Media Statement from Embrace Dignity, the Kwanele Movement for Survivors of the System of Prostitution, and Men Against Prostitution & Trafficking of Women and for the Equality Law (MAPTOW)
[South Africa] As South Africans, we find ourselves only days away from Women’s Month, yet once again our nation is making headlines for all the wrong reasons—this time, gender-based violence of the worst order.
Collectively, Embrace Dignity, the KWANELE Movement for Survivors of the System of Prostitution, and Men AGAINST Prostitution & Trafficking of Women and FOR the Equality Law (MAPTOW), urge the South African National Government to pass the Equality Law without any further delay.
“As parents, grandparents, spouses, partners, siblings, and cousins,” the organisations state, “no South African with a conscience can turn a blind eye to the reality that we are in a race against time. As long as gender-based violence—committed almost exclusively against women, particularly prostituted women—continues, we will keep burying those closest to our hearts.”
Concerns around Masoyi Police Station
Hilda Tlou, Mpumalanga Coordinator for KWANELE, which is incubated at the offices of Embrace Dignity, expresses serious concern over alleged corruption at Masoyi Police Station:
“The community feels unheard, which has sadly resulted in acts of mob justice—such as in the case of Julius Mndawe. Tragically, even innocent people have reportedly been targeted by these vigilante actions. The police must fulfil their duties so that communities can rest at night, trusting in law enforcement. Yet, prostituted women continue to be arrested on street corners while violent perpetrators go unnoticed or escape justice. It is time for the police to realign their priorities.”
“No one chooses prostitution—prostitution is chosen for us.”
“Our members are mostly poor Black women from disadvantaged backgrounds,” says a representative of Embrace Dignity. “Many of us have experienced the fear and trauma of being prostituted in South Africa and, by some miracle, survived. We urge society not to fall into the harmful narrative that when a woman is found murdered, ‘she was probably a prostitute and asked for it.’ No one chooses prostitution—prostitution is chosen for us by colonialism, apartheid, structural inequalities, poverty, abuse, predatory pimps, and the men who pay to exploit our bodies.”
Support for the Equality Law
The organisations again highlight the 2017 South African Law Reform Commission (SALRC) Report, which explicitly recommended against the full decriminalisation of the sex trade. Instead, it proposed adoption of the Nordic or Equality Model—first introduced in Sweden in 1999 and since adopted by Norway, Iceland, Canada, Northern Ireland, France, the Republic of Ireland, and Israel.
Based on gender equality, the model recognises the inherent exploitation in prostitution and seeks to protect the rights of prostituted people.
In an open letter to President Mbeki in April 2019, KWANELE Survivors wrote of being severely injured, raped, degraded, and even murdered—by pimps and by men who pay to exploit them.
Tragic examples of lives lost:
- Theresa “Trish” van der Vint (1996): Aged just 16 when she was picked up by a man and later found half-naked, strangled, and murdered. She was the 19th and youngest known victim of the “Cape Prostitute Serial Killer.”
- Wendy Riketso (2016): Found dead in a drain in Pretoria. Reports indicate her Nigerian pimp had previously tried to kidnap her. She had reportedly been prostituted.
- Nokuphila Khumalo (2013): Beaten to death in Woodstock. Artist Zwelethu Mthethwa was convicted of her murder. She had been in prostitution, and Mthethwa was her client.
- Desiree Murugan (2014): Her headless body was discovered in Durban. Four teenagers confessed to buying her for sex before murdering her.
- Siam Lee (2018): Allegedly murdered by her last client, Philani Ntuli. Her charred remains were found two days after her disappearance from a suspected brothel in Durban North. Members of KWANELE have identified Ntuli as a sex buyer.
“Partial decriminalisation of the sex trade—through the Equality Law—can prevent future tragedies like these,” the statement reads. “It allows for Exit Programmes to support healing from the physical and psychological wounds inflicted by the system. It offers hope that a day may come when men no longer believe they are entitled to women’s bodies.”
“Without the Equality Law, we cannot meaningfully advance gender equality or dismantle patriarchy.”
This, the organisations conclude, is one of the most urgent human rights issues of our time.