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“To be or not to be?”: The decriminalisation of sex work in South Africa

President Cyril Ramaphosa in his speech at the launch of the Gender-Based Violence (GBV) and Femicide Declaration in 2019, made the commitment to working towards decriminalising sex work in South Africa as a means to also fight GBV. This in-line with what organisations that advocate for sex work suc...

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Main Author: Ramabulana, Fulufhelo Shirley
Other Authors: Scanlon, Helen
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Political Studies 2023
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access_status_str Open Access
author Ramabulana, Fulufhelo Shirley
author2 Scanlon, Helen
author_browse Ramabulana, Fulufhelo Shirley
Scanlon, Helen
author_facet Scanlon, Helen
Ramabulana, Fulufhelo Shirley
author_sort Ramabulana, Fulufhelo Shirley
collection Thesis
description President Cyril Ramaphosa in his speech at the launch of the Gender-Based Violence (GBV) and Femicide Declaration in 2019, made the commitment to working towards decriminalising sex work in South Africa as a means to also fight GBV. This in-line with what organisations that advocate for sex work such as the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) and Sonke Gender Justice have been fighting for. The plight of sex workers and the urgent requirement for sex work legislative reforms has been highlighted by the documented increase or the spotlight on GBV. Sex work is predominantly a profession taken up by women and thus the effects of its criminalisation are mostly experienced by women. Therefore, there is a close link between the struggles of sex workers the struggle against GBV. The thesis explores the reasons why advocacy groups such as SWEAT support decriminalisation as opposed to legalisation and partial decriminalisation. Drawing an understanding as to why other sex work modules do not appeal to the needs of sex workers and why they are viewed to lead back to the infringement on basic human rights. Furthermore, it looks at the impact of using the GBV platforms to address the decriminalisation of sex work in South Africa.
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:33:05.164Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2023
publishDateRange 2023
publishDateSort 2023
publisher Department of Political Studies
publisherStr Department of Political Studies
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source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/37787 “To be or not to be?”: The decriminalisation of sex work in South Africa Ramabulana, Fulufhelo Shirley Scanlon, Helen Public Policy and Administration President Cyril Ramaphosa in his speech at the launch of the Gender-Based Violence (GBV) and Femicide Declaration in 2019, made the commitment to working towards decriminalising sex work in South Africa as a means to also fight GBV. This in-line with what organisations that advocate for sex work such as the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) and Sonke Gender Justice have been fighting for. The plight of sex workers and the urgent requirement for sex work legislative reforms has been highlighted by the documented increase or the spotlight on GBV. Sex work is predominantly a profession taken up by women and thus the effects of its criminalisation are mostly experienced by women. Therefore, there is a close link between the struggles of sex workers the struggle against GBV. The thesis explores the reasons why advocacy groups such as SWEAT support decriminalisation as opposed to legalisation and partial decriminalisation. Drawing an understanding as to why other sex work modules do not appeal to the needs of sex workers and why they are viewed to lead back to the infringement on basic human rights. Furthermore, it looks at the impact of using the GBV platforms to address the decriminalisation of sex work in South Africa. 2023-04-20T11:05:08Z 2023-04-20T11:05:08Z 2022 2023-04-18T12:34:04Z Master Thesis Masters MPhil http://hdl.handle.net/11427/37787 eng application/pdf Department of Political Studies Faculty of Humanities
spellingShingle Public Policy and Administration
Ramabulana, Fulufhelo Shirley
“To be or not to be?”: The decriminalisation of sex work in South Africa
thesis_degree_str Master's
title “To be or not to be?”: The decriminalisation of sex work in South Africa
title_full “To be or not to be?”: The decriminalisation of sex work in South Africa
title_fullStr “To be or not to be?”: The decriminalisation of sex work in South Africa
title_full_unstemmed “To be or not to be?”: The decriminalisation of sex work in South Africa
title_short “To be or not to be?”: The decriminalisation of sex work in South Africa
title_sort to be or not to be the decriminalisation of sex work in south africa
topic Public Policy and Administration
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/37787
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