• We observe that prostitution is neither sex nor work, but constitutes in itself a form of violence against women:
• The repetition of sexual acts without physical desire, but instead experienced as the consequence of financial need, inequality or as an exploitation of vulnerability, constitutes sexual violence in and of itself.
• The vast majority of prostituted persons have suffered from violence, often sexual, before entering prostitution. Most of them are also victims of many forms of violence while in prostitution (physical, verbal, sexual, psychological.
• There is no “free” and “forced” prostitution: in reality, the sexual act obtained by sex buyers is always coerced. Coerced either by physical coercion of traffickers and pimps, or by the socio-economic coercion that pushes the most vulnerable women and girls into prostitutes.
• There will be no equality between women and men as long as men think that they can buy access to women’s bodies. Prostitution is a part of a continuing patriarchal tradition of making women’s bodies available for men’s benefit.
• Prostitution is based on multiple forms of inequalities: men’s domination over women, rich over poor, North over South, majority groups over minorities. Women from minorities, poor, migrant and marginalized groups form nearly the totality of the prostituted persons in prostitution all over the world.
• These realities also apply to South Africa. By reframing prostitution as a form of work, by normalizing the endless exploitation of women’s bodies as an acceptable income alternative, the government is sending an extremely sad message to its most vulnerable population, in particular women: if you are marginalized, we have nothing better to offer than being exploited in prostitution.