"Criminalizing clients does not protect sex workers, according to a recent study"

[ACatWhoBinds]

https://journalmetro.com/actualites/national/2606790/criminaliser-les-clients-ne-protege-pas-les-travailleuses-du-sexe-selon-une-etude-recente/amp/

As someone who's looked into the Nordic model vs. decriminalisation, this doesn't surprise me. More evidence that criminalising clients harms the most vulnerable.

Would be interested to hear views of people who do support the Nordic model though, and what your views are on the study

There was a study in Scotland a few years back where men who paid for sex were asked some questions. Quite a lot said if it were illegal, or they thought friends family work would find out, they wouldn't do it.

Some men will always anyway. But it does prevent the men who do it because it's there and they can get away with it.

Reducing demand is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

" The pimps and traffickers certainly saying it, "

Yes obviously the pimps and traffickers are. I mean organisations like Amnesty International and the World Health Org aren't.

And I'm a bit sceptical of studies like the one you mentioned. I remember reading there was a study done in Sweden before and after they introduced criminalisation asking men if they would pay for sex, they found in the "after" study less men replied saying they would pay for sex and this was taken to mean the law "was a success". Or maybe it's just because less clients are willing to admit to paying to sex if it is made illegal. That's what tends to happen, whatever has been made illegal still happens but it just becomes more "hush hush".

The link I previously mentioned from UN HIV and the Law commission page 38 mentions the sex trade in Sweden still remains at pre-law levels. Despite Swedish police being given so much funding to enforce the law there was less resources for Social Work, only 2 clients were convicted of buying sex in 13 years and given small fines. Doesn't sound much of a deterrent does is it? Also the sex workers are "almost always unwilling to testify against their clients".

hivlawcommission.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/FinalReport-RisksRightsHealth-EN.pdf

It’s not only about that though is it, OP. It’s the fact that certain behaviour is reprehensible and needs to be punished. That includes trafficking and buying women’s bodies for sex.
I would also say that a lot of the Nordic model’s effectiveness depends on how it’s implemented and what support is offered to women who want to leave the industry.
Full decriminalisation in this country would mean that the authorities would no longer give a shit, so who is meant to help these women?
If you want to decriminalise prostitution, do you want to do the same for those who keep people in domestic forced servitude (modern slavery)? Should they also get off scot-free because slavery is work?

Germany has legalised prostitution, which is different from decriminalisation which for example New Zealand has (the model human rights, health and sex worker groups generally advocate for).

Any proof the sex trade has increased in Germany? Or could it be because it is legalised it is more visible? When prostitution is criminalised or partly-criminalised it is pushed underground which means it still happens just as often but is "out of sight"?

And to repeat again- Amnesty International and The World Health Org for instance make it very clear trafficking and slavery is not ok and wish to do all they can to combat this. I am very confident all the other orgs I mentioned which support decriminalisation have the same views.

Supporting complete decriminalisation does not mean saying trafficking/slavery/non-consensual activity is ok. It is perfectly possible to have complete decriminalisation and also fight trafficking. It also means there is a distinct line between prostitutes who are consenting and those who are not and allows each prostitute to receive more personalised support according to their own wishes, as opposed to the "Nordic model" which treats all prostitutes as victims regardless what they say.

Not-so-fun-fact: In Sweden it's also illegal to allow your home or establishment to be used for prostitution. So guess what happens when a landlord in Sweden finds out his tenant is a prostitute? He instantly evicts her and if she has nowhere else to go she becomes homeless (which has happened many times). Which means prostitutes in Sweden who are renting have another reason to keep what they do hush-hush. Immigrant prostitutes are usually deported if they are found out. This would not happen under decriminalisation.

"Full decriminalisation in this country would mean that the authorities would no longer give a shit"

This is not what decriminalisation would mean at all. If that really were the case decrim wouldn't have such strong support amongst prostitutes themselves as well as local and international human rights and health orgs.

Crimes such as trafficking/slavery/non-consensual activity/involvement with anyone underage/theft/assault/sexual abuse or harassment/rape etc will all still be illegal and taken seriously and enforced under decrim.

Not long ago, a NZ sex worker won a large payout after she successfully sued for sexual harassment for example:

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/14/new-zealand-sex-worker-wins-six-figure-sexual-harassment-payout

"do you/have you used prostitutes?"

