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Trafficking, Prostitution
and the Sex Industry: The Nordic Legal Model
By Janice Raymond*
- 21 July 2010
There is no doubt
that the Nordic countries lead the world on most indicators of gender equality.
Gender equality experts and advocates have long pointed out that in economics,
politics and social services, the Nordic countries top the charts. A less
noticed equality indicator is that the Nordic countries outpace others in legal
action to stem the sex trade by addressing its unnoticed perpetrators -- the
mainly male purchasers of women and children in prostitution.
In 1999, with the
approval of over 70% of its surveyed population, Sweden passed groundbreaking
legislation that criminalized the buyer of sexual services. Part of a larger
Violence Against Women bill, the legislation was based on the foundation that
the system of prostitution is a violation of gender equality. Sweden's
legislation officially recognizes that it is unacceptable for men to purchase
women for sexual exploitation, whether masked as sexual pleasure or "sex
work." Equally important, its law acknowledges that a country cannot
resolve its human trafficking problem without addressing the demand for
prostitution. The law does not target the persons in prostitution.
This month, the
government of Sweden published an evaluation of the law's first ten years and
how it has actually worked in practice. Compared to the report's understated
and cautious tone, the findings are strikingly positive: street prostitution
has been cut in half; there is no evidence that the reduction in street
prostitution has led to an increase in prostitution elsewhere, whether indoors
or on the Internet; the bill provides increased services for women to exit
prostitution; fewer men state that they purchase sexual services; and the ban
has had a chilling effect on traffickers who find Sweden an unattractive market
to sell women and children for sex. Following initial criticism of the law,
police now confirm it works well and has had a deterrent effect on other
organizers and promoters of prostitution. Sweden appears to be the only country
in Europe where prostitution and sex trafficking has not increased.
The Swedish results
should be contrasted to neighboring countries such as Denmark where there are
no legal prohibitions against the purchase of persons in prostitution. Denmark
has a smaller population than Sweden (roughly 5 ½ million to Sweden's 9
million), yet the scale of street prostitution in Denmark is three times higher
than in Sweden.
In casting the
comparison further, we should note the dismal results of the legalization model
of prostitution from countries in Europe that have normalized pimping, brothels
and other aspects of prostitution and the sex industry. In 2002, Germany
decriminalized procuring for purposes of prostitution, widened the legal basis
for establishing brothels and other prostitution businesses, lifted the
prohibition against promoting prostitution and theoretically gave women the
right to contracts and benefits in prostitution establishments. Five years later,
a federal government evaluation of the law found that the German Prostitution
Act, as it is called, has failed to improve conditions for women in the
prostitution industry nor helped women to leave. It has also failed "to
reduce crime in the world of prostitution." As a result, the report stated
that "prostitution should not be considered to be a reasonable means for
securing one's living." The federal government is drafting a criminal
provision to punish the clients of those forced into prostitution or who are
victims of trafficking -- the Swedish model lite with all its caloric value
removed.
The results are
equally bad in the Netherlands where prostitution and the sex industry have
been legalized since 2000. Two official reports in 2007 and 2008 have soured
official optimism about the Dutch legalization model. The
government-commissioned Daalder Report found that the majority of women in the
window brothels are still subject to pimp control and that their emotional
well-being is lower than in 2001 "on all measured aspects." The Dutch
National Police Report puts it more strongly: "The idea that a clean,
normal business sector has emerged is an illusion..." Like the Germans,
the Dutch are now proposing an amendment that would penalize the buyers who
purchase unlicensed persons in prostitution -- another version of the Swedish
model lite. Still, an indication that penalizing the buyer is gaining ground.
The failure of the
legalization model in Europe helped the Swedish model to become the Nordic
model in 2009 when Norway outlawed the purchase of women and children for
sexual activities. One year after the Norwegian law came into force, a Bergen
municipality survey estimated that the number of women in street prostitution
had decreased by 20 percent with indoor prostitution also down by 16 percent.
Bergen police report that advertisements for sexual activities have dropped 60
percent. Also, the police have effectively monitored telephone numbers of
buyers, who respond to such advertisements, in order to identify and charge
them. An added value is that monitoring reveals a wider network of criminal
groups involved in trafficking for prostitution and their links to others
involved in child prostitution, pornography and drug trafficking. In Oslo, the
police also report that there are many fewer buyers on the street.
The same year as
Norway, Iceland passed a law criminalizing the purchase of a sexual service.
Earlier in 2004, Finland approved a more anemic version of the Nordic model.
This left Denmark as the outlier with no legislation targeting the demand for
prostitution.
The success of the
Nordic model is not so much in penalizing the men (the penalties are modest) as
in removing the invisibility of men who are outed when they get caught. This,
in turn, makes it less appealing for pimps and traffickers to set up shop in
countries where the customer base fears the loss of its anonymity and is
declining.
Legalization of
prostitution is a failed policy in practice. The prostitution policy tide is
turning from legalization of prostitution to targeting the demand for
prostitution without penalizing the victims. Countries who want to be effective
in the fight against trafficking and not havens of sexual exploitation are
beginning to understand that they cannot sanction pimps as legitimate sexual
entrepreneurs and must take legal action against the buyers.
_________________________________________________________________
*Janice Raymond is
Professor Emerita of Women's Studies at the University of Massachusetts,
Amherst and a member of the Board of Directors of the Coalition Against
Trafficking in Women (CATW). Janice G. Raymond. Ph.D Professor Emerita
University of Massachusetts, Amherst (USA)
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) PO Box 9338, N. Amherst, MA 01059 USA Fax: 413-367-9262 E- mail: jraymond@wost.umass.edu
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