The Prize and the Price № 16

Criminalising the act of sex: Attitudes to adult commercial sex work

in South Africa

Jillian Gardner

Presently a range of both national and local laws criminalises sex work 1 and
related activities such as brothel-keeping in South Africa. The primary piece of
legislation criminalising sex work is the Sexual Offences Act (No. 23 of 1957).
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Despite the industry’s criminal status, sex work has proliferated in South Africa
over the last decade. Street-based sex workers are visible on major roads of every
South African city, mainstream magazines feature articles on the sex industry, and
newspapers generate income through advertising the services of sex workers.2
Sex work raises complex moral and social questions – is it a form of slavery, a
product of male domination over women or a valid aspect of human sexuality? This
chapter does not seek to answer those questions. Instead it considers the attitudes
and responses towards sex work in South Africa. While it is acknowledged that
issues of child abuse are worthy of extensive consideration, this chapter focuses
on adults involved in the sex work industry. Men, women and transgender persons
are involved in the industry and in most instances the provider is a woman and the
buyer a man.3 Although much of what is discussed here is also relevant to male sex
workers, the main focus is on females.
Historically, legal measures against sex work were as a result of public health
considerations. The South African Constitution contains a Bill of Rights which
guarantees all citizens fundamental human rights. Over the years, sex work has
been subject to much debate and dominant attitudes and responses have arguably
been discriminatory. The South African Law Commission (salc)4 is currently
investigating the question of law reform in South Africa. In 2002, they released
an issue paper on adult sex work. No recommendations for legislative change were
made in the document and in the interim period the constitutional validity of the
criminalisation of sex work was challenged in the Constitutional Court.

329
 Main debates around sex work

The reasons generally advanced for criminalising sex work include the following:
(i) because it is immoral; (ii) to prevent crime; (iii) to prevent public nuisances;
(iv) to prevent sexually transmitted infections (stis); and (v) because it is conducive
to violent abuse of sex workers. The main debates on the subject relate to the
definition and nature of sex work as well as the reasons for doing sex work.
A typical argument against legal recognition of sex work is that it weakens
the moral fabric of society and threatens the foundation of society – the family unit.
The argument that sex work is immoral is linked to the early Christian Church
view that sex should take place only within the ambit of a lawful marriage, and
then only for purposes of procreation. It is also based on the belief that it is wrong
to engage one’s body purely for commercial purposes by providing another with
sexual gratification. It has also been argued that sex work should be abolished
on the grounds that it contributes to the spread of stis, fosters crime and leads to
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neighbourhood decay. Public nuisance resulting from sex work is also often cited as
a reason for the criminalisation of sex work and police often cite complaints from
residents as the main motivating factor for arresting street-based sex workers. Sex
work is also seen as undesirable because of its association with organised crime
and drug trafficking. Linked to the debate on how sex work should be defined is the
question of whether sex work is a form of work or exploitation.
Proponents of the ‘sex work as work’ perspective typically argue that sex
workers should have the same rights as other (legal) workers, even if the choice to
do sex work may be one exercised within a limited range of options. On the other
end of the spectrum is the view that sees sex work as inherently exploitative, with
domination and violence as inherent features of the industry. In this view, sex work
per se constitutes violence even though the worker consents to the sexual act and
gets paid for it.

Sex work, disease and the law

South Africa has a long history of sex work. Prior to 1866, apart from some
legislation to control disorderly conduct in public, the authorities did little to
interfere with the practice of sex work, and there appeared to be no public outcries
against sex work. Sex work was seen as inevitable; a necessary evil to satisfy male
desire. Pressure for the legislature to take action came from the British. In 1866,
the colonisers threatened to withdraw troops from Cape Town after more than
13 per cent of their troops were hospitalised for stis. In 1868 the Cape government

