and a researcher associate at African Centre for Migration & Society, Wits University. Nomsa Remba is the National Helpline Coordinator at the Sex Worker Education and Advocacy Taskforce (Sweat)

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