Womens hour on Ash Regan's private members bill in the Scottish Parliament

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002f8lw

Ash Regan on fire here.

@Grammarnut Germany has legalisation, not decrim. Currently Belgium is the only European country to have decriminalisation.

"The aim of the Nordic model is to end prostitution, not police it"

Reality check- the world's oldest profession is never going to end anywhere. Every NM country every day it's business as usual but with sex workers and clients taking a few extra precautions (this also includes not carrying condoms btw- they are used as evidence and not mentioning sex or payment during bookings). N.Ireland has had 1 client conviction in a decade. Sweden who has had the NM the longest for 25+ years still has very active escort directories for the major cities which can be found with a search in seconds. Sex workers are unwilling to testify against clients and convictions are very hard to get with Sweden having 2 convictions out of the first 2000 arrests*.

*Source HIV and the Law Commission report on the situation in Sweden.
hivlawcommission.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/FinalReport-RisksRightsHealth-EN.pdf

What we can do is improve matters for sex workers and give them rights instead of making it more dangerous for them. There are reasons why a long list of human rights/health/anti-trafficking/immigration/sex worker etc orgs support complete decrim and not the NM.

In decrim NZ for example, a sex worker won a 6 figure payout after being sexually harassed.

www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55298303

Nothing wrong with having a Christian attitude that prostitution is exploitation of women and that we need to make it possible for men to understand that they are not entitled to sex (nobody is). It's an attitude I hold myself.

No, men think they are entitled to buy sex - or, as Ash Regan puts it, pay to rape a woman - is what the Nordic model seeks to change. We can make that attitude unacceptable, out of bounds, clearly creepy and not something that any man would want to be associated with. Lack of prosecutions does not mean a law is ineffective, you know. The UK has only a small number (relatively speaking) of prosecutions for murder each year, that doesn't mean that the law against murder is not working. Logic not your strong point, Chris?

Are you aware that there has been a review of the 2017 law change in Ireland published in March this year? The change in law that introduced the Nordic model in the Irish Republic.

It is called Review on the Operation of Section 7A of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 1993. I will try to put up a link but the review shows that the Nordic model in Ireland has not decreased demand. It has not decreased the amount of prostitution. This was its main aim and it has failed.

The interim review of 2020 is also interesting to read. It said that prostitutes are still being arrested and funds to help women exit prostitution haven't materialized.

You would think that Nuala McGovern would have known that. They tried it in Ireland and it didn't work.
Review on the Operation of Section 7A of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 1993

The Crime and Policing Bill is in the Commons now and a number of MPs wanted an amendment that would bring to England and Wales aspects of the Nordic model. "This new clause makes it an offence to pay for, or attempt to, pay for sex either for themselves or on behalf of others." As far as I can tell it won't be going through though.

@MarieDeGournay

The idea that the catholic church has enough power to push the Nordic Model, or anything else, is decades out of date.

Have you heard of Ruhama? It is an organization formed by two orders of nuns, both of whom were involved in Magdalene Laundries. They are funded by Irish taxpayers and have influence on the Irish government.

Ruhama campaigned for the Nordic model. They said that 38% of Irish prostitutes have attempted suicide. This is not true.

In Northern Ireland the Evangelical bigot Jim Wells said in the Northern Ireland Assembly that 127 prostitutes had been murdered in the Netherlands since legalization there. Rachel Moran repeated his false statistic on Woman's Hour.

She also said that 1 prostitute had been murdered in Sweden since the Nordic model was introduced in 1999. She didn't mention though that no prostitutes were murdered in Sweden since about 1984. Neither did Ash Regan on Woman's Hour. They tell people that the Nordic model will saves women's lives - a powerful argument - bit it is false.

Surely you realize that many workers, mostly men have been trafficked. Most trafficked people aren't prostitutes. Did you not hear about the Chinese cockle pickers who were drowned?

