Mail & Guardian
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Two-way street: Reality show This Body Works for Me follows the lives of seven South African sex workers. Photo: Supplied
ADULT ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY

A candid look at sex work

Thandeka, who has been working in the sector for 13 years, says a new reality TV series is edifying

  • Ipeleng Derby-Molefe
7 min read
Aside from the economic benefits, urgent decriminalisation is needed to ensure constitutional rights of the country’s estimated 153 000 sex workers. (John McCann/M&G)
CORONA LEAD

Police treat sex workers like they are ‘nothing’

Those on the street say that the usual abuse has intensified under the lockdown

  • Sarah Smit
5 min read
Outreach: Esther (centre), a staff member of the nongovernmental organisation Lady Mermaid’s Bureau, which advocates for the human rights of female and bisexual sex workers, distributes items to those who have been hard hit by the lockdown in Uganda. (Sumy Sadurni/AFP)
ACTIVISM
Video

Sex workers abandoned as Covid-19 crackdowns undo Africa’s HIV efforts

Controlling Covid-19 may worsen Africa’s HIV epidemic by stopping state and civil society health services built up over 35 years

  • Lydia Namubiru, The Continent
  • Khatondi Soita Wepukhulu
  • Kerry Cullinan
8 min read
Freida Lock, Slave Quarters, Spier Farm, Stellenbosch / A Cape Dutch Homestead (back), 1946. Oil on canvas. (Courtesy of the Javett Foundation, Pretoria)
ALL IN A DAY S EYE THE POLITICS OF INNOCENCE

The politics of guilt and the violence of the archive

During the lockdown, artists must rethink their place in the system. Now is the chance to advocate and appreciate the human condition of being constantly and chaotically in flux

  • Thembeka Heidi Sincuba
10 min read