THE SWEDISH MODEL SWEDEN’S PROSTITUTION SOLUTION WHY HASN’T ANYONE TRIED THIS BEFORE?
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I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. Jn. 14:18
THE SWEDISH MODEL SWEDEN’S PROSTITUTION SOLUTION WHY HASN’T ANYONE TRIED THIS BEFORE?
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April 16, 2011 at 7:16 AM
stephenpaterson
Sweden’s prostitution solution – why hasn’t anyone tried this before?
Because criminal justice interventions have been proved scientifically to increase violence to sex workers (Vancouver Downtown East Side study); because it’s an unjustied incursion into the human rights and privacy of adults; because most politicians don’t wish to be branded McCarthyists by future generations; because the scattering caused by policing drives sex workers underground and makes them impossible to reach by outreach agenies, threatening public health; and because greater good can come out of campaigning to stop people putting knives and shrapnel into each other than worrying about penises.
July 11, 2011 at 6:27 AM
mapleleafap
Swedish Model: How and Why Sweden Fights Demand for Prostitution
It is well known that 92 – 96 % of women who are in prostitution do not want to be there. How many girls at age 9 -17 joyfully anticipate a life of prostitution as a career choice?
Be aware that Sweden used prostitution laws similar to Canada’s until about 30 years ago. Then Sweden legalized prostitution, much like the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany. To their surprise(?) women were not protected, the abuse of women through prostitution increased, and human trafficking/sex slavery of women increased. Men in Sweden had full freedom to ply women with their penises with no restraint.
By 1998 Sweden’s parliament was very different than any other western nation in that 44% of all elected parliamentarians were women. As the result, equality of women was addressed where the laws are made. Studies observed a growing sexual assault upon women over 30 years with increased prostitution and sex slavery. Landscape changing legislation made it illegal for men to buy sex.
The Nordic/Swedish model applies a public education program which makes it socially unacceptable to ever buy sexual services. It provides a broad range of social services including housing, education, detox and income support which work to change the reality of poverty and desperation which so often propel women and children into the sex trade.
Be fully aware that Sweden decriminalized prostitution. Since 1999, prostitutes are viewed as victims of the buyers. Prostitution is considered an act of violence against women(and children). This principle is enshrined in Swedish law.
Why? The one with the money has power over the prostitute who is forced ‘by monetary transaction’ to perform sex acts at the whim of the buyer. Prostitution is paid sexual assault or paid rape. We know how men in the lust for power want to “treat a woman like a whore.”
After a few years of Swedish public education, and training of police, judges and lawyers, attitudes began to change. The law was enforced effectively within three years of the new legislation. In two years, by 2003, the number of prostitutes dropped from about 2,500 to 1,500, and the sex slaves in Sweden dropped in number from 12,500 per year to 400-600 per year. Men became embarrassed to get caught buying sex, since judges did not take excuses when men were reported and charged for prostitution activities.
In Sweden it is not like in Canada where men must be caught red handed in the act of buying sex. Here men are not easily caught. Swedes who buy sex are reported by the public, identifying them by their car license plate.
In Sweden 80% of the population continue to support the legislation that it is illegal for men to buy sex. When a man is charged for buying sex, a formal letter in a fancy, police logo embossed envelope is sent to his home in about three weeks. His wife or girlfriend inquires with natural curiosity and the truth comes out! The charged male appears, embarrassed, before the judge in about a month to testify. Judges treat this charge seriously – excuses are rejected.
The charged sex buyer is fined 50 days pay or up to a year in prison. A standard first offense brings a fine of about $1,600.00. The highest fine paid by a man with an annual income of $241,700.00 was $11,750.00. Only one, a repeat offender, has done prison time, so prison costs haven’t risen. We know how sex offenders are treated in prison. Remember: buying sex is rape, AKA sexual assault. Funds from the fines go to rehabilitation programs for women leaving prostitution.
When we know that 65% of girls in Canada have experienced some form of sexual abuse by age 13, we have a serious problem among men and boys. Self-control – a character strength, is obviously lacking among us males.
