The Politics of Child Prostitution in South Africa

Abstract

This paper argues that policies, interventions and discourses pertaining to child prostitution have been guided by overarching political agendas that have masked the underlying structural basis of this phenomenon. These political agendas have shifted in accordance with the locus of power, control and resistance in South Africa since the nineteenth century. On the basis of a historical analysis this paper identifies distinct periods in which child prostitution was used to legitimate policies in favour of social control rather than social development. In the colonial period, child prostitution was used to justify stricter controls on adolescent and adult women's sexuality and movement by colonial and traditional patriarchal authorities. In the colonial and Apartheid periods, policies on child prostitution were informed by fears of miscegenation and sexually transmitted diseases, which were used to support the racist and oppressive legislation of sexual behaviour. In the 1980s and early 1990s, the issue of child prostitution was ‘discovered’ in the press both to deflect attention from the incarceration of juveniles during the 1987 State of Emergency and as the basis upon which liberals attacked the Apartheid state. In the latter half of the 1990s and 2000s, it was used by the African National Congress (ANC) government to attack the moral legacy left by the Apartheid state and in turn deflect responsibility for the root causes of this phenomenon. Furthermore, child prostitution was used to support stricter controls on adult sex workers and on the movement of undocumented migrants. This politicised and sensationalist approach has undermined detailed analysis of the root causes of this phenomenon and children's motivation for engaging in prostitution. For many children in South Africa it has been one means by which they can exercise their agency and power in order to ensure their survival in the face of high levels of socio-economic deprivation and rapid socio-cultural change. This paper therefore proposes a shift from policies and interventions centred on social control to social development, based on an in-depth understanding of children's agency, risk and resilience.

Keywords:

• prostitution
• sex work
• sexual exploitation
• child trafficking
• trafficking in persons
• sex tourism
• gender
• sexuality
• social control
• childhood
• adolescents
• South Africa

Acknowledgements

Dr Zosa De Sas Kropiwnicki is affiliated with the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies at the University of Johannesburg. This paper is based on her doctoral research, undertaken at the University of Oxford (2002–2007). Primary research on this topic has been published elsewhere. For more information see De Sas Kropiwnicki (2011a and 2011b).

Notes

1. In the feminist/gender studies literature, abolitionists prefer the term ‘prostitute’ or ‘prostituted woman’, while those in favour of legal reform generally use the term ‘sex worker’. Child prostitutes are generally referred to as ‘victims of sexual exploitation’. As a detailed discussion of these debates is beyond the scope of this paper, the terms ‘child and women prostitutes’ or ‘children and women engaged in prostitution’ will be used for the sake of consistency. The term ‘sex worker’ will only be used to denote the specific debate surrounding children's ability to choose to engage in prostitution as a form of employment.

2. Hunter (2010) argues that in contemporary South Africa, bridewealth should not be dismissed as a sign of commodification of relationships or a patriarchal tradition; rather it is a marker of respectability among unemployed youth who rarely decide to marry. Furthermore, it reflects the extent to which the spread of capitalism in the twentieth century has ensured that the bridewealth payment has now ‘connected work to kin and wages to love in profoundly important ways’ (Hunter 2010, 2).

3. A number of studies have referred to the relationship between sex, materialism and love in adolescent relationships in contemporary South Africa. Sex is often regarded as a marker of a girl's love for a boy, and material gifts are perceived as a sign of his love for her. These relationships are not equated with prostitution, but are described as acceptable and desirable. Wood and Jewkes (1998) suggest that these relationships may have cultural roots, whereby young widows would traditionally be ‘cared for’ by older men who already have their own wives and families. Stavrou and Kaufman (2000) found that gift giving is viewed as part of courtship among adolescents in Durban, and is distinct from how they perceive prostitution. This is supported by Jewkes and colleagues, whose study of black adolescents in Cape Town found that many relationships had an exchange basis but ‘rather than being seen as “sex work” this reflects a view of sex in terms of reciprocity which is widespread in Africa’ (Jewkes et al. 2001, 741). Norms surrounding the reciprocal nature of sexual relationships may lead some girls to regard sexual intercourse as necessary in order to achieve various material goods. This leads to dependency, which might increase the likelihood that they will remain in violent and possibly exploitative relationships.

4. Constitution of the Republic of South Africa as adopted on 8 May 1996 and amended on 11 October 1996 by the Constitutional Assembly.

5. Human Immunodeficiency Virus.

6. Based on personal observation of conference proceedings. Conference entitled ‘Towards Sex Worker Rights’ (2003) organised in Cape Town by SWEAT, the Women's Legal Centre and the Gender Project of the Community Law Centre at the University of Western Cape.