Imagine you’re a sex worker and your job is illegal. How safe would you feel? Not very, right? Well, that’s the reality for many sex workers in South Africa, where buying or selling sex can land you in jail. And it’s not just the law that’s against them. They also face violence from clients and even police officers. In fact, seven out of 10 female sex workers said they had been attacked by clients in 2019, and almost six out of 10 said they had been raped. That’s horrible!
But things might change soon. The government is thinking about making sex work legal for adults. That means sex workers could report crimes against them without fear of getting arrested. And it could also make everyone safer. Studies from other countries show that when sex work is legal, there is less sexual violence across society. And it doesn’t mean more people will become sex workers either. That’s what some people worried about when New Zealand decriminalised sex work 20 years ago, but it didn’t happen.
So what do New Zealand sex workers think? Do they feel safer now that their job is legal? We wanted to find out, so we talked to Allan Heta Cleaver, who has been a sex worker for more than 40 years. He knows what it was like before and after the law changed. Watch our TV programme, Health Beat, to hear his story and learn more about this important issue.