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

[334bu]

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

Ash Regan on fire here.

Germany often comes up in these discussions as having a problem with trafficking, but no one ever seems to talk about Iceland (which has had the Nordic Model since 2009).

Germany is a relatively large country with a population of 84+ million and a lot of densely populated cities. It is bang in the centre of Europe with nine neighbouring countries. It can be understandable why it would be seen as a sort of "hub" for trafficking given it's size and location.

NM Iceland has under 400,000 people (so small it's not uncommon for a sex worker to answer her phone for a booking and recognise the caller as a male relative) and is in the middle of nowhere. It can't possibly have a trafficking problem right? Nope, it does. It's even a sex destination country.

https://borgenproject.org/human-trafficking-in-iceland/

https://grapevine.is/news/2025/04/16/iceland-once-a-stopover-for-human-trafficking-now-a-destination/

https://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/politics_and_society/2017/10/26/organized_crime_and_prostitution_on_the_rise_in_ice/

"There is no question that there has been an “explosion” in prostitution in Iceland over the past 18 months, according to the report. There has been a significant increase in organized prostitution since 2015, and has to some extent followed the rapid growth in the tourism sector. "

If your account is accurate, they haven't really tried it in Ireland, they've only implemented part of the model, and barely bothered at all with important aspects of it.

You have a very naive view of what Christians base their policy decisions on. Some have a narrow view of biblical interpretation and authority and some don't. Can you tell me what the Bible has to say about prostitution and what a government's policies around it should be? Many Christians will attempt to find a pragmatic solution to mitigate the problems of prostitution.

And I would still like to know why you want prostitution decriminalised, especially why you want "clients" not to be criminally responsible for their acts. Based on your lack of concern about women's rights under the Equality Act 2010, I'm not sure that your interest in prostitution policy is based on women's interests.

"Can you tell me what the Bible has to say about prostitution and what a government's policies around it should be?"

From several bible passages would I be correct in guessing "God" would want all participants put to death?

See attached image from godisimaginary.com which seems to be down but can be accessed on web archive.

The funny thing is that if I thought the Nordic model really did stop prostitutes from being arrested and really did put significant amounts of money into helping women to exit then I could support it.

I don't really care what happens to the men. The evidence seems to be that they can look after themselves. As long as they are not drunk or stupid they nearly always evade detection.

As far as I know there is no Nordic model country that doesn't arrest prostitutes and spends money to help them exit. The interim report on the law in Ireland said that they're not doing it. The Swedish government gave a lot more money to the police but no extra money to social services.

Lots of people say that the laws against brothel-keeping should be amended so that young women don't get arrested. There are other people who stand in the way of that by saying we don't support it unless men get punished.

The people who brought the Nordic model to Ireland are never going to say we thought it would work at reducing demand but we can see we were wrong so let's get rid of it. Neither are they going to say let's put more money to help them exit. They will say let's give the police more money or powers.

So it will go on forever. Just as much sex being sold but the lives of prostitutes made more difficult. Having to work harder to get their money, more hours and more men. Not to mention increased violence.

I just don't believe that the Nordic model is ever going to do what they say they will do. There is something dishonest about the whole system. They say they will do these things because it sounds good and gets them support. Then when they get the bits they want they're not bothered about the rest of it.

As I thought. A theologically naive view of the bible and not what most Christians think.

Most Christians in England would be Anglicans I guess. Most Christians in Ireland would be Roman Catholics or Evangelicals. The Anglicans are losing ground to Evangelicals in England and around the world, especially in Africa.

Anglicans are less likely to think that police action can solve social problems. They are more likely to believe that money well spent on social services, rehab and mental health are the way forward.

In Northern Ireland you have the Evangelical Jim Wells. In the Republic you have people like Sisters Sheila Murphy and Bernadette McNally. Sister Sheila Murphy was was regional leader of the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity. Sister Bernadette McNally was provincial leader of the Good Shepherd Sisters.

Both of them refused to contribute towards the compensation fund for victims of the Magdalene Laundries run by these two orders of nuns. Both of them were board members of Ruhama. Jim Wells and Ruhama campaigned for the Nordic model in their own parts of Ireland. Both of them have provided false statistics to support the Nordic model.

