With ANC president Jacob Zuma confirming that the World Cup 2010 will go ahead despite the current energy crisis, I was delighted to read in the Sowetan that an ANC MP is proposing that sex workers be legalised.
Please read the article; it’s short, but it’s a classic. For example, MP George Lekgetho told Parliament:
“It is one of the things that would make it [the tournament] a success because we hear of many rapes, because people don’t have access to them [women].”
and (even better):
“If sex work is legalised, people would not do things in the dark.”
I was on the floor.
It’s bad enough for some of these ladies to have to take your money; now they’re being told that you lot may want to keep the lights on? FFS, your missus or girlfriends may have to do the deed with mental pictures of you etched in their minds, but surely these ladies have suffered enough.
Mind you, many of you have been writing in to complain that your better half has threatened to give you your marching orders unless you get in touch with your “feminine side”. Lord knows, most of you have tried, but these women can’t seem to understand that your feminine side usually lives a long way from your spouse (for obvious reasons). You daren’t phone — what with the Cape spying scandal — and the price of petrol and gridlocks at traffic lights are making it an exercise in futility.
Anyhow, never fear, with Eskom chances are we’ll all be doing everything in the dark regardless. That’s where the feelgood factor comes in — if you can’t feel good in the dark, you’re going to be poesing all over your furniture for the whole of February.
I shouldn’t complain, really. I plan to be just outside the door to the ladies’ changeroom at our gym every night.
As soon as those lights go out, I’m in there like a whippet and apologising: “I beg your pardon, madam … teddibly sorry, young lady …” Make sure you wait until your eyes adjust to the dark or you won’t be able to make out the basic shapes; my form, I’ll be cornered by the goalie from the hockey team just as the lights go on … but I digress,
Why shouldn’t prostitution be legalised for the World Cup and even beyond?
Not every tourist is interested in visiting our game reserves or the zoo.
As Lekgetho rightly pointed out, it would be a source of taxable income and provide a safer environment for its practitioners. Rather they be regulated and, to a degree, protected than walking the streets and running any number of risks.
The income earned by single mothers working in this trade feeds many families — dependents who are currently at risk of losing their breadwinners to rape and murder.
As opposed to prostitutes coming out on to our streets, regulations could take them out of harm’s way and into protected areas.
Don’t fool yourself for a minute into thinking that by criminalising sex workers you reduce the numbers or even remove them from society. Quite the contrary; it’s a thriving industry and while some of its workers are well paid and looked after, the majority are not.
Another benefit is that it would enable the police to monitor much of the narcotics traded alongside this industry, and ensure that this is localised as opposed to spread out all over our cities. By making certain specific areas legitimate for prostitution, you exclude the need for taking to the streets in search of business — clients will have to go to the demarcated areas.
Whether we like it or not, prostitution is here to stay. By decriminalising it there are many benefits to the people who ply this trade as well as those who would like to see it brought under control.
Right now it’s anything goes.
Of course, with the World Cup not too far away, we can encourage tourists to buy maps with those demarcated areas indicated, along with bicycles and torches. As soon as the power goes out during a game, they can peddle en masse to our no-light district (we can’t use red globes because there’s no power to light them up).
If they don’t have a bicycle, it’s voorsprong, draf en tegniek.
* I would like to wish the family of the late Sheldon Cohen a long life and that you know no further suffering. This wonderful man, with whom I was at school many years ago, was another senseless victim of the terrible crime that haunts all South Africans.
Isn’t a man with such troglodytic ideas in the 21st century really patently unfit to be a public representative? He may himself tied to a PR spindoctor for now on. Probably claim he was “misquoted” that his words were “out of context”.
But the ANC don’t dump their clunkers. They promore them. Ask Winnie Mandela.
Support from the party means consent, or at the very least, nudge-nudge condonation.
Discipline is slack. Decency is even slacker.
Traps,
I suppose he wants to make sure that SA maximises its foreign revenue from 2010 in case of an EISHKOM situation. At least there is one sport you can still play in the dark…..Might just as well cash in with some hard currency. Eish. LOL.
Traps, please read Ndumiso Ngcobo’s latest post. He has some interesting ideas on how the ladies of the night could further an animal rights cause. I’d like to hear your views on the matter.
Mrs. George Lekgetho should be asking some probing questions at this juncture.
The man sure seems rather passionate about this whole business. This is the example all South Africans should be following. Instead of bitching about load shedding perhaps we should be taing advantage of the abundance of darkness to stimulate the economy of the lower Esplanade, Durban.
did anyone say baby boom?