330 the prize and the price

 passed the first Contagious Diseases Act (No. 25), which was derived directly from
British law and legitimised a system whereby sex workers were required to undergo
compulsory health checks for stis. This Act was repealed in 1872 and it was only
after district surgeons reported that stis were reaching epidemic proportions that
a second Act, the Contagious Diseases Prevention Act (No. 39), was passed in 1885.
The Act was divided into two parts and gave the district surgeons authority to place
anyone who had an sti, whether male or female, under medical treatment. Part 1
provided for the registration and regulation of sex workers and Part 2 was intended
to deal with syphilis in the rural areas. The Act made no provision for the removal
of a sex worker’s name from the register and the definition of a ‘common prostitute’
was vague. According to Freed (1949), a ‘common prostitute’ was described as
maladjusted, an unbalanced personality and a menace to society. Included in the
category of ‘common prostitute’ were also ‘latent’ homosexuals, women who ‘cheat’
on their husbands and ‘gold diggers’.
Prior to the unionisation of South Africa in 1910, control and treatment of
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people who had stis was regulated by different legislation in each province. The
Union of South Africa developed national legislation through the enactment of the
first Union Public Health Act (No. 36) in 1919 which, among other things, repealed
the Contagious Diseases Act and sought to provide accessible medical services and
education for all citizens. In terms of the Act, anyone who suffered from or who
suspected that they may be suffering from an sti was required to consult with a
doctor and undergo treatment until they were no longer infectious. Failure to do so
was declared a crime.
In 1957, the Public Health Act was repealed by the Immorality Act (No. 23).
One of the main amendments to the Immorality Act was the proscription of the
practice of sex work as a crime through the inclusion of section 20(1)(aA) in 1988.
Prior to this, sex work per se was not criminalised, although related activities such
as brothel-keeping were. The amended version of the Act, currently still in effect
but now called the Sexual Offences Act (No. 23 of 1957), continues to criminalise
numerous aspects of the sex work industry, including living off the proceeds of sex
work, brothel-keeping and procurement. Section 20(1)(aA) of the Act provides that
‘any person who has unlawful carnal intercourse or commits an act of indecency
with any other person for reward, commits an offence’. In law, a sex worker can
therefore be defined as a person who has unlawful carnal intercourse with another
for reward. The expression ‘unlawful carnal intercourse’ as used in the Act means
‘carnal intercourse otherwise than between husband and wife’. The Act does not
specify exactly what is meant by ‘reward’ for purposes of the offence, but it has
generally been understood to refer to financial reward.

Criminalising the act of sex 331

 Post-apartheid developments related to sex work

With the advent of democracy in South Africa, the Sex Worker Education and
Advocacy Taskforce (sweat) was established in response to the need to address
hiv/aids issues and human rights abuses experienced by individuals working
as sex workers. At the time it was reported that the national ministers of safety
and security and health supported the decriminalisation of sex work and a South
African Police Services spokesperson was quoted as saying that
the police services have begun to prioritise. We have come to realise that
arresting prostitutes, for example, does not solve the problem. It seems far
more important for us to concentrate on the enormous drug problem. So we
act only on complaint. If someone is minding their own business and not
disturbing anyone, we’ll let them be. (Mail & Guardian 23 December 19945)

A year later, the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at the University of the
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Witwatersrand, at the request of the South African Department of Health,