I was reading about the review of the Irish Nordic model law published recently that shows it has failed and I came across a response to it by Ruth Breslin of the SERP Institute. Ruth Breslin used to work for Ruhama so nobody can say that she's part of the 'pimp lobby'.

This is the most interesting paragraph in the response

"Based on the evidence The SERP Institute has gathered, dating back to 2015, we have established that approximately 10-15% of women in prostitution in Ireland fit the ‘classic’ definition of trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation recognised in Irish law, while approximately 5-10% describe having entered prostitution by choice, in circumstances where they had other choices available to them. A proportion of these describe themselves as ‘sex workers’ and view prostitution as a form of work. However, the majority of approximately 80% fall into a much larger ‘vulnerable’ category – these are primarily migrant women, new to Ireland and often with limited English, who have been drawn into prostitution by the urgent need to support family/loved ones in their country of origin."

So 10-15% of Irish prostitutes have been trafficked
5-10% of Irish prostitutes chose to become prostitutes and had other choices
80% aren't trafficked but 'vulnerable' although they also chose it

I don't believe that all of this 80% do it to support loved ones. Most of the Chinese ones in Britain want money to start their own businesses. There is a Professor called Ko-lin Chin who interviewed a large number of Chinese prostitutes working abroad and he said that 1% were coerced or deceived. He said that 15% had some degree of control by a employer or debtor.

If you didn't have a law against murder then you introduced it, you would expect the number of murders to decrease. Let's say that the death penalty was introduced into Britain but the numbers of murders went up. That would be bad but worse if the people who got the death penalty adopted then lied about it and pretended that it was working.

There is just as much prostitution in Ireland now as before 2017 when they introduced the Nordic model there. That goes for Northern Ireland too where they've had it since 2015. This means that either the new laws have had no effect on prostitutes. Or that they have to have sex for more hours with more men to get the money they need.

You can say surely it worked in Sweden? No it did not. The Swedish government told everyone who would listen (including a delegation from Ireland) that the proportion of Swedish men who pay for sex decreased form 12.7% to 7.6% between 1996 and 2014 (there were surveys in those years). What they don't tell people is that it went up in the next survey (2011) and a 2017 survey puts it at 10%.

The biggest lie though is that these figures are not for men who pay for sex, they are for men who have paid for sex at some time in their life. The figures for men who pay for sex is 1.3% in 1996 and 1.8% in 2014. So there was an increase.

They also don't tell you that in 1996 0.3% of Swedish women said they had been paid for sex at some time in their life, in 2014 it was 1.1% and in 2017 it was 1.5%. That's quite something for a law that seeks to reduce prostitution to zero.

I'm not able to edit my post above so I will say here that when I put 2014 I should have put 2008. All these figures are in the 2015 study by two Swedish women, Mujaj and Netscher.

Buying and selling sexual services isn't the same as murdering someone, not a great analogy there.

The issue I have with the Christian Institute and other Christian input on sex worker laws is they aren't based on facts or evidence they are going with what a 2000 year old book says. The same people would probably want all sex outside of marriage illegal if they were put in charge of the country.

I posted this earlier showing the Gov has acknowledged there is a lack of evidence from other countries that the NM will improve matters for sex workers. So no, the 1 conviction N.Ire has had in a decade isn't because sex work has magically ended from the NM, it's because it's very difficult to enforce and sex workers aren't going to testify against clients. I just ran a 5 second search on "belfast escort services" now and yep plenty of results still going strong.

https://archive.ph/DnlFp

"The research comes after independent reviews carried out for the Irish and Northern Irish governments, which have both criminalised the purchase of sex, reported that the Nordic model had not reduced the demand for sexual services

The evidence reviewed suggests that such measures may have limited impact on preventing trafficking and sexual exploitation.”"

Yes. Hopefully they will realise it's complex enough to warrant a bill of its own instead of tacking it onto the end of another bill.