I think it’s a great idea…maybe they can get marijuana through on the same bill? George Lekgetho might spring from obscurity to world wide fame if he gets this one right. And as for the DA response, puleez! Since when is sex with a prostitute the highest form of union between a man and a women and why the hell shouldn’t we add it to the tax base?
For a moment i thought Goerge is crazy, but then i now think he has the interest of many at heart!!!
Legalisation/decriminalisation of prostitution has failed in every country where it has been implemented. Countries such as Australia and Netherlands have experienced dramatic increases in legal and illegal prostitution (including street), child prostitution and trafficking in women/girls for sexual purposes.Sweden – tough on buyers,procurers and traffickers and exit programmes for prostitutes – has been substantially more successful in the battle against trafficking and sexual exploitation. This is a serious matter and I think we should be following policies that produce the best outcomes for women/girls.Robyn
RIP Sheldon Cohen
Rather than feel good – we should be talking about
Ho-hum factor.
The Soweto, Manenberg and Kwa Mashu, gangsters would be licking their lips at the prospect of milions of short socks und Scholl sandal pervo Euros on the lookout for a little brown sugar nookie!
Its unlikely to resemble Thailand or Amsterdam where you can buy your meat on the hoof, from a well regulated windowed shop front. Stamped with Government Approved “Guaranteed finest HIV free Ho meat -AA grade – Medium to upper fat”. Many may well be disapointed to find that some oportinistic Tsotsi pimp will relieve him/her of wallet, cell phone, Garmin, travel cards with pins etc.
Legalising one “crime”, however tempting, could open the pandoras box that is SA. We need some leadership to look at the entire social quagmire we live in.
Joburg was the original PJ O”Rouke “holiday in hell” way back in the 70′s. Is there any reason to assume things will be different for an intrepid tourist in 2010?
Ndumiso you bad boy you! How do you know about the lower Esplanade in Durban?
Now be honest – is it good value for money or would you reccommend something a little closer for Gautengers?
Last time I went they told me at the door “You’ve had it old timer”.
I said : “Genuine?! How much do I owe you?”
What a fantastic idea.
Legalise marijuana while you’re about it and let the police spend their time catching murderers and real criminals instead of wasting precious manpower and resources.
Robyn thank you for your email as well – If legalising prostitution does result in an increase of those involved in the industry then I would definitely be against it.
Grant the highest form of “union” is rugby.
Benjamin please let us know when you’re out of rehab – NB don’t let the nurses catch you using their computer to check up on prostitution – they’ll go mental.
Dear Robyn
Where is your evidence of failure? It is INDEED the case in SA that criminalizing prostitution has had NO effect on reducing the numbers of men and women who trade sex (let’s look beyond monetary exchange!) nor in preventing the numbers who enter this “trade” in SA. Indeed children are to be protected, but don’t mistake adults for children!
With legalizing prostitutes, they will soon be association and followed by strike over demanding to raise prices and so on, just imagine price fixing of that? No wonder God is punishing us with AIDS. Now is prostitutes next we will legalizing robbery and get tax out of it, why don’t we just legalize murder as long as your victim will die without a pain. Ok im over board now but watch this space we are getting there
What is the ANC’s take on prostitution?
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=nw20080201191352395C231973
we pretend it isn’t already freely taking place.
The only injustice to woman is that it is made illegal:
So criminals and pimps take control of their lives, enslaven abuse and addict them.
medical care is less available because of stigma’s
Dignity is destroyed because of stigma
and the economy can still benefit while allowing authorities to wash their lilly little hands.
The members suggestion is not popular, but the only thing that would change if such a proposal won the day is that pimps and controllers would be out of market, the lives of thousands would be vastly improved.
Given the two choices – keep it as is, or legalize it…..legalization will serve to enhance the dignity of these woman far more than the status quo will.
How is it that sex between two consenting adults suddenly becomes criminal if there’s money involved?
Where does this Sydney Oppermann come from – mebbe he’s just been kept in the dark a little too long?!
Once the oldest business in the world is legalised, local and especially foreign customers and sex workers are protected for ever by law. The element of crime is reduced and intimidation of specifically the sex workers themselves will be avoided. Currently these girls often forced directly or indirectly into prostitution have no legal protection whatsoever, and if they forced to go to the police they often abused or even rape, which is tragic. Human trafficking will be monitored more closely as sex workers need to be registered, forced to adhere to health regulations and have regular check ups as well as register for income taxes. In a free democratic world anyone can freely choose her or his profession and let’s face it: we all know that sex work exists, the media thru advertising in the Classified section of newspapers, internet providers on websites and TV stations by means of adverts – all of them pimping themselves and earning money.
Let’s not be biased and face 2010 as a grown up nation!