In this week’s episode of Special Assignment, we expose a shocking source of student entertainment: students frequent night clubs in Hillbrow to participate in live sex shows. The area is infamous as Johannesburg’s red light district, a place where you can find almost anything. Its proximity to several tertiary institutions means that night clubs which lack access controls, enable minors to participate in these illegal sex shows.
Our investigation reveals that there are many such places in Hillbrow, licensed as bars that sell liquor, but they illegally facilitate live sex shows. We expose two such places and show shocking footage of students having sex with sex workers, while onlookers cheer them on.
We speak to students, who admit that they frequent these places and in some cases, use their bursary funds to pay for this kind of entertainment. Besides the criminal act of prostitution which is illegal in South Africa, the fact that minors can watch such sexual acts and partake in them, infers that these places are guilty of child pornography, which is also a criminal offense. The night clubs additionally violate several of the city’s by-laws.
South Africa has one of the highest statistics of rape and abuse of women in the world. According to Psychologist Simphiwe Sinkoyi, these activities perpetuate gender inequality and may result in severe consequences in future. Of even more concern, is the impact these have on the young people who indulge in them and how it defines their life-long sexual experiences, especially because some start engaging in these live sex shows with prostitutes in their teens.
Watch Special Assignment on SABC 3, Sunday, 19 April 2015 at 8:30 p.m., repeated on Monday the 20th of April at 23h30.
