MEN AGAINST THE PROSTITUTION AND TRAFFICKING OF WOMEN CO-FOUNDER
Cape Town, South Africa]
“My fellow men, let’s keep our valuables in our trousers and use them for the good of humanity. Yes, I mean our wallets. Let’s forge a united front against sexpreneurs by signing the Coalition of Abolition of Prostitution in Africa (CAPA) Charter before Women’s Month this August.”
So says MEN AGAINST Prostitution & Trafficking of Women and FOR the Equality Law (MAPTOW) co-founder RONNY RAMMUTLA.
MAPTOW was co-founded in early 2018 by Rammutla and Embrace Dignity Deputy Director JEREMY ROUTLEDGE. MAPTOW is a founder signatory to the CAPA Charter, launched in Cape Town at the end of June.
“No nation can be free until its women are free.
South African women and girl-children are still trapped in poverty and prostitution will never be a sustainable or life-affirming solution to this poverty.
Prostitution in fact is a form of oppression in itself.”
MAPTOW stands firm against the decriminalisation of men who buy sex and those who sell women and girls for sex. It is the demand that pushes trafficking — or what you would call supply.
“We oppose bail for any man accused of violating women’s rights.”
“It truly boggles the mind the degree to which South African men are in denial about the impact of the system of prostitution and their role in the system of patriarchy responsible for putting women there in the first place.
We are in the midst of a growing crisis of epidemic proportions and yet there are still men in denial who justify their actions by saying they are not forcing themselves upon women and that women choose to have sex with them — and that the woman was going to agree in any case.
Why then the need to pay the woman if all of this is true?
The answer is that men know that women probably will not agree to sexual intercourse and hence methods of coercion.
The reality is that purchasing sex is no different from raping. The only difference is that money substitutes force.”
MICKEY MEJI, a survivor of the system of prostitution and Embrace Dignity Advocacy Manager, as well as founder and leader of the KWANELE Movement of survivors, asserts that an estimated 153,000 South African women and girl-children are bought, sold and exploited each year. She adds that within these figures an average of six men buy them for the express purpose of paid sex.
“What with the amount of men who perpetuate prostitution being six times the number of women and girl-children bought, sold and exploited, one arrives at a figure of 918,000.
And yet it is maintained by the majority of men that women drive prostitution!”
“I know that I cannot undo the damage that was done to Sarah Baartman and many other women who have died at the hands of the men who buy us in the system of prostitution and the pimps and brothel owners who sell us.
All I can do is to summon the courage to speak the naked but healing truth that must comfort all these women wherever they may be, by speaking against the recognition of this very exploitative system and practice of prostitution as work, sexual and free choice.
Buying women and girls for sex is not philanthropy.
You’re not helping anyone by doing this but rather causing societal harm.
You can help her without having to exploit her position of vulnerability.”
“Prostitution was ‘chosen’ for us for many reasons, including our colonial past, apartheid, poverty, past sexual and physical abuse and other inequalities which put us into vulnerable situations.
Members of the public often judge us as ‘whores’ or think we make a lot of money.
In reality we have been dehumanised, humiliated and stripped of our dignity.
Many of us who were or continue to be trapped in the sex trade have been severely injured or even murdered by the pimps and the men who buy us — quite often the police themselves abuse us and many of us suffer ill health and mental trauma, unwanted pregnancies, cervical and throat cancer, as well as HPV, HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.”
“You are never a ‘sex worker’ but a woman who, because of your circumstances, found yourself having to sell your body for a living — but it shouldn’t be like that.
The government has failed you, as has the system of patriarchy.
We need to join hands, men and women, in the fight to save the next generation.”
Men take advantage of the vulnerability of those who are prostituted through no choice of their own. The system of patriarchy entrenches and perpetuates prostitution, and the system of prostitution, in turn, entrenches and perpetuates patriarchy — a vicious cycle. Men can take a lead in breaking this cycle by supporting the abolitionist Equality Law, refusing to buy sex and educating others on the harms and lived reality of those surviving this oppressive system.
“We men need to understand and admit that we are at the centre of the operations of the system of prostitution and trafficking of girls and women.
It is because we demand certain kinds of women and girls that there are those who traffic them to meet men’s demand.
If we are to eradicate these systems, men’s mindset needs to change.
Society still panders to a system of patriarchy which excludes women.
One needs to ask how men can be comfortable perpetuating a system that makes women commodities and objects to be bought, sold and exploited for sexual gratification and financial benefit.”
MAPTOW was formed primarily to advocate for the Equality Law, to raise an awareness for men’s behaviour to change, to research and to build a movement of men who do not see women as objects and commodities to be bought, sold and exploited.