Yes, we men need to control our penises. Acts of rape do not build up women, girls and boys. Healthy women with healthy self-identity create healthy relationships with their men, daughters and sons. Men who treat women with high regard are freer of buried anger, guilt and remorse than men who abuse women. Less physical and emotional illnesses will be created in women when we men learn to honour and respect their dignity as equals.
Every country needs the power of truth applied in law. “The law is a concrete and tangible expression of the belief that in Sweden women and children are not for sale. It effectively dispels men’s self-assumed right to buy women and children for prostitution and questions the idea that men should be able to express their sexuality in any form and anytime.”
Gunilla Eckberg, Special Adviser to the Swedish government on Trafficking in Human Beings 2001-2007, Co-Executive Director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women International, 2007-2011
Canada is ready for this truth. The world needs this truth applied in action.
Tymofiy Hawrysh
July 12, 2011 at 3:08 AM
mapleleafap
Stephen,
Be real. Use scientific, anecdotal or statistical proof rather than in off- hand fashion say “Because criminal justice interventions have been proved scientifically…”
This issue is alive in Canadian media and before the courts today. Effective discussion must be informed and factual.
April 19, 2011 at 10:40 PM
Melanie
I don’t actually think you understand the Swedish model regarding prostitution. Also, I don’t think that you know it is currently illegal to use a prostitute, yet it is the only crime which if one is convicted, one’s name isn’t allowed to be public. So if you murder someone, everyone knows who you are, but if you are a rapist who paid to rape someone, no one will know. Politicians do not support the implementation of this because often politicians are on that list of abusers. Research on the Swedish model shows that prostitution use is greatly reduced and women/girls becoming prostitutes are reduced because they are actually able to obtain the help they need, rather than just being tossed in jail.
April 20, 2011 at 8:45 AM
stephenpaterson
Transactions with a sex worker, Melanie, may be illegal in much of North America but not in most places (including mine). You do no service to rape victims by abusing the term ‘rape’ to include acts of concensual sex in your definition.
Research, insofar as it has been carried out, does not illustrate any reduction in what you term prostitution as a result of the Swedish so-called model. It demonstrates a reduction in street sex work when the law is being enforced in the areas where it is being enforced, very similar to the reduction that states like ours in the UK experience through the enforcement of so-called kerb crawling laws. The street sex work sector of the market is generally estimated at some 15-20% in developed nations, and the Swedes have no data on whether that segment merely transfers to the indoor industry.
Kerb crawling programs cause the dislocation of street sex workers to areas with which they are unfamiliar, destroying their street networks, and – far from providing them with the support they need – scatters them to places where outreach services don’t know where they are, further jeopardising their tenuous safety.
Anyway I posted about this months and months ago, why reinvent wheels, more here:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3gsq36w
April 28, 2011 at 3:01 AM
mapleleafap
Stephen,
You wrote: “Research, insofar as it has been carried out, does not illustrate any reduction in what you term prostitution as a result of the Swedish so-called model.”
I went to your link. It provides no research. You quote people who substantiate your bias. Many bits of information are drawn together, but they hold little credible data.
The hard numbers based on actual data are real.
NUMBER OF WOMEN IN PROSTITUTION IN SWEDEN
“In 1999, it was estimated that 125,000 Swedish men bought about 2,500 prostituted women one or more times per year. Of these women, approximately 650 were street prostituted. From 1999 until today, the number of women involved in street prostitution has decreased by at least 30%-50%, and the recruitment of new women has come almost to a halt. It is estimated that the number of women in prostitution has decreased from 2,500 in 1999, before the Law came into force, to no more than 1,500 women in Sweden in 2002 .
Significantly, the number of women in street prostitution in Sweden today [Oct. 2004] is no more than 500 (Sweden has 9 million inhabitants). This number should be compared with the number of women involved in street prostitution in Denmark (with 4.5 million inhabitants). In the beginning of the 1990′s, approximately 2,000 women were in Danish street prostitution, compared with 5,500 to 7,800 in 2004 (“Love Bestemmer Antal Prostituerede,” 2004). Denmark does not have legislation that prohibits the purchase of sexual services.