investigated possible strategies for regulating sex work which culminated in the
drafting of a Bill that sought to legalise sex work. In 1996, the Gauteng Cabinet
Committee on Safety and Security and Quality of Life mandated the Gauteng
Ministry of Safety and Security to draft a policy document on sex work. The
document recommended that sex work be decriminalised (Ministry of Safety and
Security 1997). In the same year, a national network of organisations, including
sweat, Lawyers for Human Rights and other interested individuals working towards
law reform in the sex work industry, was established. A lack of funding, however,
resulted in the subsequent demise of the Decriminalisation of Sex
Work Network.
In 1997, at its fiftieth National Conference in Mafikeng, the African National
Congress expressed support in its draft resolutions for the Gauteng proposals for
the decriminalisation of sex work,6 and South Africa presented its first country
report to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination
Against Women,7 noting that the current criminalisation of sex work may violate
the human rights of sex workers.8 In 1998, it was reported that the Commission on
Gender Equality (cge)9 had kicked off a campaign to decriminalise sex work (Mail
& Guardian 23 October 199810), and in 2000 the Women’s Legal Centre (wlc) and
sweat hosted a conference in Cape Town, looking at the legal aspects of sex work.
The Deputy Minister of Justice was a keynote speaker at the conference and in her
address noted that the issues to be addressed in the salc’s investigation into adult
sex work included protecting sex workers from violence, exploitation and coercion,
and affording them the rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights contained in the
Constitution of South Africa (wlc 2000). In the same year, the Ministry of Health

332 the prize and the price

 visited The Ranch, a well-known brothel in Gauteng, which apparently formed
part of ‘the department’s initiative to have the adult commercial sex work industry
decriminalised and regulated’ (The Star 21 September 200011). Subsequent to the
visit, the Director-General was quoted as saying, ‘We believe that the sex industry
in South Africa is alive and thriving, and we need to engage role-players in that field
so that we can protect the health of the women involved’ (The Star 23 September
200312).
In 2001, the Reproductive Health and hiv Research Unit hosted a national
conference in Gauteng focusing on the health aspects of sex work. During the
conference, a group of local and international sex workers attending the proceedings
issued a statement highlighting some of their concerns and needs. These
included the following: ‘We need more specific information about legislation and
decriminalisation…We need a safe environment, free of police…We need an end to
police harassment.’13
The following year, the salc released a much awaited issue paper focusing
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on adult sex work. The paper did not make any specific recommendations for how
sex work should be regulated. Rather, it sought to provide insight into the three
broad legal models for regulating sex work. Following the release of the issue paper,
sweat embarked on a series of workshops with sex workers to elicit and ensure
their input into the law reform process. At the first national meeting of sex workers,
nine independent submissions from sex worker groups around South Africa were
generated and forwarded to the salc. An excerpt from these submissions includes:
We feel that aids is a killing disease. It is the responsibility of individuals to
protect themselves [from hiv infection]…We don’t think that there should
be laws to control sex workers from spreading hiv/aids, because they end
up suppressing us…Health facilities should be accessible, and health care
providers should be educated to provide a service rather than to intimidate
us…Fees for sexual services should be standardised…Prostitution should
be decriminalised because it is not a crime…All regulations implemented
should have [as] their guiding principle the Bill of Human Rights.
(sweat 2002)

In 2003, a national movement of sex workers, called Sisonke, was launched at

another national meeting on sex work, hosted by sweat, the wlc and the University
of the Western Cape’s Gender Rights Project in Cape Town. The mission of Sisonke
is ‘to unite sex workers to improve [their] living and working conditions and to fight
for equal access to rights’.14
The constitutional validity of the criminalisation of sex work and related
activities was challenged in 2004 in Jordan and Others v The State.15 In 1996, a
policeman entered a brothel in disguise, paid money and received a pelvic massage.

