If the latest media reports and flying rumors translate to a genuine legislation about the legalisation of prostitution; it will benefit those who have purchasing power.  Let me from the onset affirm that I am not for or against the legalisation of the so called ‘old profession’ or ‘commercial sex work’ buy some commentators.  For argument sake I will refer the latter as ‘commoditisation of sex’, here commodity refers to anything that can be sold. Anything sellable can even be bought over the count; will it be that way?

Most of the people who wrote about prostitution; especially in the African context (precisely Botswana), argued that it will dangerously ruin our moral fabric, while in the same line affecting the teachings of the Bible. Many marriages will be broken due to the effects of the pendulum between the‘buyer-and-seller’ or whatever it will be called in the statute (Act or policy), children will remain victims of broken families due to this ‘wanna be product.’ Buttressing on this issue, crime will be on the rise, court cases due to lack of pay and children will be socialised to be ‘sex workers’ not the ‘normal’ professions we know.  So we are caught in the middle here; marauding and obdurate effects of HIV/AIDS and or compounding consequences of poverty. Some activists are thronged with full force to support the idea of making prostitution a commodity like ‘sugar’ or even ‘chocolate.’ Others dismiss the notion of conservatism (both culturally and spiritually) arguing that Botswana is a secular state, and we can legalise prostitution.

It may be good, though, to legalise it looking at the fact that it will be a trading commodity that these ‘workers’ will pay tax, which will grow the economic and expand developments. Sheila Jeffreys, a professor in the School of Social and Political Sciences (University of Melbourne), wrote a book titled ‘The Industrial Vagina: The Political Economy of the Global Sex’ wrote that the ‘industrialization of prostitution and the sex trade has created a multibillion-dollar global market, involving
millions of women, that makes a substantial contribution to national and global economies.’ Jeffreys examined how prostitution and other aspects of the sex industry have moved from being small scale, done cloak-and-dagger and socially despised practies to become very profitable legimate market sector that are being legalised and decriminalised by governments. Jeffreys further questions why is this ‘beauty industry is expanding…’ now it is murmured about in Botswana.

The point is that the poor, more especially those in rural areas will never ever taste the fruit of commercial sex legalisation; since they don’t have purchasing power. But the central argument is that prostitution will benefit the handful rich!

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Modise B. Motlhanka (Gaborone)

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