While the South African government are proceeding on lockdown and putting necessary incentives in place to support normal lives and daily living as a way to stop the spread of the coronavirus, The Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (Sweat) and the National Movement of Sex Workers in South Africa (Sisonke) have come out to seek the interest of the President, Cyril Ramaphosa in including sex workers in the nation as part of essential service while the lockdown is active.
This move is taken just 3 days after the South African President announced that a lockdown that would last for 21 days begins. This would also involve every South African resident to stay at home to war against the widespread of the deadly coronavirus.
Cyril Ramaphosa said that this measure is needed to save the millions of South Africans and its residents from being victim to the pandemic.
However, the association of sex workers – Sweat and Sisonke, think the promptness of the decision will come with a lot of uncertainties for workers within the country, most especially sex workers.
The organization revealed in a statement;
“Sex work is work, and they too need help as their livelihood has been disrupted,” the two organizations said in a statement.
“We also call on the president to take urgent steps and mandate the Department of Justice and Correctional Services to fast-track the sex work law-reform process and decriminalise sex work in order to address the evident exclusion of sex workers in accessing labour rights in times of need.”
The two groups also added that out of all workers within the country, sex workers are still the most marginalised and whose work is “not recognised as work.”
They expressed some bitterness created by the pandemic. They revealed that the widespread deadly virus had led to a severe loss in their income.
They added in a statement to the government that sex workers are the first group to be badly hit by the spread of the virus. And a 2013-study revealed that the country has about 158,000 sex workers with a larger female population also having about seven dependants in their income.
Here is more information of the submission of the groups;
“The president has said that there is a proposal for a special dispensation for companies that are in distress because of Covid-19. Through this proposal, employees will receive wage payment through the Temporary Employee Relief Scheme, which will enable companies to pay employees directly during this period and avoid retrenchment.
“However, we are questioning the inclusivity of the proposal. Will it include sex workers? Sex work is currently criminalised in South Africa and sex workers are considered criminals – not workers. And, as the hardest-hit group of workers by the global pandemic, they will most likely not qualify for the Temporary Employee Relief Scheme,”
A spokesperson, Lesego Tlhwale, also came out to persuade the government on during an interview with ENCA TV. She urged the to take necessary measures to make provision for sex workers. And this is expected to be included in the Temporary Employee Relief Scheme as they are also losing income.
Here is the video below.
