In 2006, panic was spread by someone’s totally unfounded claim that 40 000 women would be trafficked to Germany, where prostitution is legal, to service men attending the World Cup (a couple of state-sponsored investigations proved afterwards that the fear of mass trafficking never happened). In May of that year I was a guest on Woman’s Hour, a BBC4 radio programme that I was told would address cultural issues associated with sex and sporting events, not trafficking, but which turned into the moderator’s performance of indignation about ideas such as Some people prefer selling sex to picking strawberries, one of my lines during this broadcast conversation. If you’d like to hear this 15-minute programme, which I nearly walked out of during live recording, it’s called World Cup Prostitutes: press Listen Again on the BBC site (Real Player may be required). For an exposition of how the 40 000 may have come about and was misused, see Exposed: the myth of the World Cup ‘sex slaves’.
Meanwhile, the claim of 40 000 trafficked women has surfaced again, thanks to journalists that don’t do their homework and fact-checkers who don’t exist. It was a fantasy number the first time and has no meaning now; that we’re seeing it again demonstrates how the mass media egregiously maintain fear and loathing towards the sex industry. But since this time the 40 000 are meant to be on their way to South Africa for another World Cup, the following argument from South African experts for a public-health approach to sex and sporting events is important. Note: I’ve highlighted items in the early parts of the article only.
Sex work and the 2010 FIFA World Cup: time for public health imperatives to prevail
Marlise L Richter, Matthew F Chersich, Fiona Scorgie, Stanley Luchters, Marleen Temmerman and Richard Steen, February 2010, Globalization and Health
Background
Sex work is receiving increased attention in southern Africa. In the context of South Africa’s intense preparation for hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup, anxiety over HIV transmission in the context of sex work has sparked debate on the most appropriate legal response to this industry.
Discussion
Drawing on existing literature, the authors highlight the increased vulnerability of sex workers in the context of the HIV pandemic in southern Africa. They argue that laws that criminalise sex work not only compound sex workers’ individual risk for HIV, but also compromise broader public health goals. International sporting events are thought to increase demand for paid sex and, particularly in countries with hyper-endemic HIV such as South Africa, likely to foster increased HIV transmission through unprotected sex.
Summary
The 2010 FIFA World Cup presents a strategic opportunity for South Africa to respond to the challenges that the sex industry poses in a strategic and rights-based manner. Public health goals and growing evidence on HIV prevention suggest that sex work is best approached in a context where it is decriminalised and where sex workers are empowered. In short, the authors argue for a moratorium on the enforcement of laws that persecute and victimise sex workers during the World Cup period.
Background
Although a subject not usually broached by mainstream media or politicians, sex work has recently received increased attention in southern Africa. A Swaziland senator sparked public debate by suggesting sex work be legalised [1]. In Malawi, human rights non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are taking up a case against the police after they arrested 14 sex workers, forcibly tested them for HIV and reported their HIV results in the media [2]. The women were fined 1000 Malawian Kwatcha for trading in sex while having a sexually transmitted infection (STI). In the build-up to the FIFA 2010 World Cup in South Africa, alongside concerns about crime and the coaching of the South African football team, there has been consternation over an anticipated increase in demand for paid sex during the tournament [3,4]. Some have called for the temporary legalisation of sex work, while others have advocated a forceful crackdown on sex workers, involving mandatory HIV testing and sex worker registration with a regulatory authority [3-7].
Sex work is currently a criminal offence in most southern African countries [8] – as indeed it is in most of the world. Few health professionals have openly questioned whether criminalisation of sex work is a sound public health notion. These questions are particularly pertinent in southern Africa, a region with hyper-endemic HIV [9]. Rather than directly challenging legal frameworks, some health workers have sought to provide HIV prevention services for sex workers. This indirect approach has been encouraged by international funding agencies such as the US Presidential Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which make funding conditional on a pledge by recipient organisations that they will not advocate for the legalisation of sex work [10-12]. Given the legal and funding impediments to the work of NGOs and the lack of government support for these initiatives, health care programmes have only managed scattered and broadly ineffective attempts at preventing HIV in sex workers in southern Africa, their clients and by extension, the general population [13,14].
Discussion
The laws of demand and supply
Sex work will not go away. A narrow market perspective suggests that demand for paid sex will be met by supply [15]. This may be especially true of settings with marked economic and gender inequities, as research by the International Labour Organisation indicates: “poverty has never prevented men from frequenting prostitutes, whose fees are geared to the purchasing power of their customers” [16]. Sociologists, economists and psychologists have argued for recognition of a number of factors that render the demand-supply approach to sex work more complex. These factors include: the social construction of sexuality; (female) bodies being available for (male) consumption; the existence of viable alternative employment opportunities for sex workers; the social stigma that attaches to sex work; and the role of global consumerism [17]. Continue reading