Sex Trafficking and Prostitution in South Africa

• Author: Chandré Gould
• Published date: 01 May 2014
• Date: 01 May 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0002716214521557

ANNALS, AAPSS, 653, May 2014 183

DOI: 10.1177/0002716214521557

Sex Trafficking

and Prostitution

in South Africa

By

CHANDRÉ GOULD

521557ANN The Annals of the American AcademySex Trafficking and Prostitution in South Africa

research-article2014

This article examines the complex arrangements within

which women working in prostitution in South Africa

find themselves, and documents their resilience in a

hazardous work environment. Findings are drawn from

a survey and in-depth interviews with sex workers in

Cape Town that investigated the nature and extent of

human trafficking in the sex industry, and from a sepa-

rate survey of sex workers during the World Cup in

South Africa in 2010. The findings provide the basis for

a critique of Western rescue missions and the larger

antitrafficking movement.

Keywords: prostitution; sex work; human trafficking;

Cape Town; World Cup

Between 2000 and 2003, the South African

children’s rights organization Molo

Songololo (MS) and the International Organiza-

tion for Migration (IOM) placed the issue of

human trafficking on the country’s national

policy agenda. Reports by MS (2000a, 2000b)

and IOM (Martens, Pieczkowski, and van

Vuuren-Smyth 2003) highlighted the plight of

women and children in the country’s sex trade.

In 2005 South Africa was listed as a “country of

concern” by the U.S. Department of State’s

trafficking office: South Africa was placed on

the Tier-2 Watch List, where it remained until

2009. This status meant that the State

Department believed that South Africa was a

source and destination for victims of trafficking

and was not doing enough to combat the prob-

lem.1 The research that formed the basis for

these assessments by MS, IOM, and the State

Department did not, however, offer any clear

indication of the scale of the problem, and their

Chandré Gould is a senior research fellow in the

Governance, Justice and Crime Division of the Institute

for Security Studies (ISS). She is the editor of South

African Crime Quarterly and is coauthor of Selling Sex

in Cape Town: Sex Work and Human Trafficking in a

South African City (ISS 2008).

184 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

sources were limited to interviews with journalists, police and government offi-

cials, NGO staff, and a few victims and traffickers.2

In 2006 the Belgian government allocated funds to the Institute for Security

Studies (ISS) in South Africa to undertake an assessment of the nature and extent

of the problem of human trafficking in South Africa. Prior to the study, a meeting

of organizations and state agencies with an interest in, or responsibility for,

human trafficking was held, including the National Prosecuting Authority,

Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, IOM, the International

Labour Organization (ILO), the U.S. embassy, the UN’s Office on Drugs and

Crime (UNODC), and South African NGOs. At the meeting, these organizations

agreed that there was a need to understand the extent of trafficking, so as to

inform allocation of state resources and, with respect to sex trafficking, that it was

important to research whether, and if so, how, the experiences of victims of traf-

ficking differ from those who have not been trafficked into sex work.

This article draws the latter comparisons and uses the author’s research find-

ings to address the tenets of the dominant international narrative about victims

of sex trafficking constructed by antitrafficking forces. The dominant discourse

includes:

• Victims are recruited, often through deception, and forced to remain in the

industry (Hughes 2001; MS 2000a);

• Trafficking women and children into prostitution is lucrative and attractive

to organized crime (Martens, Pieczkowski, and van Vuuren-Smyth 2003, 4);

• There are many child prostitutes (MS 2000b); one police estimate was that

there were 28,000 child prostitutes in South Africa (Cockburn 2005);

• The demand for trafficked victims is a result of clients’ demands for young

and foreign prostitutes (Farley 2006; National Prosecuting Authority of

South Africa 2010, 89);

• Women and youths from rural areas and from poor backgrounds are attrac-

tive targets for traffickers (MS 2000a; National Prosecuting Authority of

South Africa 2010);

• Prostitutes and sex trafficking victims are often controlled through drugs,

and drug use and addiction is common (Raymond et al. 2002); and

• A significant number of foreign sex workers, particularly refugee women,

are trafficked into prostitution and are in high demand (Hughes 2001;

Martens, Pieczkowski, and van Vuuren-Smyth 2003).

Data and Methods

This article draws on data from a Cape Town study undertaken between 2006

and 2008 (Gould and Fick 2008). The study sought to determine how many

women, men, and transgendered individuals were working as prostitutes in Cape

Town; how they entered and what kept them in the industry; their working condi-

tions (i.e., control over their time, income, and movement); and the extent to