Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) is a South African organisation that deals with organising sex workers, advocating for and delivering services to South African sex workers. [1] [2] [3] [4] The organisation (popularly known as SWEAT) was established 24 years ago by Shane Petzer (a male sex worker) and Ilse Pauw (clinical psychologist) with the intention to create safe sex education for adult sex workers, and advocate for sex workers rights. [5] The organisation supports the decriminalization of sex work. [6] SWEAT are affiliated with the transgender sex worker support group SistaazHood. [7]
According to their website, SWEAT was registered in 1996, [8] and have been working with sex workers in Cape Town since then. [9]
SWEAT has several programmes that support sex workers including legal assistance. [10] [11]
SWEAT won an interdict on high court in Cape Town prohibiting the arrest of sex workers for an ulterior purpose. [8] [12]
SWEAT have carried out a number of research projects: [9]
The University of Cape Town (UCT) is a public research university located in Cape Town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. UCT was founded in 1829 as the South African College making it the oldest higher education institute in South Africa. In terms of full university status, it is the oldest university in South Africa and the oldest extant university in Sub-Saharan Africa together with Stellenbosch University which received full university status on the same day in 1918.
The National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) was an important force for liberalism and later radicalism in South African student anti-apartheid politics. Its mottos included non-racialism and non-sexism.
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Zwelethu Mthethwa is a South African painter and photographer. He was convicted of murder in 2017, and is currently incarcerated at Pollsmoor Prison.
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.
The Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign is a non-racial popular movement made up of poor and oppressed communities in Cape Town, South Africa. It was formed in November 2000 with the aim of fighting evictions, water cut-offs and poor health services, obtaining free electricity, securing decent housing, and opposing police brutality.
Sex workers' rights encompass a variety of aims being pursued globally by individuals and organizations that specifically involve the human, health, and labor rights of sex workers and their clients. The goals of these movements are diverse, but generally aim to decriminalize and destigmatize sex work, and ensure fair treatment before legal and cultural forces on a local and international level for all persons in the sex industry.
Catherine "Kate" O'Regan is a former judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. From 2013 to 2014 she was a commissioner of the Khayelitsha Commission and is now the inaugural director of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at the University of Oxford.
The rate of sexual violence in South Africa is among the highest in the world. Sexual violence is the use of force or manipulation to get someone to engage in unwanted sexual activity without their consent. During 2015/16, there were 51,895 crimes of a sexual nature reported to the South African Police Service.
South Africa has been dubbed "the protest capital of the world", with one of the highest rates of public protests in the world.
Prostitution in Eswatini is illegal, the anti-prostitution laws dating back to 1889, when the country Eswatini was a protectorate of South Africa. Law enforcement is inconsistent, particularly near industrial sites and military bases. Police tend to turn a blind eye to prostitution in clubs. There are periodic clamp-downs by the police.
Rosina Mamokgethi Phakeng is a South African professor of mathematics education who in 2018 became a vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town (UCT), She has been the vice principal of research and innovation, at the University of South Africa and acting executive dean of the College of Science, Engineering and Technology at UNISA. In 2018 she was an invited speaker at the International Congresses of Mathematicians.
On 26 September 2009, it was reported that a violent group chanting ethnic, pro-ANC and threatening slogans attacked an Abahlali baseMjondolo Youth Meeting (AbM-YL) in the Kennedy Road informal settlement in Durban, South Africa. The resulting violence left 2 people dead and hundreds or thousands displaced. Threatened with death, leadership of the AbM movement in Kennedy Road went into hiding. Twelve members of the movement were arrested and charge with public violence and murder. Following the attack there was a controversial trial which was postponed many times amidst claims of political interference by ANC officials and framing by police and eventually thrown out of court.
ECPAT International is a global network of civil society organisations that works to end the sexual exploitation of children. It focuses on halting the online sexual exploitation of children, the trafficking of children for sexual purposes and the sexual exploitation of children in the travel and tourism industry.
The Constitution of South Africa protects all basic political freedoms. However, there have been many incidents of political repression, dating back to at least 2002, as well as threats of future repression in violation of this constitution leading some analysts, civil society organisations and popular movements to conclude that there is a new climate of political repression or a decline in political tolerance.
There have been a number of political assassinations in post-apartheid South Africa. In 2013 it was reported that there had been more than 450 political assassinations in the province of KwaZulu-Natal since the end of apartheid in 1994. In July 2013 the Daily Maverick reported that there had been "59 political murders in the last five years". In August 2016 it was reported that there had been at least twenty political assassinations in the run up to the local government elections on the 3rd of August that year, most of them in KwaZulu-Natal.
Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA) was established in 1985 in the United Kingdom as a small community organisation for African women. It is now an international and Pan-African non-governmental organisation headquartered in Kampala, Uganda.
Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP) is an organisation that advocates for the health and human rights of sex workers. It is a private not for profit limited company, based in Edinburgh, Scotland, and founded in November 1990. NSWP is a membership organisation, with members from five regions. NSWP publishes resources, including briefing papers, policy briefs, community guides, global and regional reports, smart guides, statements, the Research for Sex Work Journal and case studies. It supports the decriminalisation of sex work.
Ayanda Denge was a South African trans woman and sex trafficking survivor. She is an advocate for transgender people, sex trafficking survivors, and for the abolish prostitution. She was the chairman of the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT). Denge has said that, "being transgender is ... a triple dose of stigmatisation and discrimination".
SistaazHood is a South African activist and advocacy support group embedded at the organisation SWEAT, Sex Workers Education Advocacy Taskforce. The Sistaaz Hood supports the rights and health of transgender women and sex workers.The group was founded in 2010 and is based in Cape Town. The group is also known for their various photographic collaborations with artists, amongst them the fashion project, Sistaaz of the Castle in collaboration with photographer, Jan Hoek and fashion designer, Duran Lantink, also InterseXion with artist Robert Hamblin. InterseXion was exhibited at Iziko South African National Art Gallery.