Navigating Risk

Lessons From the Dockside Sex Trade for Reducing Violence in South Africa's Prostitution Industry

During my research into dockside prostitution in Cape Town and Durban, I found that sex workers who catered to foreign sailors faced a reduced risk of violence compared to their streetwalker, truck-stop, and brothel colleagues. After conducting comparative research on the different prostitution sectors in South Africa, I published an academic article on why dockside prostitutes are relatively safer than their peers. In it, I discuss the different sex sectors and then make policy recommendations that would enhance the safety of sex workers throughout the industry.

This is the abstract to the article:

The diversity of South Africa's prostitution industry exposes sex workers to varying levels of violence. The street, truck stop, hotel, agency, brothel, and dockside trades are characterized by different structural features that determine the prevalence of client, police, and third-party abuse against prostitutes. Comparing the structural elements of each sector allows not only gauging the likelihood of violence within a given niche but also devising more precise policy instruments to reduce violence at an industry-wide level.

This article, "Navigating Risk," focuses on the dockside prostitution sector in Cape Town and Durban, showing how its structural features enhance the women's power vis-à-vis their clients and the police. It discusses 5 key variables that influence the likelihood of violence within each prostitution sector:

- the social and legal status of the client
- the location of negotiation
- the location of the sexual act
- the level of discretion in the solicitation process
- and the role of third-party involvement

Detailed policy recommendations conclude the argument.

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Click on the PDF icon to download article:

Trotter, Henry, "Navigating Risk: Lessons From the Dockside Sex Trade for Reducing Violence in South Africa's Prostitution Industry" Sexuality Research & Social Policy: Journal of NSRC Vol. 4, No. 4 (Dec 2007): 106-119.

Gentle vs. Grabby Sailors

Foreign sailors who go to dockside nightclubs in Durban tend to treat the club prostitutes with greater respect than the sailors in Cape Town. None act violently toward the women, but the seafarers who berth in Cape Town tend to handle the ladies more possessively than their counterparts in Durban. They are "grabby" in comparison. Why?

I think four reasons explain this difference:

Numbers: 60-80 women regularly solicit from the sole remaining seamen's club in Durban. The ladies often equal or outnumber the 50-100 sailors who arrive at the club each evening. This makes for a relatively relaxed atmosphere for the men. They rarely have to compete against each other for a woman's attention. Partners are usually available.

But in Cape Town, only 40-60 women (in total) regularly solicit from 3 dockside clubs. Relative to the 60-130 men per evening, the ladies are in short supply. On some occasions, the imbalance is extreme. Add alcohol to the mix and some men get anxious they may not get a companion for the evening. This inspires them to act possessively with the women. They sometimes grab or grope the ladies on the dance floor or as they pass by. It signifies a desperate attempt to get the women's attention in what is clearly a solicitor's market.

Time: In Durban, the guys are literally "here today, gone tomorrow." Because they are on container ships that have rapid turn-around times in the harbor, the typical solicitation cycle with a sailor is one night. If a guy acts rude during the evening, the women can just ignore him and focus on other men. They need not cater to him any further.

But in Cape Town, the sailors typically work on deep-sea fishing trawlers that berth in Cape Town for spells of 5-30 days. These men come to the clubs every night they're in town. The women do not feel they can snub the rude men because, within a few days, they may become valuable clients. The women do not want to close the door on any guys because, given their long stays in port, they may become sources of money in the future.

Frequency: Most sailors in Durban visit the port a few times in their lives. Or perhaps just once. They rarely go there on a consistent basis.

But in Cape Town, the trawlermen return multiple times during their South Atlantic voyages. They typically visit Cape Town every 4 months during their two-year contract. (Then they go home, get another contract, and start the sequence again.) They may be regular callers for years. This encourages the women to see solicitation as a long-term strategic process. Thus, they put up with a man's touchiness because they don't want to lose access to him as a potential client. Any of the guys might become repeat-clients for many years, a prospect too good to ignore.

Class Status: Durban is Africa's premier container port. Most seafarers who work on container vessels are middle-class or middle-class aspirant. Thus they tend to be rule-followers who behave themselves overseas. They're rarely troublemakers with locals (unlike the old cargo ship salts of yore).

But in Cape Town, most of the sailors are East Asian trawlermen, drawn from the poorer sections of China, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines (while the wealthier officers come from Japan, Taiwan & Korea). The women say that these guys party harder, have a tougher work life, and are less refined in their flirtations than the container ship seamen. They see the trawlermen as having "lower class" standards of interpersonal relations.