Do you really think that what they have done is based on women's interests?

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

Ah. That’s OK then , I suppose.

According to the BBC, one in eight porn videos promoted to first time users features violence against women. Of course, this is not the same as real life, but it’s indicative. Perhaps we can dismiss the one in eight, after all, it’s not “most”.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56640178

Is it reassuring to know that “even less” involves children?

And 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 - yes, I think we absolutely can. Dear God.

As far as I know there is no Nordic model country that doesn't arrest prostitutes and spends money to help them exit. The interim report on the law in Ireland said that they're not doing it. The Swedish government gave a lot more money to the police but no extra money to social services.

What is the least worst alternative? IMO the Nordic Model is the least worst alternative. Does it work the way we’d like it to? No, of course bloody not.

Why? For all the reasons mentioned. Resources. Political will. Culture. Pornified societies. A depressing and relentless rise in seeing women as constituent body parts here to serve men thanks to the many disparate but connected threads discussed on FWR. Including transgenderism erasing our language and undermining our rights as women, the internet normalising violence against women and girls, the woeful lack of political representation, increasing financial inequality and late capitalism’s drive to commodify absolutely everything.

Yes, the whole system is dishonest. As in our whole system. See above. Would decriminalisation make things better for women? Absolutely not. It’d make it 100 times worse. I do not understand why any woman wants to make it easier for men to exploit and ab/use women. Just why?

Do young girls aspire to grow up to become prostitutes? As long as they get a pension, sick and holiday pay, is that the job you hope your daughters take on as adults? This quote sums it up for me.

“My experiences show that a woman doesn’t choose prostitution. She is choosing survival. Prostitution isn’t a choice. It is the absence of choice. Nobody makes the choice to be poor, low caste, or female. Society and individuals take advantage of this lack of choice.”

https://nordicmodelnow.org/facts-about-prostitution/fact-choice-is-complicated/

Why are you and @JennyShaw so keen to keep prostitution going along with pornography, both of which are violence against women? Are you men?

Murder is up there with rape as a violent crime against the person, so since we are talking about rape (paid for rape) it's a perfectly good analogy.
You write as tho' selling sexual services was the same as selling kettles. You do know it isn't, I take it?

All this seedy violence and exploitation because so many men just can't stay at home and have a nice wank.

I didn't intend to mean that was the case in Germany, where prostitutes often work in legal brothels. Immigrant women being tricked and coerced into prostitution was what I was aiming at - this does happen in Germany.

@DrBlackbird

“My experiences show that a woman doesn’t choose prostitution. She is choosing survival. Prostitution isn’t a choice. It is the absence of choice. Nobody makes the choice to be poor, low caste, or female. Society and individuals take advantage of this lack of choice.”

Ruth Breslin used to work for Ruhama and now she's a leading member of the SERP Institute in Ireland. So nobody can say she is part of the pimp lobby. Or a man. I quoted earlier a paragraph from her recent response to the review of the 2017 change in law in Ireland.

She has said that 5-10% of Irish prostitutes have chosen prostitution to make their money and had other choices. For them it is like any other job.

She said that 10-15% of Irish prostitutes meet the criteria for having been trafficked. That doesn't mean they were kidnapped off the streets of Shanghai and came to Ireland in the back of a lorry. It means that they came on a tourist visa but have limited control over what they do. Their passport may have been kept or they may owe a debt.

This is confirmed by Professor Ko-lin Chin who said that although only 1% of migrant prostitutes he interviewed had been coerced or deceived, 15% had some degree of unwanted control over their lives. He interviewed Chinese women in other countries including America but not Ireland. It is probable that 15% of migrant prostitutes the world over are in this situation.

Ruth Breslin said that about 80% of prostitutes in Ireland are what she calls 'vulnerable'. They chose prostitution to support their families. They would have preferred to stay in their home countries and make the same amount of money there but that's not possible in a garment factory.

What Ruth Breslin doesn't realise though is that many of these women will be in their 20s and intend to stop when they have their target amount in savings. Their intention is not to return to the garment factory but invest in their education or start a business.

