Parliamentarian Julius Malema, head of the pan-Africanist Marxist party Economic Freedom Fighters in South Africa, has endorsed decriminalizing sex work at a Women’s Day rally, linking this move to a broader agenda of protecting women from violence. Whether this will provide new impetus to the long-stalled bill proposed by the South African cabinet in 2022 remains to be seen. In the meantime several civil society groups, including the Sex Workers Education & Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT), have resorted to action in the courts to challenge the existing law.
South African Left Calls for Decriminalizing Sex Work
