South Africa

Sex work is fully criminalised in South Africa. The Sexual Offences Act 23 of 1957 (originally the Immorality Act) criminalises selling sex under s.20(1)(aA), and the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act 32 of 2007 added s.11 criminalising the buyer. The Constitutional Court upheld both the prostitution and brothel-keeping prohibitions 6-5 in S v Jordan and Others [2002] ZACC 22, with O'Regan and Sachs in dissent on indirect gender discrimination grounds. The Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Bill of 2022 — Cabinet-approved for public comment in November 2022 — would repeal the 1957 Act and s.11 of the 2007 Act and expunge prior convictions. The Bill was sent back by state law advisers in mid-2023 because it lacked a regulatory framework, and as of the Deputy Minister Andries Nel workshop on 18 November 2025 and a follow-up 1 April 2026 consultation, government is in advanced drafting of a combined "Decriminalisation and Regulation of Sex Work Bill". The Bill still has to clear Cabinet re-approval, a fresh public-comment round, parliamentary passage and presidential assent — none of which has happened by May 2026 — though the National Prosecuting Authority has imposed a moratorium on prosecuting sellers pending court processes.

SWEAT estimates 121,000–167,000 sex workers nationwide (2013 figure, still the most widely cited). The three major markets are Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban, with substantial migrant-worker corridors at the Beitbridge border with Zimbabwe. Police abuse is systemic and well-documented: an SAHMS-cited survey of ~2,100 sex workers found 80% had experienced police violence, and the Women's Legal Centre reports 70% of sex workers who came forward had been beaten, raped or extorted by officers. Almost half of sex workers in one cohort (48.3% of 2,993) reported client sexual violence within the past year. HIV prevalence among female sex workers is roughly four times the general adult female rate (62% vs 14%). Foreign workers — particularly Zimbabwean, Malawian and Mozambican women — are doubly exposed because xenophobic mobilisation (Operation Dudula, 2022 Diepsloot killings) layers on top of sex-work criminalisation.

The Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA), fully enforceable since July 2021, is South Africa's GDPR-equivalent. Online classifieds (notably Locanto and adult-services sections) are widely used but flagged in the US TIP Report as a recruitment vector for traffickers. Until the Bill passes, anything that reads as solicitation can be evidence.

This is one of the harder destinations to recommend at face value. South Africa has among the world's highest rates of contact crime, female sex workers have HIV prevalence in the 40–88% range depending on city, and police are themselves a documented threat — extortion, coerced sex and violence are routine. Xenophobic violence flares unpredictably, so any non-citizen client or worker faces a second layer of risk. The NPA moratorium reduces prosecution risk for sellers but does not bind individual officers, and clients remain explicitly criminalised under s.11. Indoor, vetted, condom-mandatory engagements only.

Locanto South Africa (broad classifieds, adult sections), Adultwork and similar international directories, independent escort websites and word-of-mouth (dominant for higher-end indoor work).

• SWEAT — Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce
• Asijiki Coalition for the Decriminalisation of Sex Work (founded 2015)
• Sisonke — National Movement of Sex Workers (via SWEAT)
• Women's Legal Centre (Cape Town) — police-abuse legal support