Criminalising the act of sex 333

 The ‘sting’ operation led to the arrest and conviction in the magistrate’s court of
the owner, the receptionist and the sex worker at the brothel, for contravening
sections 2 and 3 of the Sexual Offences Act – brothel-keeping – and section 20(1)
(aA) – the performance of sexual or indecent acts for reward. They appealed against
their convictions and argued that these sections are unconstitutional and violate
their rights to dignity, economic activity, freedom and personal security, privacy
and equality. The high court dismissed the appeals against brothel-keeping but
found section 20(1)(aA) to be unconstitutional because it discriminates unfairly
between the sex worker and the client. The high court held the provision to be
‘discriminatory’ because
in principle there is no difference between a prostitute who receives money
for her favours and her sister who receives, for rendering a similar service, a
benefit or reward of a different kind, such as paid-for weekend, a free holiday,
board and lodging for a shorter or longer period, a night at the opera, or any
other form of quid pro quo. 16
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The owner and receptionist appealed to the Constitutional Court, which also had to
confirm the finding of the high court, namely that section 20(1)(aA) amounted to
unfair discrimination. The Constitutional Court applied the Interim Constitution
which was in force at the time of the arrest. In confirming the original convictions,
the court unanimously held sections 2 and 3 prohibiting brothel-keeping to be
constitutional. The court was, however, divided on the issue of the constitutional
validity of section 20(1)(aA). Of the 11 judges who heard the case, six found that the
section did not constitute unfair discrimination against women, because it sought
to criminalise the actions of both male and female sex workers, and because the
client was already liable for prosecution under the common law or the provisions
of a discredited apartheid statute, the Riotous Assemblies Act (No. 17 of 1956).17
The majority also stated that the sex worker was engaged in the business of
commercial sex and that one of the ways of curbing commercial sex was to strike at
the merchant by means of criminal sanction, and that the differentiation between
dealer and customer was a common distinction that was made in a number of
statutes and ‘if the public sees the recipient of the reward as being “more to blame”
than the client and conviction carries a greater stigma on the “prostitute” for
that reason, that is a social attitude and not the result of the law’.18 The minority
judgment, however, acknowledged that section 20(1)(aA) differentiated between
sex workers and clients, maintaining that ‘the differential impact between sex
worker and client is…directly linked to a pattern of gender disadvantage which our
Constitution is committed to eradicating’.19
The challenge based on equality thus failed and the court further held that
section 20(1)(aA) did not infringe the rights of sex workers to dignity and economic

334 the prize and the price

 activity and that even if the provision limited the right to privacy, such limitation
was justifiable in terms of the Constitution. The judges stated that while sexual
intercourse in exchange for money fell within the private realm, the claims to
privacy were reduced by the commercial nature of sex work and infringement of the
right to privacy was justified.20 The court also felt that by engaging in conduct which
is prohibited, sex workers open themselves up for violation of their human rights
to dignity and freedom of the person. The court remarked that these rights are not
violated since the sex worker ‘makes herself liable for arrest and imprisonment
by violating the law’ and that the diminished dignity of sex workers ‘arises from
the character of prostitution itself’.21 The court did not address the question of the
constitutionality of the continued criminalisation of sex work and argued that it was
not within the realm of the court, but rather a matter for the legislature, to decide on
the most effective policy option for sex work.22

Why laws criminalising sex work should change

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The current definition of sex work is problematic because many individuals who sell
sex do not see themselves as sex workers in the legal sense and numerous individuals
who fall within the scope of the law are excluded from penal sanctions.23 These
include individuals who engage in outside-of-marriage sex, as well as individuals who
engage in sexual relations with others in exchange for benefits such as food, clothing,
accommodation and any other recompense. Outside the realm of the law are also
those individuals who engage in extramarital affairs. Adultery and homosexuality,
for example, are no longer considered crimes in South Africa, and it is common
for individuals to engage in sexual relations outside of marriage. It is therefore
reasonable to conclude that sexual morality is selectively enforced in South Africa.
The primary motivating factor influencing people’s decisions to do sex work
in South Africa is related to economic considerations. In the absence of meaningful
income-generating opportunities, sex work offers people the opportunity to ‘make
a living’. The officially illegal status in South Africa also means that the sex work
industry remains part of South Africa’s growing black economy. The jobs created in
this economy are therefore not counted as jobs.
In all industries, conditions are most dangerous where workers are relatively
powerless and there is no effective regulation or control over employers. There are
currently no standards that govern the sex work industry and brothel-based sex
workers often complain about unfair working conditions and labour practices. Since
sex work is viewed as a crime and not a legitimate form of work, sex workers are not
afforded the protection and benefits offered to other employees.24 In 2000 sweat
and the wlc supported a group of sex workers whose human rights were infringed
upon by the owner of the agency where they worked. A court order was granted