No of course not. The point is decriminalisation is considered by a variety of people and services local and international to be the safest option for both consenting sex workers and the victims who are trafficked and need help.

I'm not sure why you hate Amnesty Int. so much and why you think they have "lost credibility". It has been established that the rumours about their "policy being written by a pimp" is false.

The World Health Organisation is another well-known international and reputable organisation who also support decriminalisation. Was their policy on sex work "written by pimps" too?

Re the Leeds Managed Zone, again opinions differ. I personally think street-prostitution is much riskier but an article from last year suggests sex workers want the zone to stay:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-53355765

Quote from above article: "Sex workers said that the zone had "significantly improved their health and safety" and their relationship with the police had improved, leading to an increase in their reporting of crime."

Yep, no problems with the Leed Zone:

www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-54819248

""I was 13 and was wearing my school uniform walking to school. I barely got down the street and I was approached by a man asking if I was a prostitute," she said."

The "German model"

www.trauma-and-prostitution.eu/en/2018/06/19/the-german-model-17-years-after-the-legalization-of-prostitution/

"prostitution has risen up to 30% since 2002."

"3500 brothels are officially registered. But we know that there are at least as many illegal brothels. So: the main goal, that wanted to bring the women out of the darkness, has totally failed."

" Today around 95% of prostituted women come from other countries. It has become a prostitution of poverty."

It is pretty clear that the criminalisation of clients harms people who sell sex. For example, this paper (www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)60800-X/fulltext) looks at over 800 studies and reports on sex work and found that criminalisation, including criminalisation ostensibly targeting clients, increases sex workers' risks of violence (from clients, partners + police) and HIV transmission. On the Swedish model/client criminalisation, the researchers write: "The Swedish so-called end demand criminalisation approach prohibits buying sex and earning money from someone's sex work, and is increasingly popular on the basis of its client orientation. Yet despite the focus on clients, sex workers' health and safety can suffer. Sex workers continue to face police harassment as a party to a crime, and fear reporting crimes. Safety dynamics are similar to those noted where selling sex is criminalised, in that fears of arrest can rush negotiations with clients, and sex workers can be displaced into isolated and dangerous areas to evade client detection by police."

The crucial thing about client criminalisation is that it makes people who sell sex poorer, which makes them less able to turn down clients who seem dodgy or aggressive, or who are asking for things the worker is comfortable with (eg to drive her to a deserted industrial estate). Being less able to refuse these kinds of clients of course makes sex workers more vulnerable to violence. This report, which is by the Norwegian government discussing the situation in Sweden, is worth reading on this (www.regjeringen.no/globalassets/upload/kilde/jd/rap/2004/0034/ddd/pdfv/232216-purchasing_sexual_services_in_sweden_and_the_nederlands.pdf). They write, "Those who run the bus that gives out syringes to addicts in Malmo are of the opinion that more abuse takes place than previously as the women cannot afford to say 'no' to clients they have their doubts about". Another quote from the report: "For those forced to work on the street, life has become much harder ... the law on the purchase of sex has made working as a prostitute harder and more dangerous".

Of course, we would all prefer that no one be forced to work on the street, or be pushed into prostitution in any way – but clearly the way to achieve that goal isn't by making life harder and more dangerous for women who sell sex. Client criminalisation harms people who sell sex.

@Reddwolff

"There was not some single entity or person targeting these women, or some concerted effort to avoid dealing with these women's cases while others were given the attention they needed."

It is men as a class targeting these women, all women. They are the buyers and the perpetrators of violence, particularly sexual towards women. That's where the danger and risk comes from.

The problem is that it's portrayed as random, isolated incidences, no pattern. But that this group features overwhelmingly in the low socio-economic group, with all those social ills associated with it, with police and policing consistently failing these women isn't actually random. It's the result of consistent failure to recognise and deal with those problems, and that isn't random.

That's not a useful approach to any kind of help for these women. And crimes are not committed by classes of people, and thank fuck the law doesn't work that way.

It's simply not even true that these situations are all caused by men - family degeneration, poverty, addiction, FAS, child abuse - the underlying problems - are not limited to men, at all. They are a social problem that affects families and communities and needs to be addresses at that level. And in many cases, within the communities.