Someone said it is my intention to keep prostitution going. I think it would be achievable to decrease the number of women in prostitution in Britain by about 20%. Firstly by spending more money on rehab for drug addicts. Then by focusing attention on this 15% of migrants who although they chose prostitution they didn't choose to be controlled.

To do that people would have to abandon the idea that all prostitution is absence of choice. Lots of people are unwilling to do that even though it can be clearly seen now more than ever that the Nordic model keeps prostitution going at the same level as before.

A man in Sweden can have a Thai masseur come to his home to give him a nice wank. There has been a proliferation of Thai massage establishments in Sweden since 1999. There's nothing that the Swedish police can do about it. If they question him he will say he just had a massage, nothing sexual happened.

There are Thai women who only do massage, nothing sexual. Other Thai women will offer 'hand relief' but not other sexual services. Sometimes it won't be on offer to new customers but just regulars. A minority of Thai women will go further and offer oral or penetrative sex.

That is their choice which will depend on what they are comfortable with and how much they want to earn. Prostitution isn't much like selling kettles but it is like massage. I know that masseurs who don't offer sexual services won't thank me for saying that. There is a reason though why many masseurs offer sexual services to their clients and no kettle-sellers do.

Masseurs who offer hand relief clearly aren't selling their bodies or selling themselves. So you would think people would be happy with that but of course they're not. They want to ban that too just like stripping. That's when the violence and exploitation come in because it is all forced underground. Women can't work for themselves but have to work for professional criminals.

"Evangelical" is not one denomination. There are evangelical Anglicans, for example. It does not mean the same as "fundamentalist", at least in Britain (I can't comment on the USA). In recent years, I have noticed attempts to replace "fundamentalist" with "evangelical", along with a push to associate "evangelical" inextricably with "conservative" and with US Christian culture; this is misleading. Evangelicals do take the bible seriously and consider it the basis of doctrine, but there is a wide range of interpretation, and many evangelicals do not attempt to take everything in the bible literally, instead recognising that many biblical statements use metaphors, poetic language and so on. There are also evangelical theological positions that try to take account of the cultural differences between the times and places where the texts were written, and contemporary cultures.

Can you clarify whether you are for or against the Nordic Model in principle, ie. if it could be implemented as proposed?

I am not clear because statements in different posts seem to contradict each other, eg.

"if I thought the Nordic model really did stop prostitutes from being arrested and really did put significant amounts of money into helping women to exit then I could support it."

vs

"I think it would be achievable to decrease the number of women in prostitution in Britain by about 20%. Firstly by spending more money on rehab for drug addicts. Then by focusing attention on this 15% of migrants who although they chose prostitution they didn't choose to be controlled.

To do that people would have to abandon the idea that all prostitution is absence of choice. Lots of people are unwilling to do that even though it can be clearly seen now more than ever that the Nordic model keeps prostitution going at the same level as before."

I am also finding it confusing the way some of the stats are presented, eg.

"(Ruth Breslin) has said that 5-10% of Irish prostitutes have chosen prostitution to make their money and had other choices. For them it is like any other job.

She said that 10-15% of Irish prostitutes meet the criteria for having been trafficked. That doesn't mean they were kidnapped off the streets of Shanghai and came to Ireland in the back of a lorry. It means that they came on a tourist visa but have limited control over what they do. Their passport may have been kept or they may owe a debt.

This is confirmed by Professor Ko-lin Chin who said that although only 1% of migrant prostitutes he interviewed had been coerced or deceived, 15% had some degree of unwanted control over their lives. He interviewed Chinese women in other countries including America but not Ireland. It is probable that 15% of migrant prostitutes the world over are in this situation.

Ruth Breslin said that about 80% of prostitutes in Ireland are what she calls 'vulnerable'. They chose prostitution to support their families. They would have preferred to stay in their home countries and make the same amount of money there but that's not possible in a garment factory.

What Ruth Breslin doesn't realise though is that many of these women will be in their 20s and intend to stop when they have their target amount in savings. Their intention is not to return to the garment factory but invest in their education or start a business."