Criminalising the act of sex 335

 which interdicted and restrained the owner from, among other things, preventing
the workers from freely entering and exiting the premises they occupied or
controlled, when they wished; forcing and/or arranging hiv or similar tests for any
workers without their prior written consent; communicating, whether directly or
indirectly, to any worker’s parents or relatives the fact that she was working as a sex
worker; levying fines against workers and/or appropriating workers’ money and/or
making deductions from monies held by the owner on the workers’ behalf without
their prior written consent; and assaulting and/or threatening to assault workers.25
As a consequence of their criminalised status, social stigmatisation and the
fact that they are by and large female, sex workers remain particularly vulnerable
to all crimes of violence against women. Between 1995 and 1996, a serial killer
murdered 19 sex workers in Cape Town; towards the end of 1999, a sex worker was
killed when a man threw her over the railings at a beach in Cape Town; while in
2003 a group of male sex workers and the brothel owner were murdered by two
men. In 2000, sweat and the wlc supported a group of street-based sex workers in
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obtaining an interdict against, inter alia, three police officials who were assaulting
and harassing them. The court order sought to restrain the officials from assaulting,
harassing, threatening or molesting them. The matter was also referred to the
Independent Complaints Directorate (icd),26 which recommended that the officials
face internal disciplinary charges as well as criminal charges, including rape,
assault, crimen injuria and corruption.27 This is possibly why Leggett cautions that
‘vice enforcement is a very dangerous business. If you want to keep drugs and
prostitution illegal, you have to watch the people in charge of enforcement very
carefully’ (2001: 155).
It is currently very difficult to achieve successful prosecution under the
Sexual Offences Act. The globalisation of the sex industry and modern technologies
such as the internet and cellular phones have made it harder to police the industry.
Current policing of sex work drains away scarce resources from more effective hiv
prevention, treatment and care programmes. Technikon South Africa’s Institute for
Human Rights and Criminal Studies claims that
◆ at a minimum, it costs the police close to R14 million a year to prosecute
sex workers;
◆ police action against sex workers is inconsistent;
◆ most cases against sex workers are dropped after coming to court, wasting
valuable court time; and
◆ sex work is more heavily policed than serious violent crime.28

Scrapping the laws against sex work will free up police resources which could be
better spent fighting serious violent crime. A change in the laws criminalising sex

336 the prize and the price

 work will not only enable the extraction of revenue from an industry which goes
largely untapped, but also afford those involved in the sex work industry access to
labour rights. Public nuisance manifestations can be controlled through existing
laws and regulations which are not dependent on the criminalisation of sex work.
The rationale that sex work generates crime is empirically not verified, and there are
currently no statistics which show the number of crimes that have been committed
as a result of sex work. There is also insufficient information on whether drugs are
leading people to do sex work or whether sex work causes people to use drugs. In
any event, it is not entirely clear how having answers to these questions will clear up
the debate on sex work. In spite of criminalisation, South Africa experiences high
levels of violence and substance abuse. These are issues not only for sex workers
but for society as a whole. Why sex workers should be singled out for punishment is
not acceptable.
Hiv is the most recent issue in a long history of recurring moral and
practical questions and conflicts raised around sex work. The reality of aids as an
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sti has strongly influenced perceptions of and responses to aids. Strategic health
interventions around hiv have labelled sex workers a high-risk or core group – a
primary bridge population through which hiv is spread to the general population.
In this view it seems that aids is seen to be caused not by a virus but by the actions
of certain groups of people. While it is acknowledged that interventions aimed at
changing behaviour have a great role to play in preventing the transmission of hiv,
and that sex workers may have relatively more sexual encounters than individuals
not doing sex work, it is also true that condoms, if used properly and consistently,
provide the best protection against infection and that individuals do not always
control their exposure to risk.29
Given that sex workers are mostly women, they in fact are at increased risk
of getting infected with hiv compared to their male sexual partners. There are no
reliable data about the prevalence of hiv among sex workers in South Africa and
even where data are available they are often not compared to rates of infection in the
broader community where sex workers live and/or work. This has much to do with
the hidden nature of the industry and difficulties related to the definition of sex
work. Rather than talk of high-risk and low-risk groups, we should be talking about
high- and lower-risk sexual acts. The exchange of sex for money does not spread
hiv; unprotected sex with an infected person is what leads to infection. Many of the
women who sell sex also have personal partners, and time and time again research
has shown that while sex workers may use condoms with the clients, this is not
the case with their personal partners, who generally refuse to use condoms. Why
then is it often assumed that hiv-positive sex workers got infected in the course of
their work?