The people who are suffering are men and women, the people passing on the problems to the next generation are men and women, and the people who are making a difference are men and women.

But even when looking at real crimes, you have them occurring thousands of miles apart, over decades, for different reasons, under different circumstances - do you seriously think saying "Oh, geeze, lots of male perpetrators there" is very helpful when looking to either assign some sort of generalised blame, or addressing root causes?

Identifying"men as a class" as somehow responsible, or systemic racism, or colonialism, might make someone feel vindicated but it gives no way forward. Calls to have some sort of inquiry on this are political theatre that can come to no actionable conclusions and do nothing useful for anyone real. It involved spending a shedload of money, though, on lawyers and researchers and courtrooms, mainly.

Prostitution is already legal in the UK and generally the police turn a blind eye to brothels (there's a really obvious one up the road that's been there for years). So decriminalised in practice.

Not sure what changes are required. Assume it's about making it legal to have brothels (and I really don't want obvious brothels all over the high street thanks) and legalising Street soliciting?

The Scottish study I mentioned was this one, this link has quite a short summary and it was in the papers at the time.

AllCatsAreBeautiful made another point- when sex work is criminalised or partly criminalised, the arrangement between the client and prostitute on the street becomes more rushed and the client will often want the act to take place out of sight eg down a side alley. The client, not wanting to be caught, may be more controlling and want things done his way and be more on edge and not relaxed. Obviously not a good thing for the prostitute.

Similar for online when clients contact a sex worker to make a booking, the client will be far less likely to be honest about who they are and their details which makes it harder for the prostitute to screen the client.

This link mentions this point also:
newrepublic.com/article/121981/northern-ireland-sex-work-law-based-wrong-model

The definition of a brothel means more than one sex worker works there, even if they don't work at the same time. This means if sex workers want to work together for safety they are criminalised for doing so.

I am gobsmacked that anyone can look at a problem where 95% plus of the punters are male, where the violence is perpetrated by men, where the rape is perpetrated by men, and try to deny that class analysis identifying men (NAMALT of course yadah yadah) is a sensible analysis of the problem.

If men magically stopped thinking they had the right to buy women's bodies tomorrow, and invested the amount of energy they currently invest in fucking impoverished women for a pittance into trying to deal with the causes of that poverty, yes, the problems would mostly go away.

How the fuck can anyone say with a straight face that the male punters are not the problem here?

Well plenty of people do :)

The comments about criminalising prostitution. Not sure what that's about. I don't think anyone has called for prostitutes to be treated more harshly in law?

'when sex work is criminalised or partly criminalised, the arrangement between the client and prostitute on the street becomes more rushed and the client will often want the act to take place out of sight eg down a side alley. The client, not wanting to be caught, may be more controlling and want things done his way and be more on edge and not relaxed. '

This is part of the appeal of looking for a start prostitute surely. It's not like there aren't plenty of other options currently available.

www.cgshe.ca/

Always look to the source of the information.

Prostitution was not illegal in Germany prior to the 2002 law. So, although to someone who doesn't understand how the German Sittengesetz worked it seems like it has been legalised, it has actually been decriminalised.

And I find it odd, MargaritaPie that you are both arguing the German model isn't the one you want anyway AND doubt whether it's all that bad.

So, FAOD, yes, it's been horrific. So much so that a number of the prostituted women who campaigned to decriminalise prostition 25 years ago, and who celebrated the 2002 law now say that it was a disaster. So bad indeed that Germany passed another law in 2017, attempting to protect prostituted women and men. But that's not working either.

Germany is infamous now as the mega-brothel state, where you pay peanuts to fuck as many women as you like for as long as you like in any way you like. From street prostitution to luxury call girls, prices have dropped, attacks are up and access to justice has disappeared completely. Numbers of prostituted women have quadrupled, three quarters of that increase comes from trafficking mostly poor women and frequently underage girls.

By all means argue against the Nordic Model and for full decriminalisation. But if you want to look like you know what you're talking about I'd stay away from the state of prostitution in Germany. Especially when you know so little about it.

