It’s a bustling day outside the court that day. Protesters are enraged, including The Sex Workers Education Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT). They are wearing orange shirts and singing and protesting outside the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court, determined that the accused be sentenced to life in prison.
It is the 20-year-old’s first court appearance following the discovery of six dead women by police. However, he has only been tied to one murder so far, and hence faces only one murder accusation. This came after police were called to a building in Johannesburg due to a stink and discovered a woman’s body.
The suspect, who cannot be identified until an identity parade is complete, is claimed to be the last person seen with the deceased. Following additional inquiry, five more bodies were discovered in a decomposed state inside a panel-beating establishment in Selby, all of which are believed to be sex workers.
When we encounter one of the sex workers, she is singing the loudest while journalists wait for the matter to be assigned a courtroom. Her loud, passionate singing was motivated by the fact that she was being harassed by one of her clients. She appeared in court to seek a protective order because she was receiving death threats.
She claims that there is no justice for sex workers, but they hope that with a case of this scale, it sets a tone and cautions other culprits to cease abusing sex workers on the job. Inside the court, the hearings began at lunchtime after reporters were advised not to film the proceedings until an identity parade was completed. This means that the accused cannot be identified using their names or photographs. A diminutive young man in navy blue joggers and a tight long-sleeve shirt stepped into the courtroom with a T-shirt cleverly covering his face.
Prosecutor Nazley January said as he stood there that this is a Schedule 6 offense that was planned and premeditated, and the accused is linked at this stage by eyewitnesses and video recordings. Magistrate Betty Khumalo reminded the accused that while this is his first appearance in court, he has already acquired a legal representative from the legal board, but the court must still verify that he understands his rights. According to the magistrate, the accused must understand that he is innocent until proven guilty.
“As the state, we’ve been allowed to go and prepare our investigations in terms of what we plan to submit in challenging his release on bail,” Phindi explains. According to her, the accused is charged with one count of murder after six bodies were recovered.
While SWEAT has been monitoring the situation of the missing sex workers since July, at least two more sex workers have been murdered and their remains dumped in Johannesburg’s Joubert Park and a hotel room, with little press attention or widespread indignation.