‘it's very important that vulnerable women can chose to do a job where 25% of them report being raped by their boss / pimp’
We do allow adults to choose to take risks. I don’t think anyone would like one night stands with strangers to be outlawed because there is a (quite reasonable) chance of being raped or assaulted. What threshold of risk do you feel allows adult behaviours to be banned?
I think rape/assault would be far more reduced by proper legalisation and regulation than by banning it, or attempting to ambiguously ban it via the Nordic Model.
I do think it is laudable to want to protect the vulnerable but the Nordic Model doesn’t work.
https://www.lse.ac.uk/research/research-for-the-world/politics/criminalising-the-sex-buyer
‘“My findings show that there is a great discrepancy between the Nordic model’s ideological discourse and the realities of people who sell sex,” she says.
“Fundamentally, the single biggest reason given for workers to enter the sex trade was the intention to earn a living. Comparatively, six per cent of those interviewed considered themselves to have been trafficked or forced by someone else to sell sex.
“Where their circumstances and reasons for entering the sex trade differ hugely, it is unhelpful and impractical to group together all those working in the sex trade as victims of one same sweeping ideological injustice.
“Moreover, contrary to the popular narrative, the most serious risks encountered by those working in commercial sex are not caused by exploitation at the hands of sex buyers and pimps. They are most often related to the institutional structures of immigration and policing.”’
https://www.nat.org.uk/press-release/hiv-open-letter-opposing-nordic-model-sex-work
‘We do support the Bill’s ambition to protect women from violence and sexual exploitation, but do not believe the proposed policy approach will achieve this. The Bill proposes introducing the ‘Nordic model’ which would decriminalise sex workers – an aspiration we share – but it criminalises their clients and many of the means through which sex workers market their work.
This would in effect criminalise sex workers by proxy, shift demand to less safe spaces, and increase the threat of violence and other harms as clients would be forced underground, making it more difficult for sex workers to manage risk, including risk of HIV and poor sexual health.
The Bill assumes the perpetrators of violence will be indirectly addressed by reducing client-side demand, this claim is without substantial evidence.’
Are the many here who are passionate about the Nordic Model more interested in protecting vulnerable women or punishing men, regardless of the actual cost in health terms to the vulnerable?