@UrsulaVdL

AllCatsAreBeautiful made another point- when sex work is criminalised or partly criminalised, the arrangement between the client and prostitute on the street becomes more rushed and the client will often want the act to take place out of sight eg down a side alley. The client, not wanting to be caught, may be more controlling and want things done his way and be more on edge and not relaxed. Obviously not a good thing for the prostitute.

This is completely disingenuous shit. Zürich has the sex boxes: so convenient; so clean; so legal - practically wholesome! But prostitutes as a group aren’t protected, because the majority of men won’t use them because the “edgy” violent thing is what they are looking for. And if course it is still giving the message that women are there to serve them Drive Thru sex. For less money than the price of a Big Mac
And of course it just happens to forget that if you take away the trafficked and addicted women, that there wouldn’t be enough there to keep up with demand.

We also have actual data from across Europe of the numbers of prostituted women killed and attacked, which do not support the claim that the Nordic Model increases the risk to them.

Canada is where there was a serial killer not so long ago who confessed to murdering 49 women working as prostitutes.

It went on so long as the women were indigenous and the police weren't interested in the missing person reports etc.

If I were thinking about how to help in Canada I'd be wanting to work a lot with the police to change their attitudes.

Also to provide support to the women.

I'm not sure decriminslising prostitution (is it illegal there not sure of the law) and decriminslising drugs is the way forward.

If the police are using laws as an excuse to harass vulnerable women, such it seems they are, then that is the primary issue to tackle imo.

Disclaimer to my comment on Germany: the actual numbers of men and women working in prostitution are unknown, the rise is merely estimated. The only thing known with any certainty is that at least 90% are female and that around 75 to 80% are not German.

Just over 40,000 are now officially registered of which 19% are German. This registration is mandatory and supposed to protect prostituted women but the uptake has been low so far.

@CaraDuneRedux

I am gobsmacked that anyone can look at a problem where 95% plus of the punters are male, where the violence is perpetrated by men, where the rape is perpetrated by men, and try to deny that class analysis identifying men (NAMALT of course yadah yadah) is a sensible analysis of the problem.

If men magically stopped thinking they had the right to buy women's bodies tomorrow, and invested the amount of energy they currently invest in fucking impoverished women for a pittance into trying to deal with the causes of that poverty, yes, the problems would mostly go away.

How the fuck can anyone say with a straight face that the male punters are not the problem here?

Because the comment was about the large scale problems of indigenous women in Canada, and how the government is in some way responsible to remedy them them as a whole.

Those problems go well beyond issues around prostitution, and in terms of addressing them, it's difficult to see how the government could do so them simply by saying men were at fault, or even trying to take some action on that basis.

@NiceGerbil

Canada is where there was a serial killer not so long ago who confessed to murdering 49 women working as prostitutes.

It went on so long as the women were indigenous and the police weren't interested in the missing person reports etc.

If I were thinking about how to help in Canada I'd be wanting to work a lot with the police to change their attitudes.

Also to provide support to the women.

I'm not sure decriminslising prostitution (is it illegal there not sure of the law) and decriminslising drugs is the way forward.

If the police are using laws as an excuse to harass vulnerable women, such it seems they are, then that is the primary issue to tackle imo.

This was rather my point. The women killed by Pictin were not all First Nations women. They were all prostitutes, in an area that is probably the most notorious neighbourhood in Canada. It's pretty much the area where runaways, drug addicts, much of the northern population end up - when they are homeless and on their last legs - the end of the country and a winter where you can get by outside.

It's not at all clear that the police didn't care, so much as they didn't think that there was some one person targeting the women - the area already had so many women who moved in and out that they thought it was just the normal transience of the population. They likely should have picked it up - but one of the problems of working in an area like that for a long time is you start to take it for granted.

On the other hand, there was a case some decades earlier, on the prairies, where a couple of police officers would take indigenous people they picked up and leave them on the outskirts of town in the night, incapacitated. Quite horrific and a not done thing in a place where it is well known being out in the night like that will kill you.

These are scenarios that all involve vulnerable people and we can ask why so many members of that community are vulnerable. But what lies behind the actions of two cops who were racists and sociopaths, and police officers that had worked too long in a difficult spot and missed something they shouldn't have, and a crazed serial killer who would murder any woman he could who might not be noticed, are not all somehow the same thing, that would respond to the same approach.

The inquiry seems to think the police fucked up

www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.1191108