In December 2022, the Minister of Justice, Ronald Lamola, set into motion a public participation process on the laws that govern sex work in South Africa. Cabinet approved the publishing of a draft Bill - The Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Bill, 2022 - for public comment.

The Bill is very short - only four pages long. But it will do something quite extraordinary if it does become law - it will fully decriminalise sex work and make South Africa only the second country in the world to do so, after New Zealand.

Health and human rights advocates, sex workers, and sex worker rights allies have been rejoicing.

But they know a long road still lies ahead.

The department envisions a two-step process for sex work law reform. First, the national laws governing sex work will be amended to remove criminal penalties from sex work (the current Bill), which will be followed up by a later process to regulate the industry. The first step could still take a long time.

At the moment, the public has until the end of January to provide comments on the current wording of the Bill. The department will then draw on those comments to make changes to the Bill if needed. The revised Bill will then be introduced in Parliament, published in the Government Gazette for public comment, debated in Parliament, and then voted on. The wording of the Bill could still change in these parliamentary processes.

The content of the Bill is straightforward.

It removes provisions in both...

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