Immorality Act was the title of two acts of the Parliament of South Africa which prohibited, amongst other things, sexual relations between white people and people of other races. The first Immorality Act, of 1927, prohibited sex between whites and blacks, until amended in 1950 to prohibit sex between whites and all non-whites. The second Immorality Act, of 1957, continued this prohibition and also dealt with many other sex offences. The ban on interracial sex was lifted in 1985, but certain sections of the 1957 act dealing with prostitution remain in force as the "Sexual Offences Act, 1957".
In Great Britain, the act of engaging in sex as part of an exchange of various sexual services for money is legal, but a number of related activities, including soliciting in a public place, kerb crawling, owning or managing a brothel, pimping and pandering, are illegal. In Northern Ireland, which previously had similar laws, paying for sex became illegal from 1 June 2015.
Prostitution in Ireland is legal. However, since March 2017, it has been an offence to buy sex. Third party involvement is also illegal. Since the law that criminalises clients came into being, with the purpose of reducing the demand for prostitution, the number of prosecutions for the purchase of sex increased from 10 to 92 between 2018 and 2020. In a report from UCD's Sexual Exploitation Research Programme the development is called ”a promising start in interrupting the demand for prostitution.”
Prostitution or sex work in Australia is governed by state and territory laws, which vary considerably. Federal legislation also affects some aspects of sex work throughout Australia, and of Australian citizens abroad.
Prostitution in South Africa is illegal for both buying and selling sex, as well as related activities such as brothel keeping and pimping. However, it remains widespread. Law enforcement is poor.
Current laws passed by the Parliament of Canada in 2014 make it illegal to purchase or advertise sexual services and illegal to live on the material benefits from sex work. The law officially enacted criminal penalties for "Purchasing sexual services and communicating in any place for that purpose."
The Prostitution Reform Act 2003 is an Act of Parliament that decriminalised prostitution in New Zealand. The Act also gave new rights to sex workers. It has attracted international attention, although its reception has been mixed. The Act repealed the Massage Parlours Act 1978 and the associated regulations.
National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality and Another v Minister of Justice and Others is a decision of the Constitutional Court of South Africa which struck down the laws prohibiting consensual sexual activities between men. Basing its decision on the Bill of Rights in the Constitution – and in particular its explicit prohibition of discrimination based on sexual orientation – the court unanimously ruled that the crime of sodomy, as well as various other related provisions of the criminal law, were unconstitutional and therefore invalid.
Prostitution in Croatia is illegal but common. Forcible prostitution, any kind of brothels, or procuring are treated as a felony, while voluntary prostitution is considered to be infraction against public order. Like in many other Southeast European countries, the problem of human trafficking for the purposes of sex is big in Croatia.
Sandile Ngcobo is a retired South African judge who was the Chief Justice of South Africa from October 2009 to August 2011. He served in the Constitutional Court of South Africa from August 1999 until his retirement in August 2011. Before that, he was a judge of the Cape Provincial Division and the Labour Appeal Court.
Prostitution in Northern Ireland is governed by the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Act 2015, which makes it illegal to pay for sex in Northern Ireland. Prior to the act coming into effect, prostitution in Northern Ireland was regulated by the same or similar laws to those in England and Wales, as it is elsewhere in the United Kingdom. At that time, prostitution in Northern Ireland was legal subject to a number of restraints which controlled certain activities associated with prostitution, such as soliciting, procuring, living on the proceeds of prostitution (pimping), exploitation of prostitutes, under-age prostitution, and keeping a brothel. However, devolution provided the opportunity for separate legislation in Northern Ireland.
The passage of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 allowed for the provision of challenging the constitutionality of laws governing prostitution law in Canada in addition to interpretative case law. Other legal proceedings have dealt with ultra vires issues. In 2013, three provisions of the current law were overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada, with a twelve-month stay of effect. In June 2014, the Government introduced amending legislation in response.
The Sexual Offences Act, 1957 is an act of the Parliament of South Africa which, in its current form, prohibits prostitution, brothel-keeping and procuring, and other activities related to prostitution. Before the law relating to sex offences was consolidated and revised by the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2007, it also prohibited various other sex offences, including sex with children under the age of consent and sex with the mentally incompetent. As the Immorality Act it was infamous for prohibiting sex between a white person and a person of another race, until that prohibition was removed by a 1985 amendment.
Section 20A of the Immorality Act, 1957, commonly known as the "men at a party" clause, was a South African law that criminalised all sexual acts between men that occurred in the presence of a third person. The section was enacted by the Immorality Amendment Act, 1969 and remained in force until it was found to be unconstitutional in 1998 by the Constitutional Court in the case of National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality v Minister of Justice.
Hoffmann v South African Airways is a decision of the Constitutional Court of South Africa in the area of South African labour law and constitutional law. It concerned employment discrimination on the basis of HIV status and was decided on 28 September 2000.
Volks NO v Robinson and Others is an important decision in South African family law and law of succession. In a majority judgment written by Justice Thembile Skweyiya, the Constitutional Court of South Africa dismissed a challenge to the constitutionality of the Maintenance of Surviving Spouses Act, 1990. The court held that it is not discriminatory for the Act to exclude the survivors of permanent life partnerships from the protections it extends to the survivors of legal marriages. Married couples are entitled to claim maintenance from their deceased spouse's estate because the institution of marriage creates unique reciprocal duties of support which do not exist between permanent life partners.
The decriminalization of sex work is the removal of criminal penalties for sex work. Sex work, the consensual provision of sexual services for money or goods, is criminalized in most countries. Decriminalization is distinct from legalization.
Prostitution in Oceania varies greatly across the region. In American Samoa, for instance, prostitution is illegal, whereas in New Zealand most aspects of the trade are decriminalised.
Prostitution in American Samoa is illegal, as are related activities such as brothel keeping and pimping. These acts are punishable by law, including a fine of more than $500 or a jail sentence of up to a year for customers of prostitution. Prostitution occurs in bars and nightclubs, and in boats moored in the harbours.
Kylie v Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration and Others is an important decision in South African labour law, handed down on 26 May 2010 in the Labour Appeal Court of South Africa. Writing for a unanimous court, Judge of Appeal Dennis Davis held that the Labour Relations Act, 1995 applied to sex workers and that the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration therefore had jurisdiction to hear a dispute between a sex worker and the brothel that had fired her. Although the court affirmed that sex workers' employment contracts were legally unenforceable, it held that sex workers were nonetheless protected by the labour rights granted in section 23 of the Constitution of South Africa.
