Yearly, hundreds of thousands of people are trafficked across borders, most often against their will or without their knowledge. Albeit having been a part of our history, our present and, sadly, probably our future, this form of modern slavery remains rather unexplored in quantitative research due to the lack of reliable data. By using a gravity model, this study investigates how trafficking is affected by prostitution laws. The strength of this paper lies in being able to disentangle the effect of prostitution laws on different types of trafficking and to look at both total trafficking flows as well as only cross-border flows. The results point towards there being a mostly negative correlation between legal prostitution and trafficking inflows, however, most results become insignificant when adding rule of law (a proxy for legal enforcement) to the specification. Allowing for third party involvement and solicitation might be correlated an increase in the inflow of victims exploited for sexual services, this is, however, statistically insignicant. For victims of forced labour, results are more equivocal, illustrating the potentially misleading conclusions that might be drawn in studies looking only at the effects of prostitution laws on total trafficking flows.

In October 1995 representatives from ECPAT (End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism) visited several Eastern and Southern African countries. The purpose of the visit was to collect information on child prostitution and the impact of tourism on child prostitution and to assess whether to expand the ECPAT campaign to Africa. Although child prostitution in tourism did not presently appear to be a problem, child prostitution was found to be widespread. One common problem identified by ECPAT in all these countries visited was a lack of legislation to protect children from prostitution and a general helplessness in how best to address the issue. So the idea of a workshop, focusing on legal aspects, was bom with the aim to bring together stakeholders from the various countries to learn from each other’s experiences and begin to formulate responses to child prostitution and prevent child prostitution in tourism. The Network Against Child Labour (NACL) South Africa was able to organise a workshop with the financial support from Bread for the World. Participants from NGO’s and governments from Kenya, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa attended this first workshop on child prostitution in the region. Two international legal experts and advisers to ECPAT were present and partly facilitated the workshop, enriching our work with their expertise and world wide experience. The aim of the workshop extended beyond a focus on the legal aspects of child prostitution. Other specific purposes were networking, exchanging each other’s experience and achievements in order to develop strategies to combat child prostitution and finding a common ground for co-ordinated action. The Human Science Research Council (HSRC) provided a venue for the workshop and catered for the event. Dr. Willem Schurink from the HSRC organised, together with the Child Protection Unit from the South African Police, a tour to Johannesburg in areas were child prostitution is considered rife. This gave the participants an insight into the situation in South Africa’s largest city and “economic capital”. The two days of our workshop were intense and enriching. We all learned from each other’s experience and realised that there are many common problems that could be tackled with mutual support and advice in order to change legislation, policies and attitudes in the respective countries in the Eastern and Southern African region to ensure that the problem of child prostitution is declining and eventually eradicated. Continued networking and intensifying contacts will be part of our future efforts to combat child prostitution. The NACL wants to take this occasion to thank all participants for their efforts and contributions that made the workshop a success: Muireann OBrian and Denise Ritchie, who helped us in organising and facilitating. Thanks to our two volunteers, Rakgadi Masetlha and Tilman Rapp for the organisation of the workshop and especially to Dr. Willem Schurink of the HSRC, as well as to the funder - Bread for the World. With this publication we hope not only to reach stakeholders in South Africa and the region but to contribute our experience to world wide efforts to eradicate the degrading and often lethal practice of child prostitution by encouraging organisations and individuals to join a network in order to fight the problem.

The issue of the criminalization of prostitution raises all kinds of legal questions, especially in South African law. Governments have adopted different positions regarding prostitution. South Africa has tried, by means of law, to crack down on prostitution. This dissertation discusses the question of prostitution as provided by s 20 (1)(aA) of the Sexual Offences Act 23 of 1957. Whether criminalization is the indicated way to lessen or eliminate prostitution determines the focus of the discussion. It seemed necessary to understand the topic, to present the most important systems for addressing prostitution, the South African model and its evaluation. A legal comparison is presented. The discussion looks also at international instruments, which place the emphasis on forced prostitution. There is, in South African law, a pressing need to enact laws in accordance with the Bill of Rights, and with the international norms to which South Africa is party. / Criminal & Procedural Law / LL. D. (Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure)

The issue of the criminalization of prostitution raises all kinds of legal questions, especially in South African law. Governments have adopted different positions regarding prostitution. South Africa has tried, by means of law, to crack down on prostitution. This dissertation discusses the question of prostitution as provided by s 20 (1)(aA) of the Sexual Offences Act 23 of 1957. Whether criminalization is the indicated way to lessen or eliminate prostitution determines the focus of the discussion. It seemed necessary to understand the topic, to present the most important systems for addressing prostitution, the South African model and its evaluation. A legal comparison is presented. The discussion looks also at international instruments, which place the emphasis on forced prostitution. There is, in South African law, a pressing need to enact laws in accordance with the Bill of Rights, and with the international norms to which South Africa is party. / Criminal and Procedural Law / LL. D. (Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure)