On
Special Assignment this week:
Episode Title: Stripped
Date: Tuesday, 24 March 2009
Time: 21h30
Channel: SABC 3
The adult entertainment industry in South Africa has flourished under the new South Africa. With previous draconian laws restricting the rights of adult entertainment clubs to ply their trade eased and amended - there are hundreds of businesses around the country catering for what is known as strip-tease.
It is a multi-million rand industry that employs thousands of women, foreign and local, as exotic dancers or strippers. Concerns around the trafficking and exploitation of women have resulted in many news stories over the years focusing on the ill-treatment of women brought into the country to work at the strip clubs. But another side, not often given due coverage, relates to the rights of local women working in the industry.
Hired as independent contractors, their work is not covered by legislation such as the Basic Conditions of Employment Act. As this Special Assignment investigation uncovers, the rights of these women are often violated by unscrupulous club bosses who subject them to work conditions that would otherwise be deemed illegal.
Claims of pay docking on minor offences, racial discrimination, sexual assault, and in some cases, of being forced into prostitution, are common.
Many work under adverse conditions, being subjected to ‘fat tests’ that result in them being fined. Others have to pay hefty levies to club bosses, and are charged even when they are too sick for work.
The women speak of the stigma the profession carries, and how because popular assumptions equate them with prostitutes - they are often strong-armed into selling their bodies, by their bosses.
Through the documentary Special Assignment argues that the treatment of strippers in the adult entertainment industry is not about issues of morality, or about the pros and cons of legalizing prostitution. There have been calls for a greater regulation of the industry, to protect the rights of the women who are workers, like any other workers, but are not being adequately protected by the law.
The show is produced by Peter Moyo and Adin Rinquest.