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Mkhwanazi’s crimes described as chilling reality of sex workers

todaySeptember 19, 2024 188 2

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Advocacy group, Sisonke National Sex Workers Movement, says Sifiso Mkhwanazi’s 2022 murder spree exposed the public to the harsh reality faced by women in the sex industry.
Welcoming the harsh sentence handed down to Mkhwanazi on Wednesday, the movement’s advocacy officer, Zintle Tsholwana, says the case shows that the country’s justice system has the capacity to ensure justice for sex workers.
The 21-year-old was sentenced to six life terms on Wednesday for the rape and murder of six Johannesburg sex workers following payment disputes.

He was just 19 at the time of the crimes, which took place over a six-month period at his father’s panel beating business in Rosettenville.

 

Tsholwana says the case should serve as a reminder to the public that the law is obligated to intervene when a crime is committed against a sex worker, regardless of whether one supports their work or not.

The Sisonke National Sex Workers Movement hopes that the judiciary, as a whole, will also handle other cases that involve sex workers with the same level of attention as this one.
Tsholwana believes that sex workers will only be safe once their industry is fully decriminalised.

Organisations like the Sex Workers’ Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) have been fighting for sex work to be decriminalised in South Africa for over 20 years.

They say every time it seemed as though they were on the verge of turning the tide, they would hit a snag.
Just last year, a draft bill before Parliament, which aimed to achieve this goal, was delayed.
According to Sweat’s 2020 report, South Africa recorded high levels of brutal violence levelled against sex workers.
SWEAT’s director, Emily Craven, says while no sentence can bring back the victims, or remove the devastation that their families and colleagues are feeling, it does however signal that sex workers are just as worthy of justice as anyone else.
“None of this removes our more general concern that the disappearance, assault of, and murders of sex workers are not taken seriously enough or investigated with enough rigor by our criminal justice system. We are very aware that these women’s bodies were discovered essentially by chance, and not by the police despite some having been reported missing,” adds Craven.

Written by: Nokwazi Qumbisa

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