Sexual Offences Act, 1957

Provisions in force

Repealed provisions

Amendments

• The Immorality Amendment Act, 1967 added section 12A aimed at prohibiting escort services and the like, and redefined all fines in terms of rands rather than South African pounds.
• The Immorality Amendment Act, 1969 introduced or expanded a number of offences. It added section 18A and 20A. It also amended section 14 to raise the age of consent for male-male sex to 19.
• The Immorality and Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Amendment Act, 1985 repealed section 16, which prohibited interracial sex, and other provisions which penalised interracial sex more heavily. This came as part of the repeal of many petty apartheid laws under the government of P. W. Botha.
• The Immorality Amendment Act, 1988 renamed the act from "Immorality Act, 1957" to "Sexual Offences Act, 1957". It amended sections 9, 12A and 15 to be gender-neutral where they had previously referred only to females, and amended section 14 to criminalise, for the first time, a woman having sex with a person under the age of consent, for that purpose setting the age of consent at 16 for a boy and 19 for a girl. It also made it a crime to be a prostitute, where previously only certain acts related to prostitution had been illegal.
• The Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1992 made certain technical modifications to the penalty clauses.
• The General Law Amendment Act, 1992 removed a provision allowing the act to be applied in the territory of South-West Africa, as a result of that territory's independence as Namibia.
• The General Law Fourth Amendment Act, 1993 placed certain assumptions about brothel-keeping on a gender-neutral basis.
• The Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2007 repealed and replaced many provisions, leaving only those related to prostitution and brothel-keeping. It also amended several of the remaining sections so that people under 18 cannot be convicted of the offences they prohibit.