Criminalising the act of sex 337

 Conclusion

Sex work poses difficult questions. On its own it is hardly the most pressing form of
‘crime’ confronting South Africa. The authorities may be correct in pointing to its
extensions into child prostitution and drug dealing, which constitute a clear reason
for the need for vigilant control. But is the criminal law the best means to deal with
sex work? Over the past years, sex work has received considerable attention and
the topic remains an emotive one, with opinions on the issue generally polarised.
Those who advocate for law reform, and in particular the decriminalisation of sex
work, do not necessarily do so because they think it’s a wonderful institution, nor
because they believe in a ‘free-for-all’. The individuals and organisations that have
direct experience working with industry role-players are in a good position to testify
to the effects of criminalisation on the lives of individuals working as sex workers.
Researchers (Leggett 2001; Pauw & Brener 1997a, 1997b) and activists (Alexander
2001; De Villiers 2001) have also noted the negative impact of criminalisation on the
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lives of sex workers and hiv-prevention programmes.

Legal reform may appear self-evident, but it is the degree to which policy and
lawmakers – and society at large – are willing to confront their own prejudices about
what is permissible sexual behaviour and what is not that will determine the future
legal and social status of sex work in South Africa.30 It is unfortunate that the judges
in the Jordan case didn’t consider the constitutionality of the criminalisation of sex
work. Rather than interrogate the efficacy and reasonableness of criminalisation,
the judges worked from the premise that sex work is indeed a crime, and that the
violation of the human rights of sex workers was a consequence of engaging in a
prohibited activity and not a result of criminalisation.
The question whether sex between consenting adults should continue to
remain criminal should be a matter of balancing the social benefits resulting from
criminalisation against the social, human and financial costs of invoking criminal
sanction. Seen in this light, it should not be hard to conceive why the laws against
sex work should change. Criminalisation has not achieved its desired end of
suppressing sex work, nor has it prevented the spread of stis, including hiv.

Notes
1 The term ‘sex work’ is used rather than ‘prostitution’ because it is the term preferred by
sex workers, but also because the label ‘prostitute’ has negative connotations.
2 I am grateful for suggestions, comments and contributions from Clayton Gardner
(ex-sweat outreach worker), Myrtle Adams (ex-sweat volunteer) and Anita Kleinsmidt.
3 This arrangement is not exclusive as homosexual and male sex workers also exist.
4 Salc is a statutory advisory body whose aim is the renewal and improvement of the law of
South Africa on a continuous basis.

338 the prize and the price

 5 Gevisser M, ‘The new sa has a different position on everything’.
6 It is alleged that in their Draft Conference Resolutions (on file with the South African
Law Commission), the African National Congress resolved that the state should take
appropriate measures to remove all legislation that made sex work a criminal offence and
ensure that sex workers have regular and confidential access to public health services. The
anc Women’s League, in its charter titled ‘The Women’s Charter for Effective Equality’
(retrieved from http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/policy/womchart.htm on 18 August
2008), states that the resolution to decriminalise sex work was approved at their National
Conference on 27 February 1994.
7 The un Committee is tasked with overseeing the implementation of the Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, of which South Africa is
a signatory.
8 See Article 6 of South Africa’s Initial Country Report. Available at
http://www.womensnet.org.za/hr/1cedaw19.htm. Accessed on 18 August 2008.
9 The Constitution sets out the functions and powers of the cge. These include reviewing
existing and upcoming legislation from a gender perspective and monitoring and
evaluating the policies and practices of government, the private sector and other
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organisations to ensure that they promote and protect gender equality.