The late MSP Trish Godman tried this in the past with Scotland hoping no one would notice. She also wanted it illegal for taxi drivers to provide a service for sex workers or clients who were on their way to meet the other. I would have been interested in hearing how she planned on enforcing that had it passed.

Did you know that there was a debate in 2018? You can read the transcript of the debate: “Tackling Demand for Commercial Sexual Exploitation”

"Bust the business model"

Then it was "a model for Scotland" and now "Unbuyable". I like it how each time they fail they rebrand to try again.

certain "buzz" words and phrases are used. "Violence against women and children"

That’s certainly the first time I’ve seen that particular expression termed a “buzz phrase”. Goodness me.

The most irritating is "Shifting the Burden of Criminality". They think that instead of sex workers getting arrested it should be their clients. Instead of women being prosecuted it will be men.

It is not illegal for a woman to be a sex worker in Britain. That was true of Ireland and Sweden too. It is illegal for two women to work together for safety. There are also laws to do with soliciting and loitering.

In Ireland and Sweden women continued to be arrested for working together. In fact, in Ireland they doubled the penalties for 'brothel-keeping', which includes imprisonment. In Sweden no man was imprisoned for paying for sex, as far as I can tell. Just fines, although hardly any man has been prosecuted in Ireland.

I noticed that Ash Regan on Woman's Hour didn't say anything about women working together and brothel-keeping. She said that she wants to decriminalise the women but she doesn't seem to recognize that this is the main way that sex workers get arrested.

It's a buzz phrase when it is said that prostitution is violence against women and children. That is said quite often. It's especially annoying when it looks as if violence against prostitutes increased in Ireland after the 2017 law and also the 1993 law.

The point of the Nordic model is to make buying sex not normal, whereas the sex industry wants buying sex to be normal. This attitude is behind constant suggestions that selling sex is empowering for women - a lie many are happy to buy into. Decriminalizing prostitution (paid for rape) increases the number of prostitutes and brothels far more. You should look at Germany or New Zealand to see that the Nordic model is the least worst way of regulating a situation that most countries should be ashamed exists in their countries. The ideal is no prostituted women. Which means helping women out of prostitution - where is the evidence that decriminalization of prostituting women reduces prostitution - and the violence with which it is associated?

Experience in Germany suggests that the idea of two or more women working together for safety does not stop violence. Being prostituted (paid to be raped) is dangerous, violence is inherent in it. Thus, whatever we do we cannot stop that violence. So the thing we can best do is have a model of working that makes it clear what the dangers are and that they are inherently unpoliceable, so we need to get through to men that buying sex is something only a creep would want to do.
I'd put photos of men found around brothels or kerb crawling on Facebook, personally. Sadly, that's probably illegal unlike buying a woman to allow you to do anything you want with her body and the holes in it.

It's a buzz phrase when it is said that prostitution is violence against women and children.

Ah OK. So prostitution doesn’t involve violence against women and children then?

Buying and selling sexual services isn't the same as murdering someone, not a great analogy there.

The analogy was not between the two different sorts of crime, but the deterrent effect of the application of law in two different examples.

The situation in Germany is dire but they do not have decriminalisation there. Their system is legalisation. Legalisation seems to work better in the Netherlands, but in New Zealand they have decriminalisation.

In New Zealand if two or three women choose to work together as prostitutes from the same flat or house they will not be arrested. In Germany they probably have to get permission and if not they will be punished.

Your ideal is no prostitution, which we know the Nordic model has not achieved in any of the countries where it has been applied. Far from it.

I look at it differently. I think if prostitution is going to exist, what would be the best form? The best form would be women working together, keeping the profits for themselves and making the rules for themselves.

There is a blog by a prostitute in New Zealand where she said that brothels have been closing down there. She doesn't mean the SOOBs (Small Owner-Operated Brothels), she means the traditional brothel run by a pimp or madam. They still have problems there but the government says that prostitution has not increased. A few have disputed this.