“There is no evidence that the sale of women has moved from the streets to the Internet (Gripenlof, 1991-2002). … …The Net Sex Project at the University of Gothenburg… … concludes in its report that the number of Swedish women who are prostituted via the Internet remains stable at around 80 to 100 women, with the same women advertised on many different Web sites.”
“The presence of foreign women in street prostitution has come almost to an end (IOKSP, 1999-2001; Karrman, 200), and the number of buyers has decreased by 78% to 80% (Gripenlof, 1991-2002).
The Swedish Law That Prohibits the Purchase of Sexual Services
http://action.web.ca/home/catw/attach/Ekberg.pdf p.1193-1194
EFFECTS OF THE LAW ON TRAFFICKING IN WOMEN
The National Rapporteur for Trafficking in Women at the
National Criminal Investigation Department (NCID), Kajsa
Wahlberg, is responsible for the collection of data related to investigations
and convictions for trafficking crimes in Sweden and for
reporting annually to the Swedish government about the trafficking
in women in Sweden.16 In her reports published in 2003 and
2004, she noted that there are clear indications that the Law has
had direct and positive effects in limiting the trafficking in
women for prostitution to Sweden.
The NCID estimates that between 400 and 600 women are trafficked
into Sweden every year, mainly fromthe Eastern European
countries such as Estonia and Lithuania, as well as from Russia.
This number has remained fairly constant during the past several
years (National Criminal Investigation Department [NCID],
2004). This figure should be compared to the numbers of women
who are victims of trafficking for sexual purposes in neighboring
Scandinavian countries, such as Finland, Denmark, and Norway,
where the purchase of sexual services is not prohibited. In Denmark,
5,500 to 7,800 women are prostituted every year. It is estimated
that 50% or more of these women are victims of trafficking
in human beings (Ledberg, 2003; D. Otzen, director for Reden,17
Copenhagen, Denmark, personal conversation, December 15,
2003). According to a 2003 report from the Finnish Criminal Intelligence
Division of the National Bureau of Investigation, approximately
10,000 to 15,000 women from Estonia, Russia, Latvia and
Lithuania are prostituted in Finland every year (Leskinen, 2003).
In its report from 2003, the Swedish NCID stated that, despite the
increase in information and knowledge of trafficking cases in
other countries in the area, there is no equivalent increase in the
number of women who are victims of trafficking to Sweden.”
Ibid., p. 1199
TRAFFICKERS HAVE BEEN AVOIDING SWEDEN FOR YEARS
“According to victim testimonies, pimps and traffickers prefer
to market their women in countries such as Denmark, Germany,
the Netherlands, and Spain, where the operating conditions are
more attractive, where the buyers are not criminalized and where
certain prostitution activities are either tolerated or legalized. In
addition, Detective Inspector KajsaWahlberg mentioned that the
Latvian police have concluded that Latvian traffickers do not sell
women in Sweden because of the negative effects of the Law on
their potential business. In its 2004 report, the NCID concluded
that the law that prohibits the purchase of sexual services “continues
to function as a barrier against the establishment of traffickers
in Sweden” (NCID, 2004, p. 35). Clearly, the Law functions as a
deterrent. Traffickers are choosing other destination countries
where their business is more profitable and not hampered by similar
laws (Detective Inspector K. Wahlberg, personal conversations,
April 18, 2002).20″
Ibid., p. 2000
Evaluating the Swedish Ban on the Purchase of Sexual Services: The Anna Skarhed Report July 2, 2010
http://nppr.se/2010/07/02/evaluating-the-swedish-ban-on-the-purchase-of-sexual-services-the-anna-skarhed-report
The hard numbers based on empirical data are real.
