Lesotho boys brought to Cape for sex

UN tells NGO of trafficking into city

A VETERAN politician, whose NGO helps sex workers and sex trafficking victims leave prostitution, says the UN claims young boys are being trafficked from neighbouring Lesotho to Cape Town for sex work.

Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, former deputy minister in the defence and health ministries, revealed this to Weekend Argus as sexworkers commemorated March 3 as International Sex Workers’ Rights Day.

She also described the work of Embrace Dignity, sayingmore than 250 women had visited its offices in Woodstock over the past year, seeking support to leave prostitution and sex trafficking.

“This has underlined our conviction that the solution lies in reforming the law on prostitution, a key component of commercial sexual exploitation, a driving force behind the huge growth in human trafficking,” Madlala-Routledge said.

She said prostitution is a lucrative form of organised crime in Cape Town.

“It thrives in conditions of gender inequality, poverty and gender-based violence.”

Madlala- Routledge said the current legal framework criminalised and stigmatised women who ended up in prostitution as a result of vulnerability and limited options.

“Cape Town, like other large cities, particularly near major trucking highways and our porous borders, has seen a massive increase in the sex trade, which fuels people trafficking and prostitution.

“A large number of the

women

women who have come to us for help said they came to Cape Town hoping for a better life.

“Some of the women – and men – who have come on our programme have been traf- ficked into Cape Town from neighbouring countries, for example, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.”

“The UN Development Programme has also informed us that young boys are being trafficked into Cape Town from Lesotho.”

Madlala- Routledge added that the majority of the survivors in her programme were addicted to the drugs they ended up relying on to make their often difficult and fraught lives more bearable. She said prostitution often went along with mental trauma, physical trauma, alcohol and drug abuse, dissociation, HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis.

For a variety of reasons, general TB rates are very high in the Western Cape.

“Most suffer isolation from their families and communities as a result of the subsequent stigma,” she said. “Life expectancy among prostituted people is considerably lower than the population average.”

Madlala- Routledge said Embrace Dignity had made submissions to Parliament’s petitions committee to look at issues, including police brutality against prostitutes.

To mark International Women’s Day, on Wednesday, Embrace Dignity will submit a petition to parliament, requesting President Jacob Zuma to release the South African Law Reform Commission’s Report on Adult Prostitution and for the government to enact the Equality Law.

“As South Africans, we need to show the world that we care about the rights of women and girls by listening to the voices of survivors who are calling for an end to their suffering under the patriarchal system of sexual exploitation of women,” Madlala-Routlege said.