Cape Town gets clinic for sex workers
Facility aims to provide health care to people who are often stigmatised in the state system
A new clinic to serve the healthcare needs of sex workers and their families opened at the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) head office on Thursday. SWEAT is an organisation working throughout South Africa to provide services and advocacy for the sex workersâ community since the 1990s.
The facility itself is a brightly painted structure just behind SWEATâs headquarters in Observatory. In attendance were partners in the clinicâs launch: AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) South Africa, SWEAT, and national sex workersâ movement Sisonke as well as community members. This is the first clinic of its kind in Cape Town.
Sally Shackleton, Director of Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce at SWEAT, explained that the goal of the clinic is to provide holistic general health care for sex workers, their families and wider communities. She also said that the success of the clinic is dependent on collaboration between stakeholders. Service users at the clinic will be the ones directing the services provided. âAll of us in this room need to be committed to making this clinic work,â said Shackleton.
Sex work remains illegal in South Africa. Sisonke representative Zukiswa Ngobo said that sex workers are often stigmatised or turned away from healthcare facilities used by the general public. She said, âSo called nurses and doctorsâŠfail to render us services, call us irresponsible and call us names. They donât know how it is like to be a sex worker.â Ngobo expressed the communityâs gratitude to now have a space at SWEAT to seek treatment.
âThis clinic is a milestone,â said Hilary Thulare, Country Programme Director for AHF. Thulare said that though AHFâs main drive was fighting the spread of HIV/AIDS, the organisation knows the disease âexists because of other issuesâ and reiterated the importance of treatment for sex workersâ general health needs. She too appealed to sex workers in attendance: âYou need to be leadersâŠwe need to hear your voice.â
Throughout the programme, members of SWEATâs trans support group Sistazhood Choir sang and danced to commemorate the opening of the clinic.
The clinic is named in memory of Cym Van Dyke, a trans sex work activist who was involved with SWEATâs mission to advocate for sex workers from the organisationâs beginning. Diana Hoorzuk of AHF spoke about Van Dykeâs life, remarking that because of the clinicâs opening, Van Dyke was now surely âsmiling down and saying Amen.ââ
A friend of Van Dykeâs commented that a clinic to provide services to sex workers was âsomething [Van Dyke] longed for.â
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