In March this year the ANC Women’s League (ANCWL) came out in full support of decriminalised prostitution. Policies that failed dismally in other nations were touted as solutions for SA.
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The Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) and their anti-family allies have been lobbying the ANCWL to push for legalised prostitution at the recent ANC Policy Conference.
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SWEAT launched an aggressive campaign on the opening day of the conference – urging their allies to bombard the ANCWL with emails endorsing their decriminalised prostitution policy proposal.
Most of what SWEAT advocates are deception. They represent the illegal sex industry in SA and are working to legitimise the most abusive and exploitative industry in the country. Decriminalised prostitution will transform pimps, brothel owners and other criminals into legitimate businessmen.
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The overwhelming body of research proves that decriminalised prostitution does not help women trapped in the sex trade. It only benefits the organised crime figures that abuse & control them.
The liberal media are sympathetic to decriminalised prostitution and usually promote it as a “human rights” issue. As a result, most citizens do not understand the full extent of the threat.
Young women and girls are being lured into the sex industry with false promises of jobs. Once entrapped by crime syndicates – they are mercilessly exploited and abused for profit.
Research FPI has compiled shows that child prostitution and sex trafficking increases significantly when prostitution is decriminalised. In first world nations like Australia and The Netherlands, the sex industry exploded after it was legalised. Authorities lost control to international crime syndicates.
South Africa’s situation will be significantly worse. High levels of poverty and unemployment, porous borders, endemic corruption and poor policing will consign thousands of vulnerable women and children to a lifetime of sexual exploitation, abuse and misery in a decriminalised sex industry.
But I thank God for the heroic actions of women like Corrine Sandenbergh, Marge Ballin, Madri Bruwer, Miryam Danam, Justine Demmer, RF and others. These women work tirelessly to rescue women and children from the terrible abuse and exploitation of prostitution and help them exit the sex trade.
Their intervention during SWEAT’s bombardment of the ANC Policy Conference was critical. They submitted their own letters that presented the truth and exposed the lies of anti-family groups.
As a result, the ANCWL toned down their calls for decriminalised prostitution and opted rather to canvas a wider range of views especially Church groups and those helping women exit prostitution.
This is a victory for the Christian women working valiantly to rescue women and children from a life of abuse and exploitation. Most of them do their work with meagre resources and little support.
Please do your part by writing to the ANC Women’s League and encourage them to find policy solutions to eradicate prostitution in SA and help women and children exit this harmful trade.
Please write to ANCWL spokesperson, Troy Martens at troymartens@gmail.com and copy in patrick@cosatu.org.za; mabua.s@dbe.gov.za; and CMsibi@justice.gov.za
Please use the info provided in the FPI research link to support your arguments. If a few brave and committed women can change the ANCWL views, imagine what thousands of emails can do.
Prostitution is a criminal activity with well-established links to other criminal activity such as human trafficking, drug dealing and money laundering.
Decriminalised prostitution legitimises the entire sex industry, including brothel keeping, pimps and criminal syndicates that exploit women & children. Research shows that decriminalisation does not break the long established links between prostitution and organised crime, and has failed to improve the lives of women trapped in prostitution in nations that have adopted the policy.
Significantly, it is not the legal status of prostitution that harms the women, but the prostitution itself. Decriminalisation is a gift to pimps, traffickers and crime syndicates that prey on women.
The ACDP together with ACDP Women of Destiny and ACDP Youth Foundation will fight until the value of women in all areas of life be acknowledged and restored.