At the start of the above you say,

"(Ruth Breslin) has said that 5-10% of Irish prostitutes have chosen prostitution to make their money and had other choices. For them it is like any other job."

At the end you say,

"Ruth Breslin said that about 80% of prostitutes in Ireland are what she calls 'vulnerable'. They chose prostitution to support their families. They would have preferred to stay in their home countries and make the same amount of money there but that's not possible in a garment factory.

What Ruth Breslin doesn't realise though is that many of these women will be in their 20s and intend to stop when they have their target amount in savings. Their intention is not to return to the garment factory but invest in their education or start a business."

If, as you say, "many" of the 80% are migrant women who intend to return home to "not to return to the garment factory but invest in their education or start a business." are you suggesting that these women should be added to the number who Ruth Breslin says "have chosen prostitution to make their money and had other choices. For them it is like any other job."?

Or are you clarifying that they did not have any other choice, ie. that this was the only available option if they wanted to leave the garment factory and get an education or start a business?

And there are women who accept work in garment manufacturing in order to escape prostitution, for example with the Miquelina Foundation in Colombia.

Thank you!

The Miquelina Foundation

In 1977, a Colombian nun called Esther Castaño Mejia set up a sewing workshop with just a few second hand sewing machines to offer practical help to women rescued from the streets of Bogotá. The workshop provided training and experience, enabling women to apply for jobs in other factories, but at this stage was not a commercially viable manufacturer.

Páramo’s founder, Nick Brown, made contact with Miquelina in 1992 and since then Páramo and Miquelina have grown together. Páramo is celebrating 30yrs of award-winning outdoor clothing, and the Foundation now provides training and employment for over 500 vulnerable women each year who want to improve their lives.

Miquelina incorporated as an independent charitable foundation in 1997 and in 2002 obtained ISO 9001 accreditation, a highly prestigious international standard recognising dedication to quality. In 2017, after 25 years of partnership with Páramo, Miquelina attained Guaranteed Fair Trade status from the World Fair Trade Organization, which covers everything they produce, a significant achievement.. Read more here.

https://toolkit.paramo-clothing.com/ourethics/manufacturing.php

"As long as they are not drunk or stupid they nearly always evade detection."

I posted a link saying there has been 1 conviction on paying for sex in N. Ireland. An update on this according to the belfasttelegraph on Aug 2024 there has now been two convictions. There have been 75 client arrests in N. Ireland as of this date.

So N. Ireland has an average of 7 or 8 paying for sex client arrests a year and a client conviction once every 5 years.

The second was a lonely pensioner whom the judge gave leniency on. He was caught because his phone was seized for a suspected unrelated matter and the police found incriminating conversation logs. The judge in his case wasn't a Nordic Model fan and questioned why he had to be brought into court.

This looks like the reality of the Nordic Model- spend millions of police time and resources (this money has to come from somewhere- in Sweden it means less money for Social Services) to make work more difficult and dangerous for sex workers for a handful of arrests that don't come to anything and a conviction every 5 years. And the guy being convicted will be a lonely old guy who is naïve enough to not realise he needs to take a couple of precautions like delete his text logs when done and not mention sex/payment when booking.

Paywalled so archive provided
archive.ph/lMvGR

I'm glad that the Miquelina Foundation is helping women in Columbia. The situation for women in Colombia is different from that in China. There is desperate poverty in Colombia, homelessness and drug addiction.

The Roman Catholic Church doesn't have a good record when it comes to Magdalene laundries, mother and baby homes, orphanages and industrial schools. If they are cleaning up their act that's a good thing.

The rehabilitation industry in countries such as India and Cambodia has received criticisms.

There are three aspects to the Nordic model. Men should be punished for buying sex. Women should not be punished for selling sex. Women should be helped to exit prostitution, there are various methods to do this but all of them will require tax-payers' money.

I don't believe that men should be punished for buying sex. It doesn't reduce demand but it can have an adverse affect on women. In Norway 'It was reported that prostitutes in indoor market prostitution have to work harder now in order to secure 2008 income levels'. If the effect of the Nordic model is that men pay less and women have to spend longer having sex and more sex acts to get the money they need then I don't think that's a good outcome.

