Last WeekGreta Schuler came to talk to us about her study of Sex Workers and the establishment of the Sisonke Sex Workers Movement and Izwi Lethu (The Voice) as a newspaper for sex workers.
Sex working is one of those illegal yet impossible to stop activities like dagga smoking but with the proviso that if there were no customers there would be no sex workers.
It was an interesting talk on the lives and attitudes of sex workers and in a country like ours it is often the only way to put bread on the table.
Sex work – the consensual sale of sex between adults – is an important livelihood activity for some migrants in South Africa. Currently all aspects of sex work are illegal, resulting in multiple forms of violence against male, female and transgendered people working in the industry. In this research area, we explore intersections between sex work, migration, health and well-being.
Research projects involve a partnership with Sisonke – the South African National Sex Worker Movement, and involvement in various policy processes.
Using mixed method and inter-disciplinary approaches, including arts-based methods, our research projects explore the lived experiences of migrant sex workers in South Africa. Research contributes to a range of policy and programmatic interventions, including efforts supporting the decriminalisation of sex work in South Africa.
WHAT DOES SISONKE STAND FOR:
Sisonke’s Vision
Our vision is to see a South Africa where sex work is recognised as work, and where sex workers’ health and human rights are ensured.
Sisonke’s Mission
As Sisonke our aim is to unite sex workers, improve our living and working conditions and fight for equal access to rights.
We know that united we will have a voice.
We do not want to be labelled as criminals.
We want the laws to change.
We want our rights to be respected like any other person in South Africa.
We demand the right to make a living.
HOW CAN SISONKE HELP SEX WORKERS?
As a member, you are part of a national movement which looks after your rights.
Sisonke helps you with:
Free advice and information – we partner with SWEAT to offer a 24/7 Counselling and referrals via the Help Line.
Outreach, including providing condoms and safe sex material.
Rights advice and referrals for legal support.
Life skills and training (e.g. computer skills, self-development, financial skills).
We are mobilising to fight for our human rights.
We are building a movement of visible, empowered and politically active sex workers who demand appropriate services, resist exploitation and support each other to challenge criminalisation.
We had a number of visitors.....
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| DG Jankees Sligcher and President Lyn Collocott are obviously engrossed. |
Linda Vink, President Elect and Mike Vink Immediate Past President of Johannesburg New Dawn. Greta Schuler's in-laws.
It's the Vocational Service Awards and recognition to the Lester Connock Awardees.
Don't forget that it is at Wanderers Golf Club, not our usual venue and the lunch is R120. You can pay either by eft or cash at the door. Please ensure that Hugh Rix knows that you will be there. spencer.rix8@gmail.com
Picture Puzzle
A number of you got it right last week....President Truman. This week is a bit more difficult...maybe we should think about a prize. I did grow this one but it wasn't worth the effort.
Rotary is tackling one of the biggest environmental and political crises of the 21st century – water resources – and to do so, Rotarians are leveraging their ability to build connections.
“The water crisis is one of the top three crises facing the globe, along with HIV/AIDS and malaria,” says Aaron Wolf, a professor of geosciences at Oregon State University and a water resources conflict resolution expert. “It’s not just waterborne illness and ecosystem degradation; water shortages exacerbate tensions in a lot of already very hostile parts of the world.”
The Aral Sea basin in Central Asia is one such place. Changes in the basin have a far-reaching impact on Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Iran. River diversion that began in the 1960s, when much of the region was part of the Soviet Union, has nearly desiccated the inland saltwater lake, once the fourth-largest lake in the world. Today, rusting ships lie beached on a desert contaminated by high salinity, and neighboring countries clash over the limited water resources they once shared.
Satellite images from 2001, left, and 2017 show the extent of recent shoreline changes on the Aral Sea.
“Central Asia is a tough part of the world for hydropolitics,” Wolf says, “probably one of the most tense of anywhere in the world. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, a lot of the arrangements that had been internal suddenly became international, with all of the complexity and suspicions and tensions that go along with that.”
In 2014 and again in 2016, Rotary Foundation global grants brought representatives from those nations together to help them navigate the delicate territory of diplomacy and transboundary conflict resolution. At the two symposiums, held in the Netherlands at the IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, participants began to build connections and to communicate in a way that may help head off conflict and lead to more sustainable water use.
Steve Brown, a past Rotary Foundation trustee and past president of the La Jolla Golden Triangle Rotary Club Foundation, learned about the Central Asian water crisis from leaders of the IHE Delft Institute, which has had a partnership with Rotary since 2012.
Brown worked with U.S. embassies to bring in participants, mainly public-sector officials dealing with water, energy, or planning, for the first Central Asia Water Symposium. Sessions featured lecturers who study water conflict management, including Wolf.
The goal of the first symposium was to help the representatives see the crisis through the perspective of their neighbors. Sessions included role-playing using a similar multinational water basin in another part of the world. For example, Wolf says, participants from upstream nations took on the roles of downstream representatives. Workshops also included discussions on conflict management and presentations on water issues.
“So ideally, as they’re doing the training, they’re also having conversations around the issues that are contentious,” Wolf says. “But they’re doing it in the context of training rather that formal negotiation, so the conversation can be a little freer.”
The initial symposium wasn’t intended to solve all of the political and environmental problems of the region; it was an effort to brainstorm and consider ways to approach the problems together.
“For that kind of conversation, we had absolutely the right elements,” Wolf says. “And ideally, this is the kind of conversation that continues and moves forward.”
Brown agrees. “I could see that meaningful relationships were being established and there was a lot of serious thought,” he says.
For the second symposium, held in December 2016, Brown hoped to see two things accomplished: to continue the dialogue, and to bring in representatives from governments and organizations that allocate funds to international water-related issues, including the World Bank.
“The problems are so large, they will take decades and probably billions of dollars to eventually resolve,” Brown says. “Rotary is here as more of a catalyst to move things forward.”
The relationships and connections forged at the first symposium were deepened at the second one, Brown says. “On a personal level, friendships were created between people who work in their respective ministries in these different countries,” he says. “They can actually share ideas.”
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