People who believe in decriminalisation don't usually use the word 'empowering'. It is an ambiguous word. However, if a Chinese woman comes to Britain and returns to China with tens of thousand of pounds and sets up her own businesses, then 'empowering' would seem to be a good word for it.

In Sweden they set great store on what they call 'normalisation'. More Swedish people accept the Nordic model. The proportion of people who accept it fluctuates but more people accept that men should be punished for paying for sex. Even though they don't believe it will work at reducing demand. Also, it's not really the Nordic model they seem to want because they think prostitutes should be punished too. So it looks like they want the American model. In any case, want they want has been moulded by the lies their government has told them.

Most prostitution does not involve violence against women and even less against children.

Drug addicts experience violence, both men and women, whether involved in prostitution or something else such as shoplifting. Most prostitutes are not drug addicts.

Trafficked women experience violence. If by trafficked you mean coerced or deceived, which is what the Palermo Protocol says. British law says something different. Most prostitutes are not trafficked. Many men and women not involved in prostitution have been trafficked.

You can say that if a woman is destitute and has no other way of surviving then prostitution could be seen as a form of violence if they are not temperamentally suited to this way of making money. However, we live in a country which has social security and unemployment is not high. Most prostitutes did not begin because of destitution and they had other choices in the way they make their money.

The way to help drug addicts is through rehab, benefits and housing. The way to help coerced and deceived people is to have social workers who work with them without trying to deport them. The way to help poor people is by making sure they get their benefits without delays and are helped into work.

@Grammarnut Save our Eyes Holbeck do just this. They're on FB and X and post pictures of the kerb crawlers and their cars.

Germany? As far as I know women can't choose to work together in Germany. Not without permission, which may not be forthcoming from the authorities.

In Soho in London they have a system called walk ups. They are not brothels but two women are always in the flat and only ever one man. No prostitute has been murdered in Soho since the 1940s. There was a woman called Camille Gordon murdered in Soho but she wasn't a prostitute, she worked in a clip joint.

So the idea that violence is inherent in it is just an ideological concept from extremists such as Andrea Dworkin. Unconnected to reality and not helping women. She and people like Kathleen Barry and Janice Raymond (who used to be a nun) also believe that when a punter has handed over his money he can do anything he wants to a prostitute.

That is simply not true. If you read Paid For by Rachel Moran, which is recommended by Catharine A MacKinnon, another (radical nutter) she says that for the first two years in prostitution she didn't have penetrative sex. She just used her hands and mouth. All oral sex was with condom.

Then, in 1993 after a change in the law in Ireland that harmed prostitutes, she started doing vaginal penetrative sex. She never did anal sex even once. This vaginal penetrative sex she did sporadically because she preferred to do domination. Also selling cocaine to her clients and taking money from other women for them to use her flat.

Agree.

The way the NM is marketed by Ash Regan and other supporters like MSP Rhoda Grant who made an attempt for it a decade ago is going to be misleading to almost everyone who doesn't follow the debate or have any existing knowledge on it.

"Shifting the Burden of Criminality" or "decrim the sellers criminalise the buyers" of course that is going to make people think that is must be currently illegal for sex workers to sell sex per se. When it isn't.

Claiming the NM will "decriminalise the seller" when the seller is still going to be criminalised for working together (which can also mean the police can break her door down and raid her home under brothel laws) is just outright false. It's the small print of the NM Ash Regan wants to keep quiet. She's relying on most people having little knowledge of this and being easily swayed by vague and misleading claims of what the NM does and doesn't do.

More on Sweden they just passed another law to make it illegal to pay for custom content from online sex workers (OF, cam sites etc), but it's still legal to pay for online sexual content that's already being provided. Would be interesting to see if they can work out how to enforce that, can't the customers and online sex worker simply discuss custom content off-site and make it look like it isn't custom when it's being purchased?