An article with comparison to various countries:
Should Canada Legalize Prostitution? Panel Discussion with Gunilla Ekberg, Lee Lakeman & Trisha Baptie
by Michelle Brock on March 14, 2011
http://www.hopeforthesold.com/panel-discussion-on-prostitution-law-with-gunilla-ekberg-lee-lakeman-trisha-baptie/
It was very easy to find the data above.
Your link:
Undersexed Swedes turn to online gambling
http://www.thelocal.se/504/20041014/ are results after the Swedish No Sex Purchase Law was in effect for 5 years.
What evidence do you have that Swedes had less sex than other nations in 1999?
Where is your data? Who are your authorities? Prove that prostitution and Human Trafficking have not decreased in Sweden from 1999 – 2010 with authentic sources.
Tymofiy
April 28, 2011 at 6:56 AM
stephenpaterson
Thanks for the links, but frankly I’ve read enough CATW and Ekberg literature – and various academics vivisections of it – to last several lifetimes. What buttons does CATW press for a readout of numbers of sex workers in Sweden?
All this is anecdotal nonsense. Firstly, there is very little evidence of the status quo anti in Sweden. All that is known is that it had barely any sex workers per capita prior to the new law. There is no real evidence in any report that this figure has risen or fallen, nor any evidence the number of transactions has changed. Despite innumerable assertions, the only evidence is that the number of survival street sex workers they can count has declined. Nobody knows what has happened to these women, whether they’ve moved to the indoor environment, whether they’ve transferred to other outdoor areas to evade the authorities, whether they’ve left sex work, whether they’re dead.
Much is said about trafficking. For some reason, Sweden is attributed with magical 20-20 vision on numbers trafficked into it, an attribute denied nations elsewhere. There’s plenty of bigger, warmer countries in Europe with greater disposable incomes, why on earth would traffickers choose Sweden in the first place? In any case, thankfully such empirical evidence that exists suggests the numbers trafficked for sex are minute compared with the size of a nation’s sex industry. Despite great efforts, the UK confirms around 90 sex trafficked persons a year into a nation with an estimated 80,000 sex workers. Not that that stops the NGOs fighting and begging cash, though – we have an NGO fighting trafficking for every two confirmed sex trafficking cases. It’s a big money raiser.
The CATW is renowned for conflating prostitution and trafficking. There are undoubtedly far more persons, and far more women, trafficked for labour because the size of the food and clothing markets are comparatively huge, but these people are forgotten victims due to the preoccupation with sex. Try GAATW for a saner approach.
Anyway, as the Canadian courts have cast huge doubts over the constitutionality of your current Victorian laws in this area given the Charter rights of sex workers, what makes you think it will be constitutional to attempt to starve sex workers out with the attempted trade embargo that is the ‘Swedish Model?’
Let consenting adults get on with it. Criminal justice interventions cost lives, drive sex work underground, damage public health initiatives fighting Aids etc., eat up criminal justice resources better used elsewhere, infantilise grown women into hapless ‘victims’ and act as a blackmailer’s charter.
If you wish to preach, preach by all means. But please don’t try to convince me that the use of the criminal law to suppress sex workers or their clients is somehow compatible with Christianity, because unless Christianity has radically changed of late, I don’t buy it.
April 28, 2011 at 8:45 AM
stephenpaterson
I wonder if I can make a suggestion? I’ve just seen the fine work you’re doing in the Ukraine (which I hadn’t seen before). Also, being in the UK, I’m less familiar with the situation in Canada.
What I suggest you do if you’re really interested in the topic of the Swedish approach (& other approaches) is to contact Michael Goodyear. Michael is Assistant Professor in the Medicine Dept at Dalhousie University and is active in the Stepping Stones charity in Nova Scotia, with which you may have some affinity.
http://www.steppingstonens.ca/
I’m sure he’d be interested in your Ukraine project and I know he takes great interest in research work in this area.
