The Immorality Act, 1927 (Act No. 5 of 1927) was an
act of the
Parliament of South Africa
The Parliament of the Republic of South Africa is South Africa's legislature; under the present Constitution of South Africa, the bicameral Parliament comprises a National Assembly and a National Council of Provinces. The current twenty-seve ...
that prohibited extramarital sex between white people and people of other races. In its original form it only prohibited sex between a white person and a black person, but in 1950 it was amended to apply to sex between a white person and any non-white person.
The act forbade any "illicit carnal intercourse" (which meant sex outside of marriage) between a "European" (i.e. white) male and a "native" (i.e. black) female, or vice versa. It imposed a penalty of up to five years in prison for the man and four years for the woman. It also prohibited "
procuring" women for the purpose of interracial sex, and knowingly allowing premises to be used for interracial sex; both offences carried a penalty of up to five years' imprisonment.
In 1950, the Nationalist government of
DF Malan
Daniël François Malan (; 22 May 1874 – 7 February 1959) was a South African politician who served as the fourth prime minister of South Africa from 1948 to 1954. The National Party implemented the system of apartheid, which enforce ...
, in one of the first legislative acts of
apartheid
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
, introduced the Immorality Amendment Act, 1950 (Act No. 21 of 1950) to extend the prohibition to sex between "Europeans" and all "non-Europeans". This therefore included in the scope of the act people of mixed descent and people of Asian descent. Between 1950 and the repeal of the law in 1985, at least 19,000 people were fully prosecuted for violating the law, whereas thousands more were arrested without a trial.
The 1950 amendment came one year after the passage of the
Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act
The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, Act No. 55 of 1949, was an apartheid law in South Africa that prohibited marriages between "whites" and "non-whites". It was among the first pieces of apartheid legislation to be passed following the Nation ...
, which forbade marriages between white and non-white people.
The act was repealed by the
Immorality Act, 1957
The Sexual Offences Act, 1957 (Act No. 23 of 1957, originally the Immorality Act, 1957) is an act of the Parliament of South Africa which, in its current form, prohibits prostitution, brothel-keeping and procuring, and other activities related ...
, section 16 of which contained a similar prohibition of sex between whites and non-whites. The prohibition was finally lifted by the
.
See also
*
Anti-miscegenation laws
Anti-miscegenation laws or miscegenation laws are laws that enforce racial segregation at the level of marriage and intimate relationships by criminalization, criminalizing interracial marriage and sometimes also sex between members of different R ...
*
Immorality Act
Immorality Act was the title of two acts of the Parliament of South Africa which prohibited, amongst other things, sexual relations between white people and people of other races. The first Immorality Act, of 1927, prohibited sex between whites an ...
*
Mbasa Majiza
References
External links
*
Apartheid laws in South Africa
Multiracial affairs in Africa
Sex laws in South Africa
1927 in South African law
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