24 Jul 2022

Decriminalisation of sex work and the protection of bodily autonomy and integrity form the core of the proposals that Sisonke Botswana, a sex-worker advocacy organisation, wants to see infused into Botswana’s constitution. 

Ms Tosh Beka of Sisonke Botswana told the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Review of the Constitution Thursday that in addition to them seeking the recognition and protection of second generation rights such as the right to work, their organisation further desired that sex work be decriminalised, so that those involved in the trade could do so within the confines of the law. 

Ms Beka said as with the rest of the working population, having to ply their trade with the backing and protection of the law would be a game-changer for those in the sex work industry. 

“As an organisation that is advocating the rights of sex workers, we are also advocating the decriminalisation of sex work. We are not talking about legalisation right now but we are saying ‘Let us not see it as a crime,’” she said. 

As for bodily autonomy and integrity, Ms Beka said time had come for the law to grant individuals the right to do as they pleased with their bodies. 

“We also want to promote bodily autonomy and integrity. We are saying ‘My body is my right’, therefore we want to have that freedom to choose what we do with our bodies. For instance, I should not be heckled by anyone for walking around dressed skimpily,” she explained. 

Ms Beka had earlier highlighted the challenges that sex workers were faced with; citing among them the stigma and discrimination meted to them by health care personnel particularly in public health facilities, and the shortage of medication especially for the treatment of diseases prevalent in the sector such as Sexually-Transmitted Infections (STIs). 

She said lack of abortion after-care services was also one major challenge that they had to contend with, and added that while abortion remained illegal in Botswana, there was no hiding from the fact that people continued to illegally carry it out. Ends