Sweden and prostitution

[Aradia]

Has anyone seen this article? It talks about how Sweden has decriminalised the selling of sex and criminalised the buying of sex, at the same time increasing funding for resources to support women to get out and re-educating law enforcement. This has led to a dramatic decrease in prostitution and virtually wiped out sex trafficking. The thing that stood out to me as well was that 50% of government at the time they legislated was women. How far away are we from achieving the same? Sadly I suspect we are likely to be waiting a long time before we see similar in this country.

I suppose the basic difference between them and others, such as most of the opinions being expressed here, is that they believe prostitution CAN, at least in theory, be a valid choice that somebody makes, free of coercion and abuse.

I believe that it COULD be - but I don't think that is the overriding concern when it comes to prostitution.

I agree with Flora that prostitution is inherently abusive and exploitative - and you cannot ignore the fact that women in prostitution are affected by structural, social, economic and sexual inequality. What concerns me is the vulnerable women who are not free from coercion, or abuse - the vulnerable who have no voice. The women trapped, by violence, drug addictions or abusive pimps. That is who the laws should be protecting - the fact that some women do it through choice does not negate those who do not.

Laws should be written to protect the vulnerable - and Ireland and Canada seem to have also come round to this idea.

Vulnerable voices are rarely heard, and when they do speak out, they are called liars, their stories dismissed. Words like "consensual transaction" and "empowerment" and "choice" are used.

The punters that occasionally grace these boards are honest, up to a point. They will admit to being punters sometimes, others will not. They are always the "nice" punters, who would never hurt a woman. But when quizzed on how they know the transaction is truly consensual, how can they know she's not vulnerable, or underage, they become strangely evasive. Some even see themselves as some sort of saviour to women - helping them pay off debts. Some think that they are fancied by the women they pay to fuck (maybe some are - but what is blatantly clear is that many, many are not). Some think it's no different to going on a date with a woman and buying her dinner. One described how a woman burst into tears during a "consensual transaction"- but yeah - you guessed it - he'd paid so he still fucked her. He truly believed that was an ok thing to do, and described the incident on this forum.

What is always clear in the postings of the punter is that they expect sex to be available to them- and what they want is a certain section of the female population made available to them for this purpose. And they're not concerned with such issues as the woman genuinely wanting sex, they're only concerned with their £££ giving them the ability to buy that consent.

Isn't it the case the most women who become prostitutes do so because of drug addiction? They need to fund the habit.

If the government did something about drug education (as they try to do with smoking and unhealthy eating) not only would it help these vulnerable women but society in general.

"Sweden has decriminalised the selling of sex and criminalised the buying of sex"

It isn't as simple as that. The selling of sex isn't decriminalised outright- prostitutes can still be arrested if they work together (just like in UK jurisdictions), and they can lose their homes even if they own them. They are also seen as victims of self-harm and can have their children removed by social workers.

As for reducing prostitution they only mention figures for the street (it's worth noting in the past decade online bookings have became more popular which may also contribute to less prostitutes on the street).

"Unfortunately this was proposed in Scotland but didn't pass."

It's been proposed in Scotland about 5 times in the past 5 or so years (including sneaky attempts where it's been attached as an amendment onto other bills in the hope noone would notice). There are many prostitutes in the UK who spend a lot of time campaigning against such proposals.

quote from a Swedish prostitute, Carina Edlund of Rose Alliance, talking about the law in Sweden:

“Before even thinking of a law that criminalises men who buy sex, UK politicians should hear from Swedish sex workers like myself about how we have treated under the law. We are still criminalised if we work together in apartments, we risk losing our home if we sell sex there even if we own it, social workers treat as like children and we can even lose custody of our kids because we are seen as victims suffering from a form of self-harm who can't take care of ourselves. This law should be taken away not exported to other countries.”

forgot the link:
lauraslifeandthoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/sex-workers-response-stop.html

@NeoFaust's link
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/06/sex-workers-decriminalisation-amendment-modern-slavery-bill

Why are you all jumping on this and calling it "pimp lobby"?? The article was written by a prostitute, not a pimp.

The article mentions a sneaky attempt to criminalise prostitution in England earlier this month- only a few days before a bill was due to go for vote an amendment to make prostitution illegal was put in hoping noone would notice (nothing new, it's been tried before in Scotland like I said above).

It also points out the French Senate did not pass their recent proposal into law and concluded "criminalisation would endanger sex workers".

Try and see the issue from both sides.

"FloraFox Wed 12-Nov-14 00:03:46
I'm not sorry. The article posted was written by someone from ECP which is an organisation that supports pimps and lobbies for legalisations of brothels (which involve pimps). It is part of the pimp lobby, plain and simple."

Brothels don't necessarily have to involve pimps or madams. The definition of a brothel is simply where 2 or more prostitutes work (they don't even have to be working together at the same time).

It could be they want brothels legalised so they won't be arrested for the above scenario (sharing the same workplace).

Are you a punter riss?