IS DECRIMINALISING SEX WORK THE BEST WAY TO PROTECT SEX WORKERS?

Commissioner Janine Hicks – Commissioner at the Commission for Gender EqualityCherith Sanger - Attorney, Human Rights and Defence Advocacy Manager of SWEAT (Sex Workers Education & Advocacy Taskforce) Dennis George - General Secretary of FEDUSAWayne Thring - Deputy President of the African Christian Democratic PartyMore than 30 sex workers have been murdered – many of them brutally strangled and mutilated – throughout South Africa during the last year. Earlier this month, Amnesty International joined a growing number of organisations in calling for the decriminalisation of prostitution as the best way to protect the safety of those working in the industry around the world.On 26 August 2015 the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) will be launching a new decriminalisation coalition called 'Asijiki'. It aims at undoing the some of the adverse effects criminalisation has had on sex workers and society.