Mr Speaker, whilst the United Nations is dealing with the proposed new UN super agency for women, involving the spending of $63 billion from the United States of America alone over the next six years, African women are complaining it will deal with a First World feminist agenda, pursuing population control, rather than with the pressing issues of women in Africa.
Equal rights and equal opportunities for all start with the physical freedom to enjoy and practise them, which, for an increasing number of women in South Africa, is being snatched from them. South African women and girls are increasingly being lured or kidnapped and trafficked into strip joints and brothels, from which it is very difficult to escape.
This business is also fuelled by the influx of foreign women for sexual exploitation, trafficked to South Africa by South Africans working through foreign agents. The women come from Eastern Europe, Thailand and other countries and are often recruited, as in South Africa, through deceptive job advertisements for waitresses or receptionists who are promised good salaries. There are reports that as soon as the women arrive at the strip clubs, their passports are taken away from them, and they are told they will have to work off debt, in what amounts to debt bondage.
The ACDP notes that in the United Kingdom the British government is banning advertisements for massage parlours, brothels, escort agencies and prostitutes, and that failure to comply with the law can carry a 10 000 fine. Ministers hope that banning such advertisements will curtail trafficking in the United Kingdom and the entrapment of girls into prostitution that goes with it.
Since December 2007, when the Sexual Offences Amendment Act became effective in South Africa, it has been unlawful for anyone to buy a sexual act, which includes sexual violation. There is no doubt, however, that lap dancing, as it is called, which exotic dancers are required to perform in the course of their employment, falls within the category of sexual violation, and is therefore unlawful.
Astoundingly, the Department of Home Affairs, via agents, gives these traffickers permission, by granting work permits as exotic dancers or showgirls. Work permits for foreigners to South Africa are notoriously difficult to obtain, except, it appears, if the applicant is destined for captive and immoral occupations. Home Affairs is playing right into the hands of those who are the slave traders of today, and women and children are the losers.
In support of the Palermo Protocol, the ACDP calls on the Minister of Women, Children and People with Disabilities to investigate the exploitation and urges the Minister of Home Affairs to cease issuing work permits for foreign men or women for employment in the sex clubs of South Africa. In order for there to be equal rights and equal opportunities for all, women must have the freedom to enjoy them.
The ACDP would like to congratulate Noleen Glasgow and Inter-Outreach Ministries on the opening of Fresh Manna restaurant in Observatory tonight. Noleen, an ex-prostitute, has walked a difficult road with the help of Inter-Outreach Ministries to be free from prostitution and drugs. Her efforts and talents have been recognised and, with the backing of funders, she is opening her own business in the city. Noleen, we applaud you and pray your success will know no limits. Thank you. [Applause.]