The Sex Worker Education and Advocacy Taskforce (Sweat) is lobbying to have adult sex work decriminalised.

"This provision has not been subject to public participation along with the re st of the bill," Sweat said in a statement.Sweat said it was "gravely concerned" about the "extremely prejudicial" conseq uences of including the provision in the bill. The long-delayed bill is aimed at broadening the definition of rape, and minimising secondary victimisation o f victims of sexual offences.

"This provision will impact on the human rights of sex workers. We feel that p arliament would be remiss should it do so without having properly considered t he requisite contextual information."

Sweat said the Sexual Offences Bill had never dealt with sex work. There was a separate SA Law Reform Commission inquiry into sex work and a report was still awaited nearly 4 years down the line.

In relation to the sexual offences bill, a discussion paper and report was rel eased by the Law Reform Commission, followed by extensive public participation in the form of written and oral submissions. This was followed by deliberatio ns by the justice committee where the submissions were discussed, Sweat said.

At no stage had issues pertaining to sex work been deliberated, nor had there been any form of open submissions or debate on the issue, Sweat said.

"The issues pertaining to adult sex work have been recognised by the Constitut ional Court as complex and need serious legislative consideration, which in tu rn requires proper public participation.

Sweat said the South African Law Reform Commission separated sections of theSexual Offences Act relating to adult sex work precisely in order to afford this complex issue a separate review, it said.

"Sweat calls on the parliamentary portfolio committee to remove this proposed provision from the bill."