“Real men such as Jeremy and I are saying that no woman or girl will be bought, sold, trafficked and exploited in my name.
If you are that man who believes women are not commodities, we encourage you to join MAPTOW and be the change you want to see in our country.”
South Africa and indeed all countries across the African continent have an urgent need to consider passing the Equality Law — and the statistics speak for themselves. In Germany, 55 prostituted individuals were murdered by sex buyers since all aspects of the sex trade were legalised in 2000. In Sweden, by contrast, where the Equality Model was pioneered in 1999, there have been no murders over the last 19 years by sex buyers of people selling or sold for sex.
“The full decriminalisation of the sex trade would not make life safer or better for those who are bought, sold and exploited in the trade but would rather give a licence to pimps, sex buyers and brothel keepers to further exploit prostituted women while making a fortune out of their exploitation.
The idea of introducing prostitution as work and normalising it by calling it ‘sex work’ has nothing to do with the empowerment of the women who are bought and sold in this system, but is about men’s access to women’s bodies to objectify and commodify for their sexual gratification.
Men should not be given the license to buy women and girls for sex for their own sexual gratification.
Prostitution is not a job nor is it a choice. It is men’s violence against women.”
“Genocide and rape rank among the unhealed scars of apartheid, marginalisation, the sexual predation suffered by women, a drug culture, and the wealth divide.
The fact that merely in terms of those statistics that are based on actual reported crimes one in three women in the poorest households experience physical violence is an indictment on us as a nation.”
Rammutla suggests that men follow the Facebook page Men Against Prostitution & Trafficking of Women and that they find a safe space or person — a trusted friend or professional — to whom they can speak about what they are dealing with as a man.
“We as men must clean up and own up.
If there are things you have done and need to take responsibility for as a man, make that call and make a difference.
Acknowledgement is the first step.”
He adds that there are exceptional men’s groups and weekends where men can discuss men’s challenges in a safe setting, affording men an opportunity to heal and develop their leadership.
“It’s humbling, for example, to join a men’s work session in a prison where a men’s facilitator works with inmates.
Critical is that as a man you take a stand in one’s male peer group against rape culture language, abuse jokes, objectification of woman and cat calling, in so doing raising the bar for what is cool and not cool.”
Rammutla encourages men to call police and an ambulance if they know of a woman who has been abused and to report such abuse against women to the Stop Women Abuse Hotline on telephone 0800-150-150.
Other practical ways in which men can contribute towards awareness raising include joining marches, fundraisers and activism initiatives against gender-based violence, and supporting gender equality.
South Africa could be the first African country to adopt the Equality Model, thus joining a growing number of countries that have passed the Equality Law. This would put South Africa among the growing number of countries that have adopted and adapted the Equality Law, which offers a coherent strategy for addressing the oppressive system of prostitution and sex trafficking.
Key aspects of this model include:
- Buyers and pimps are criminalised under this approach in order to reduce demand for prostitution
- Buyers are culpable, subject to punishment
- Facilitators/traffickers are culpable for ‘procurement’ or trafficking and are subject to punishment
- Those who exploit others through prostitution are criminalised
- Sellers are decriminalised
- Prostituted individuals are not culpable but protected as victims
- Resources are provided for individuals to exit prostitution
The Equality Model has been implemented with great success in:
- Sweden – since 1999
- Norway & Iceland – since 2009
- Northern Ireland – since 2015
- France – since 2016
- Republic of Ireland – since 2017
- Israel – since January 2019
Follow the Twitter handle @embrace_dignity or the Facebook page Embrace Dignity. Follow the hashtags:
#ListenToSurvivors #Kwanele #EmbraceDignity #ArrestBrothelOwners #ArrestSexBuyers #ShutDownAllTheBrothels #WeAreNotForSale #ProstitutionIsOppression #JusticeForSiamLee #ProstitutionIsNotWork
Embrace Dignity is a prominent voice within the Coalition for the Abolition of Prostitution (CAP International), a fast-growing abolitionist coalition of nearly 30 frontline organisations opposed to the system of prostitution.
For further information on Embrace Dignity, KWANELE, and the Equality Model, visit www.embracedignity.co.za
Victims of prostitution can contact KWANELE on +27 (0)87 095 3086 or e-mail info@embracedignity.co.za
#ProstitutionIsNotWork
Embrace Dignity is a prominent voice within Coalition for the Abolition of Prostitution (CAP International), a new and fast growing abolitionist coalition of almost 30 frontline organisations opposed to the system of prostitution.
For further information on Embrace Dignity, KWANELE and the Equity Model, visit the website www.embracedignity.co.za
Victims of prostitution can contact KWANELE on telephone +27 (0)87 095 3086 or e-mail info@embracedignity.co.za