10 Haffajee F & Amupadhi T, ‘Sex industry is on the rise’. It has also been said that the cge
produced a brief position paper supporting the decriminalisation of sex work.
11 Health reporter, ‘Brothel-probing minister wants sex work legal’.
12 Altenroxel L, ‘Back at the Ranch, health officials talk sex’.
13 Unpublished statement (‘Sex Workers Speak Out’) from sex workers associated with
the Mothusimpilo Project, High Transmissions Area Project, Port Elizabeth, sweat,
Danzine, Coyote, and aim. South African Conference on Sex Work: The Health Issues,
Johannesburg, 19–20 February 2001.
14 More information about the group is available at www.sweat.org.za.
15 2002 (6) SA 642 (CC).
16 Jordan and Others v The State 2002 (1) SACR 17 at 21f-g; 2001 (10) BCLR 1055 (T) at
1058D–E.
17 Jordan paras 15–19.
18 Jordan para. 16.
19 Jordan para. 60.
20 Jordan paras 82–84.
21 Jordan paras 74–75.
22 Jordan para. 94.
23 Leggett (1998) notes that less ‘traditional’ forms of sex work are practised in rural and
township areas.
24 This was one of the findings from the needs assessment conducted by sweat (see Zetler
1999).
25 Jansen and sweat v Petersen and 2 Others, available at www.wlce.co.za.
26 The icd is an independent statutory body set up to investigate complaints against police
conduct.
27 De Bruyn and 10 Others v Minister of Safety and Security and 4 Others, available at
www.wlce.co.za.

Criminalising the act of sex 339

 28 They point out that 91 per cent of the 4 390 reported prostitution offences in 2000 went
to court, with convictions secured in 33 per cent, while the convictions for carjacking in
2000 stood at 2.3 per cent, aggravated robbery at 2.3 per cent and rape at 7.56 per cent.
The institute’s work is available at http://www.crimeinstitute.ac.za.
29 The risks of infection for sex workers may vary greatly since a broad range of factors have
been shown to increase vulnerability to infection. These relate largely to the lower social
status ascribed by society to sex workers.
30 It is significant to note that the United States now requires that organisations who
receive us government funding for hiv and anti-‘trafficking’ efforts implement policies
against needle exchange and promoting legal acceptance of sex work. This means that
organisations would not be allowed to use other money for these activities.

References
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of South Africa. Research for Sex Work 4: 20–21
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De Villiers C (2001) Labour and the sex work industry. Presentation at the 14th Annual Labour
Law Conference, Durban. Available at www.wlce.co.za/advocacy/presentation4.php.
Accessed on 25 March 2004
Freed LF (1949) The problem of prostitution in Johannesburg: A sociological survey. Cape Town:
Juta
Leggett T (1998) The least formal sector: Women in sex work. Crime and Conflict 13: 21–24
Leggett T (2001) Rainbow vice: The drugs and sex industries in the new South Africa. London:
Zed Books
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and Violence: 80–83
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Commercial Sex Work: Exploring the public health issues. Reproductive Health and hiv
Research Unit
Sweat (Sex Worker Education and Advocacy Taskforce) (2002) Unpublished report of the
national sex worker meeting, Worcester, Cape Town
Wlc (Women’s Legal Centre) (2000) Conference report: Adult commercial sex work –
decriminalisation or regulation? Cape Town: Women’s Legal Centre
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340 the prize and the price