Thankfully, this touchiness is never violent, even if it is annoying. Cape Town's dockside prostitutes say that they do not face client violence like streetwalkers often do. But the women do wish that the trawlermen would act gentler with them like the container ship crews.

Waiting for the Gush of Seamen

When I get downtown, the dockside clubs are totally empty. No sailors anywhere. Everything else is in place—willing women, cross-armed bouncers, bored barmaids, earphoned DJs, sleepy cabbies—but their presence lacks meaning without the seamen. They are the source of their livelihoods. Needless to say, everyone feels slightly agitated.

The women lounge around in the booths and watch Animal Planet on the big screen TV. The "Crocodile Hunter" is busy taunting spitting cobras into squirting venom in his eyes. He relishes every jet of poison deflected off his glasses. Meanwhile, the club girls squirm as they watch slow-mo close-ups of snakes shooting liquid death from their hissing fangs. For the moment, it relieves the boredom, but it doesn't shake their deeper financial anxieties.

Eventually, a couple of Taiwanese sailors walk in. Three women race to them. The men sit down and enjoy the attention: their laps are never empty. And they're generous enough, buying beers for themselves and the ladies.

But after awhile, the women realize that one of them has to go. Three ladies with two sailors: not gonna work. Despite the promiscuous atmosphere at the club, the women are profoundly monogamous in their sexual negotiations: they insist that everyone pairs off. No three-somes allowed. (No one wants to split the fees.)

While the men crawl deeper into insobriety, the women follow close behind. But they also become aggressive with each other. Then it happens. Two of the girls go at each other. Fists fly toward faces, hands grab for hair, palms hurtle toward cheeks, fingernails claw at flesh, feet kick at shins, tongues hurl abuse, and lips spit at eyeballs. Their smacks reverberate across the room above the noise of the music as the two stumble, struggle, curse, and thrash about.

The bouncers watch with mild interest—quite unperturbed—then reluctantly break it up. But like on Jerry Springer, the bouncers don't separate them so far that they can't still smack each other every now and then.

The three girls—who live together!—forget about their quarry as they are escorted outside. They yell endless accusations and insults at each other while a small crowd of women gather around them (happy for the distraction). They eventually share a cab home and continue the drunken dispute there. The Taiwanese, meanwhile, just laugh, imbibe a few more beers, and accept the attentions of other ladies.

Cape Town's dockside clubs are prone to seasonal fluctuations. But usually there's at least a couple dozen sailors to go around. Tonight, virtually NO ONE came. Instead, what came out were the women's expressions of boredom, anxiety, and frustration at a totally wasted evening of work.

The Problem with Local "Johns"

Cape Town: Last night a local drunk guy stumbles into a dockside nightclub. Not many sailors around and the ladies are restless for business. The owner lets the drunk man in, hoping that he might spend some money on the girls.

Half-an-hour later—as I'm talking to the owner downstairs—the drunk comes skidding down the stairs head-first. He slams into the opposite wall of the stairwell. The bouncer stomps down the steps behind him. He takes a look at the crumpled heap and grabs him by the collar to haul him outside. He roughly deposits the drunk on the sidewalk, giving him a final slap across the face for good measure.

One of the prostitutes comes down the stairs and says that the guy had been cursing the girls and verbally abusing the staff. The bouncer asked him to leave, but he persisted. Then the bouncer clapped across the face and sent him tumbling down the stairs. To all of this, the owner doesn't even blink.

Violence in this context isn't uncommon, but this particular scene reveals some unique aspects of dockside prostitution.

At "seamen's clubs"—where local ladies solicit sailors for business—drunk men are everywhere. And for the most part, they're harmless. But if a local guy comes around, there can be problems.

Local guys don't feel welcome at dockside clubs. They're surrounded by foreign sailors and the local women aren't interested in them. Though they're in "their own" country, they get the distinct feeling that they don't belong. This can piss some guys off, especially if they're drunk. So they mouth off at everyone—going on about "this is South Africa!" and "you girls are just whores!"—but then the bouncers sort them out.

One of the reasons why local women solicit at dockside nightclubs is so they don't have to work with local men. The women can protect their privacy and anonymity by going with seafarers who have no impact beyond the dockside. Locals, though, can hassle them within and beyond the clubs. And, according to the women, they're more likely than sailors to throw it in their face that they're prostitutes. So the ladies tend to ignore locals (unless they demonstrate that they're really generous and really cool).