Sex work is one of the remaining viable options for making a living Black woman in South Africa, where job scarcity is rife. However, even with the industry drastically growing, efforts to decriminalise and establish legislative protections for sex workers have been largely unsuccessful. Sex workers often face police harassment, threats of sexual assault and ostracisation without any legal protections.

South Africa’s unemployment rate has hit a record low in the second quarter of 2021. With an unemployment rate of 34.4%, sex work has become prevalent and, for some, is the only option to make ends meet. The industry suffered a blow during the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving workers without financial assistance. Due to the criminalisation of sex workers, many were unable to register for unemployment relief like workers in other industries. Lockdown regulations only exacerbated their plight; workers were largely unable to access their work environments, including strip clubs and brothels due to strict regulations on entertainment establishments. Even walking outside was off the table due to early curfews. These regulations increased their risk of being harassed by police while also escalating their risk of becoming ill with COVID-19. 

Mistress Violet, a sex worker living in South Africa, expanded on the various challenges faced by workers in her industry, expressingthe urgent need for decriminalisation and interventions that will destigmatis esex work on an institutional and societal level. Mistress Violet, who lives in a rural town in the Western Cape, also shared how she conducts her work. For safety purposes, she only meets clients after extensive online consultation and requires a health check before engaging with them. Although this is a safe method of engagement, she says that the lack of legislative framework in protecting sex workers adversely affects her. “I do not go outside to find sex work, I mostly use an online platform. This is beneficial for my safety, but it also means that I make less money because I am not active on the streets or in an establishment where clients are guaranteed.” Additionally, she adds that there is a divide amongst sex workers, in which those who utilise platforms like “Only Fans” and other platforms for “solo work” are regarded as disingenuous. “There is also a narrative that we are safer and less likely to be harmed because we are not onsite. This is not true because a client can easily stalk me online and find where I live. This would put not only me but the lives of those around me at risk.”

Africa's Sex Workers and the Politics of OnlyFans

Her experience proves that there is no comprehensive model for safety for workers, particularly for those who want to remain discreet. Citing the conservative nature of South Africans which is compounded by religious beliefs, Violet expresses concerns about being “outed” and states that the danger faced is not limited to clients, but also community members who might harm or kill a person they believe to be “sexually deviant” or “morally depraved''. Violet also shares her experience of being the child of a police officer and witnessing her parent handling gruesome cases of sex workers who were killed by the community as an act of moral cleansing.

Black women have a complicated relationship with law enforcement and the judiciary in South Africa. As South African academic, Gabeba Baderoon, succinctly states: “Slavery generated foundational notions of race and sex in South Africa, yet we have largely forgotten its role in our history.” On the legacy of gender-based violence and sexual assault on Black women in South Africa, she adds: “The historian Robert Ross writes that ‘throughout the 180 years of slavery at the Cape, not a single man, slave or free, was convicted for raping a slave woman.’ The scale of such sexual violence is part of the reason that South Africa continues to experience epidemic levels of sexual violence today.” As mentioned by Professor Pumla Gqola, South African women have historically been viewed as hypersexual objects whose bodies were plundered repeatedly during colonisation. This is illustrated through her examination of the slave lodge in Cape Town and how the interactions between colonial men and slave women have been rewritten to appear consensual. This undermines the fact that slave women were unable to consent and the lodge existed for the state-sanctioned rape of Black women. This legacy prevails in post-democratic South Africa where Black women are unable to attain justice in the case of sexual assault. There is a clear link here to the experience of sex workers—the majority of whom are Black women, when they attempt to report violations to the police. As reported by Human Rights Watch, most sex workers in South Africa are poor, Black and female, and engage in sex work primarily to support their children, as well as other dependents. Sex workers face the multilayered crisis of being ostracised by society, harassed and assaulted by police and susceptible to violence at the hands of clients. 

Due to the criminalisation of the act of selling sex, sex workers are treated inhumanely by law enforcement. The case of a trans sex worker named Robyn Montsumi made headlines in 2020 after she mysteriously died in police custody. Civil society organisations including The Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT), Sisonke, the National Movement of Sex Workers and Triangle Project all called for an independent investigation after the South African Police Service alleged that Montsumi hanged herself in the police cell. 

Cases of maltreatment by the police are ubiquitous in South Africa. Sex workers have reported being coerced into sex by police or being unlawfully detained, denied access to their medication and being assaulted while in custody without their cases ever appearing in court. The Human Rights Watch reported that women were targeted by law enforcement for loitering in certain areas, carrying condoms in their bags or dressing in a manner that “aids solicitation.” This has forced people to work in areas that are unsafe and further aids in the criminalisation of sex workers. As reported by Amanda Maliba, a study released by the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) and the Perinatal HIV Research Unit (PHRU), showed that almost three-quarters (71 percent) of female sex workers have been exposed to physical violence and 58 percent had been raped.” The study further illustrated that one in every 7 rape cases recorded was at the hands of a police officer. 

Dudu Dlamini, the manager of SWEAT, informed IOL of the urgency of decriminalising sex work. “It is 2021 and sex work is still criminalised under the Sexual Offences Act that was drafted during the apartheid era,” says Dlamini. Sex workers autonomously choose to do this work; they are providers—mothers, fathers, caregivers, taxpayers and should be treated as such. Sex work must be recognised as work! Sex workers’ rights should be part of labour rights.” 

There is a need for a rigorous and holistic approach to decriminalising sex work in South Africa. Police sensitivity training and protocols must also be put in place to destigmatise the industry and those who work within its purview. In March 2019, President Cyril Ramaphosa vowed to decriminalise sex work, declaring this stance was part of a legislative goal to reduce violence and murder against women in South Africa. More recently, the decriminalisation of sex work was included in the new National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence & Femicide (NSPGBV).” However, the change remains unseen. The country has not yet seen tangible legislative reform and sex workers continue to work under increased policing and militarisation.