Introduction
Sex Worker Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) began 12 years ago and has established itself as a credible human rights based organisation that works with sex workers around health and human rights. It is a small organisation informed by both their outreach work to sex workers in Cape Town, research and their networking with a core group of sex workers on a local and national level. It is the only organisation working in this way with sex workers in South Africa.

Background
SWEAT began as a project of ASET [AIDS Support, Education and Training], with the purpose of establishing a non-governmental service organisation focusing on safer sex educational work with adult sex workers. It became independent in 1996, and registered as a non-profit organisation.Outreach work to sex workers working on the streets and within agencies extended beyond safer sex education to include crisis counselling, legal advice and skills training for sex workers. In 2000,SWEAT began actively advocating for the decriminalisation of adult sex work and an advocacy and lobbying programme was established. Since 2002 SWEAT has been working towards reaching sex workers nationally to engage in issues related to health and legal reform. In 2003 Sisonke, a sex worker movement was launched, and currently they support a local Sisonke group in Cape Town,consisting of over 30 members as well as a core leadership group of 8 sex workers from across South Africa. As of 2006 this has become a core project within SWEAT and informs much of their direct work with sex workers.

Mission
To work with adult sex workers for:
• Rights, fair and safer working conditions;
• Decriminalization of adult sex work;
• Access to health, legal and social services; and
• Promotion of safer sex practices and sex workers’ health and well being.

Programmes
SWEAT has developed three programmes that collectively aim to address the structural impediments to achieving a legitimate and respected sex work industry where informed, empowered, safe sex workers are able to make choices about their working lives and career options and address human rights violations.

Training and Support Services Programme is focussed on interventions that address the immediate health and safety needs of sex workers and targeting them collectively with in-depth workshops around safer sex, general health and life skills.

Advocacy and Lobbying Programme aims to give input to legislative reform processes on a national and local government level. This programme strives to make optimum use of the media in order to raise public awareness and influence public and political attitudes towards sex work.

Research Programme was initiated in 2003 to address the need for a credible and useful research base that would be in the interests of sex workers, improve the effectiveness of our interventions and support our work around health and human rights.

SWEAT is further committed to supporting the development of Sisonke, an autonomous sex worker led movement in South Africa.

Current Situation
In South Africa, women are still faced with high levels of unemployment, under-employment, poverty and limited access to social security. The limited opportunities are such that the continuous flow of women into the sex industry now and in the future is still expected .Adult sex workers are a marginalized, stigmatized and vulnerable groups (consisting mostly of women). They face direct and indirect forms of violence and persecution like harassment, arrests, detention and criminal prosecution from the police such that their human rights are violated with the highest level of aggression . The criminality attached to sex work deters sex workers from accessing police protection as well as increasing the already existing power imbalances between men and women.The net effect is one in which a cycle of oppression is created in which accepted prejudice is used to 'justify' discrimination, harassment, persecution, misuse of power and other direct and indirect forms of violence.

To address both violence against women, SWEAT is committed to giving sex work a human face and the need for sex workers to come together through Sisonke [togetherness] was self-identified by sex workers at a national meeting in 2003. Over 60 sex workers attended and identified the following key goals:

• The need to have a say in issues of regulation and codes of good practice
• Campaign for the right to be treated as workers with access to labour laws.
• Strive to build solidarity amongst themselves
• Awareness of Police violence towards them

The challenge facing SWEAT with regards to the development of Sisonke is to move from a situation in which the growth of Sisonke is driven forward by SWEAT.

Successes
The study of the sex working industry in Cape Town has enabled SWEAT map out the Sex Industry in Cape Town and put concerns around trafficking into context. and how women and men are recruited into the sex work industry. Their quantitative and qualitative data confirmed that deception and force, at the point of recruitment is not a prevailing feature of the sex work industry in Cape Town. On the contrary, the percentage of sex workers who claim to have been misled or forced into selling sex is remarkably low.

Challenges
Sex work is a crime in South Africa, as is brothel keeping. Criminalising the industry creates an environment where sex workers are more exposed to criminal acts, like rape and assault. Advocating for its continuation makes the society an accomplice to the crimes perpetrated against sex workers. It is very difficult to intervene in these human right violations as Sex Work is illegal.

For more information , please visit their website at http://www.sweat.org.za