Sex -work, stigma and violence in the 'New' South Africa: An ethnographic study of sex for money exchange in Gauteng province

This dissertation examines the sex industry in Gauteng province of South Africa including the urban areas of Johannesburg, Soweto and Soshanguve and the semi-rural areas of villages surrounding Hammanskraal town. Interviews were collected from fifty sex-workers in the downtown areas of Hillbrow, the Northern suburbs and from fifty women who exchange sex for money to support themselves financially in Soweto, Soshanguve and Hammanskraal combined. Through charting the movement to decriminalize prostitution, this dissertation explores the construction of a "New" South Africa and examines efforts to extend the human rights culture as embodied in the constitution and Bill of Rights to all South Africans. This discussion links the movement to decriminalize sex-work and other progressive legislation concerning women and minority groups within the history of gender legislation in South Africa primarily in the post 1949 period.;The "New," South Africa faces a culturally diverse population that has different conceptualizations of sexuality, "appropriate" sexual practices and morality for the "New" South Africa. The African population argues that commercialized sex-work is not present in township areas such as Soweto and semi-rural areas such as Hammanskraal. Sexual exchanges for money that occur in shebeens and at stokvels are not viewed as commercialized sex-work; this dissertation presents an alternative conceptualization of the relationship between sexuality, power and the construction of the individual as it is argued that sexual exchange for money in these areas should not be conflated with prostitution in the West. Secondary sources from sub-Saharan Africa indicate that women who engage in "prostitution" may be less stigmatized by their communities. This dissertation complements Foucault's theorization of Western sexuality as elucidated in History of Sexuality (1976) but presents a different approach to theorizing sexuality and discourse through the use of examples from South Africa.;Furthermore, ethnographic examples from South Africa, also serve to contribute to third wave discussions in women's studies and to postmodern discourse in socio-cultural anthropology; in both disciplines, there is an attempt to acknowledge the agency of marginalized others such as sex-workers. This dissertation articulates the choices that sex-workers and women who exchange sex for money make in areas such as confronting violence, safer sex practices and in interactions with pimps/third parties.