Justice Edwin Cameron argues that the decriminalization bill is a big step. He writes that Parliament should adopt the bill and as soon as possible.
On 30 November 2022, Cabinet at last approved a draft statute to abolish criminal penalties for sex work (Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Bill). The Bill scraps the crime of buying and selling adult sexual services. It opens a path to victory for activists who over long years, campaigned for it.
The Bill aims to spear two history-encrusted laws: the Sexual Offences Act 1957 (apartheid's fearsome "Immorality Act") and section 11 of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act of 2007. Both target adults, mostly vulnerable women, who make a living by selling sex.
Having secured Cabinet endorsement, the Bill is now up for public comment. The moralist lobby have seized the chance to push back hard. They want the law to continue punishing women and others who engage in sex for reward.
Yet Parliament should adopt the Bill – and as soon as possible. Penalties on adult sex work are a horrible hangover from a harsher, more ignorant, less public-health-conscious era. They have no place in a healthy democracy. As with ancient crimes targeting queer people like myself, and the appalling apartheid penalties for sex between black and white, these laws are harmful, degrading and unjust. We should consign them to the dustbin without more ado.
Guest on the line: Justice Edwin Cameron, academic, jurist, author and recently retired Constitutional Court judge, was elected to the office of Chancellor of Stellenbosch University (SU) on 25 September 2019.