South Africa

Since 1 January 2008, the age of consent in South Africa is 16 years, regardless of sexual orientation and gender. No sodomy laws apply in South Africa, however sex with a male under the age of 19 is punishable with imprisonment of up to six years with or without a fine of up to 12,000 Rand. Parliament passed the Civil Union Bill which was tabled in reaction to the Constitutional Court ruling of 1 December 2005 where the court ordered parliament to amend the definition of marriage from "a union between a man and a women" to "a union between two persons". The Bill of Rights chapter of the Constitution of South Africa clearly outlaws, amongst others, any discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender and marital status. Safe sex is highly advisable as South Africa has the highest number of HIV infections in the world - 5 million. Although the government downplays the statistics and denies that South Africa is the "crime capital of the world," this post-apartheid country still has one of the highest murder rates. The government banned publication of crime figures, because of "serious problems about the integrity and reliability of the statistics". Crime in South Africa is all too often accompanied by extreme violence involving guns. House robbers operate mainly in small groups, usually at night and normally hold up their victims with firearms. Please note that all bars are forced by law to stop serving liquor at 02h00 in the morning. The bars do however still remain open until the early morning ± 03h00 to 04h00.