April 28, 2011 at 12:13 PM
Brandy Devereaux
The Swedish Law is like pretty frosting on a rotten cake. Looks great from the outside, but if you cut beneath the surface it’s pretty disgusting. You think these women just up and quit? No. Now they are forced to hide, to drive out of town with unknown clients, to engage in unsafe practices just to compete for a dwindling clientelle. Sure looks like Sweden is “pretty” now but only at the expense of it’s most vulnerable citizens.
“Creating criminals out of half of the necessary participants in the sex trade does not help prostitutes, who just want to make a living and survive. It is doubtful that the prostitutes of Sweden will be thankful after their entire clientele has been thrown in the slammer, or at the very least, publicly humiliated and discouraged from returning. In fact, critics believe that prostitution has not been reduced in Sweden at all, and that the law has only symbolic, rather than realistic, value. Their focus on simply “sending a message” to the public at large concedes that the law is not creating actual, instrumental change. And symbolism is not particularly important to the prostitute, risking her health and life day-in and day-out to make a living.”
from http://www.lawsome.net/in-sweden-buying-sex-is-illegal-however-selling-it-is-not/
http://www.allwomencount.net/EWC%20Sex%20Workers/SwedenhasnNoMadeItSafer.htm
“”It has made it physically more dangerous to work,” says Pye Jakobson, a 40-year-old prostitute in Stockholm. “Health-wise, it is riskier because more clients ask to have sex without a condom, because they know some women are desperate for cash and will do things they would have refused before. And we are socially isolated because we are forced to work alone. Those who work indoors, like me, would often share flats with colleagues, but we don’t any more as it might attract too much attention. So we don’t have each other for support, and we’re alone if problems arise.”"
from http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/may/27/prostitution-norway
July 11, 2011 at 5:04 PM
Gorbachev
92-96% of people in lots of jobs don’t want to be in them. Ever ask coal miners or coffee shop “associates”?
Get real.
The vast majority of women who work as escorts chose that life above others.
The attitude you have is so profoundly dishonest it’s disgusting.
HOW MANY 9-16 YEAR OLD GIRLS ARE PROSTITUTES?
HOW MANY PROSTITUTES ARE 9-16 YEAR OLD GIRLS?
Honest stats, please.
Are you going to make it illegal for JUST this age segment?
How about 29 year-old women WHO CHOOSE TO BE ESCORTS?
What a bunch of disingenuous lies.
If you hate prostitution and the fact that ANY woman would choose it, come right out and say it. Stop hiding behind the “child trafficking” lies.
Fewer and fewer people are buying it any more.
Your dishonesty does no-one any service.
July 12, 2011 at 1:53 AM
mapleleafap
Ms. Gorbachev(?):
You appear to not know how to read and your attitude is completely brutal without reason. A reasonable, factual response is needed from you.
“The vast majority of women who work as escorts chose that life above others.”
WHERE IS YOUR EVIDENCE? Which countries?
“HOW MANY 9-16 YEAR OLD GIRLS ARE PROSTITUTES? A strange way to turn around my question. “How many girls at age 9 -17 joyfully anticipate a life of prostitution as a career choice?” Hardly a realistic response – at all.
You show no information of children in Thailand, India, Kosovo, Taiwan, Brazil, Mexico, Denmark, etc.
In Canada the average age of people entering prostitution is 14. Many locally are younger. Many come from poor families and a large number experienced sexual abuse from a parent, a relative or a friend. In many cases there is no room for a free will decision since fleeing from a sexual abuse at “home” forces them to seek refuge elsewhere. Poor decisions, being tricked into drugs and being forced to work the street to pay rent to a friend, a boyfriend, a cousin or a pimp were not the career dreams in the hearts of these 9-15 year old Canadian Aboriginal girls.
Aboriginal girls and women comprise 70-80% of street prostitution in Alberta. This information comes from workers who assist street prostitutes and local police who encounter this daily. Occasional articles are published in the papers. Further data will be posted when found.
One woman in her thirties shared at an Edmonton Forum on Ending Sexual Exploitation, in March 2009: “The first time I was raped was when I was 3. The man used me over and over again. When I was 9-10, after the meeting of the council, one leader would say to another: “Let’s try your girl tonight. I’ll give you a case of beer for her for tonight.” This happened many times.
