'Lift sex ban in prisons' - SA

[dArKeR]

Pretoria - A prohibition on consensual sex among inmates provided fertile ground for all sorts of evils like rape and unprotected intercourse - and the spread of Aids - the Jali Commission of Inquiry heard on Wednesday.

"The prohibition, if not unlawful, is certainly unwise," Lesbian and Gay Equality Project director Evert Knoesen said.

"It is bad social policy. All it serves to achieve is to encourage unsafe sexual practice and put people at risk of things from which they would otherwise not have been," he told the commission.

Knoesen said the departmental prohibition discouraged rape victims from reporting such crimes as they feared being punished. It also dissuaded consensual sexual partners from asking for condoms.

http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_1499496,00.html