I fled my family on the reserve and moved to the city. By the time I was 13 I was pushed out on the street. “We know you’re a slut! Go out there and bring in some cash. You know what to do.”
By the time I was 15 I was addicted to alcohol and drugs. I did not want to be on drugs, and on the street but could see no way out. I struggled through all of this until I was 29. Once day while standing on the street I realized I had enough of this and could leave it.”
This girl was sex trafficked by her own relatives here in Alberta, from when she was a child of 9.
Yes, some Alberta girls aged 13-17 in middle class families seek out Johns to make money for clothing, purses and fun teen activities. This action is truly voluntary, planned, and hidden from parents. However, the number of teens(children) doing this in Canada is minimal.
Many children, in many countries worldwide are sold into sex slavery and slave labour. Many are moved from one to the other depending upon their age, beauty, usefulness, and health at the whim of their owners. Chocolate companies: Nestle, Mars, Hershey, Cadbury, etc. pay minimal amounts for coco beans to produce maximum profits. Coco plants are tended by enslaved children in Cote d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone. Many of them are forced to work, beaten, and fed minimally(or starved for not working) after being first recruited as child soldiers, housekeepers, or sex slaves and them sold to plantation masters.
http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/SierraLeone.htm
Please provide evidence as to how many 29 year old women choose to be prostitutes as a 5, 10, 15 to 20 year career. Be sure to describe each country and settings in detail. Truly some do. How many actually do?
Show evidence. It is easy to criticize. Your writing is painfully weak, extremely weak with nothing to substantiate your words.
Provide with your statements academic or factually substantiated evidence – not just a critical incriminating bias.
)
I invite you to change your tone so your arguments can be treated with some value. This may in fact increase human enlightenment.
July 12, 2011 at 3:22 PM
Kelly
Thank you Mr. Gorbachev…
Here is my statistic…
100% of the prostitutes that I have met in the last twenty years have been voluntary, non trafficked individuals that chose their profession.
I have voluntarily worked as an escort 100% of the time that I have been advertising on venues like Backpage.com.
As a child, I never joyfully imagined a future as a prostitute, because it was an unknown field to me. I did joyfully imagine men lustfully attracted to me, like so many role models…. (madonna) and funny, that is just how it turned out.
I am treated like a princess. Men bring me gifts, they email their most private thoughts. They respect me more than you would ever admit is even possible. But I am not trying to convince you, you obviously are set in your beliefs, and reason or scientific study means nothing to you if they fall outside of your beliefs.
So while both sides wage war between scientific studies, one leaning this way, the next leaning that way- I stand as someone experienced as a worker. Experienced in the day to day life of a prostitute, and I will tell you that there are many reasons to choose this profession.
Not only do men help me with financial support, but I help them too. I have seen men cry and wrap their arms around me before leaving saying “Thank you for the love Kelly. I needed it so badly.”
The human condition is very lonely. It makes me feel good that I can brighten someones day. That they do not feel rejection from me. They feel accepted, loved, comfortable, even if for a short time. What do you say to those men that make up a portion of my clientele? The socially disabled? The men that really need a human connection. Are you so insensitive to their needs that you would outlaw a woman like me from meeting their needs?
Relax. It’s just sex. I am not a paid rape victim, I am a paid companion. Sex does not always occur. You make another assumption there.
Until you are prepared to outlaw marriage, which is nothing more than long term prostitution I kindly request that you keep assumptions to yourself until you have heard from all prostitutes, not just the incarcerated ones that are typically studied.
It makes no sense. I can meet someone from a dating site, and legally have sex the first night, but if that man wants to show his appreciation for my companionship with cash, as opposed to dinners and gifts then we can go to jail. Give me a break.
It’s my body, I will share it with whom I choose.
May 22, 2011 at 3:48 PM
Gorbachev
On the Swedish Model:
http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2011/05/22/sales-pitch/