Women should not be punished for selling sex. The Nordic model doesn't explain to people though that it is not illegal for a woman to be a prostitute. It is illegal for her to work with another woman, and that doesn't change with the Nordic model. As long as she's not exploiting another woman she shouldn't be punished. She should be able to pay taxi drivers and others without them being arrested.

Women should be helped to exit. In the case of drug addicts they should be helped with rehab, methadone, housing and living costs. Other women will need help with gaps in their CV or vocational training and work experience.

In Sweden a lot of extra money was given to the police to arrest men but no extra money was given to social services. The Nordic model appeals to people who think the police are the solution to social problems. It's also quite nasty because the police can approach a landlord and tell him or her that if he or she does not evict the suspected sex worker then he or she will be arrested on pimping charges. People should be able to defend themselves in a court of law not made homeless.

The alternative is to focus attention on the problem areas of prostitution and leave the rest alone. Let women work together, in fact encourage them to do this. The pimps won't like that, they don't want the women to keep the money for themselves. Focus on the drug addicts and the minority of migrants who are having problems. Have social workers going among them to help them without them getting deported.

The 80% of Irish prostitutes who are migrants but not trafficked chose to do what they do. The other choice for them was to continue to work in the garment factory or similar employment. China isn't a desperately poor country. You could say that if a woman wants capital to set up her own business or buy property she has no other choice than prostitution. I suppose the other choice is taking on significant debt.

Even the migrants who do meet the criteria for trafficked will have chosen to do what they did in coming to a more affluent country, apart from the 1% who have been coerced or deceived. They just didn't choose to have their passports taken away from them or other abuses.

Ruth Breslin didn't want to say that 85-90% of Irish prostitutes have chosen to do what they do. She says that 5-10% definitely did, and there's another 80% in her 'vulnerable' category. Then the 10-15% who meet the criteria for trafficked.

She seems to be missing out the drug addicted prostitutes though. She does refer to drug addicts elsewhere on this web page. I think that all of the above statistics apply to non-drug addicted prostitutes, but it would have been better if she had clarified that.

"I don't believe that men should be punished for buying sex. It doesn't reduce demand but it can have an adverse affect on women. In Norway 'It was reported that prostitutes in indoor market prostitution have to work harder now in order to secure 2008 income levels'. If the effect of the Nordic model is that men pay less and women have to spend longer having sex and more sex acts to get the money they need then I don't think that's a good outcome."

If men are paying less in Norway why is that, ie. if not because demand has decreased due to the fear of punishment and women are dropping their rates in an attempt to attract custom?

Obviously, if there was reduced demand then the alternatives for the women would include increasing their rates and/or looking for other work in order to maintain income levels.

When proponents of the Nordic model claim that it has reduced demand, most people will understand that to mean that there are fewer paid-for sex acts. Prostitutes having fewer clients or the total number of prostitutes decreasing.

It shouldn't just mean that men pay less. Prices are often the result of supply and demand. When demand decreases then the price decreases too. However, there may be other reasons why prices might decrease. Sometimes if it is difficult to buy something the buyer doesn't want to spend as much. If someone offered you contraband cigarettes, you wouldn't want to pay the same as cigarettes bought in as shop, even if you no longer had access to legally bought cigarettes.

On the other hand, it could be true that there is a decrease in the number of clients. If the most law-abiding ten percent of clients stopped, that would have unpleasant consequences for the prostitutes. It would not necessarily mean that there would be fewer paid-for sex acts. It could be that the 90% of remaining clients pay for sex slightly more often.

If they are adept at dodging the police it could work out quite well for them. They would be happy to negotiate with a pimp instead of the prostitute.

In 1996, 1.3% of Swedish men were active sex buyers. In the 1996 survey 1.3% of Swedish men said they had purchased sex in the previous year. That was made illegal in 1999. In 2008 in the next survey, 1.8% of Swedish men were active sex buyers. Curiously, the proportion of Swedish men who said they had paid for sex at some time in their life decreased, from 12.7% to 7.6%. That's the only statistic that did show a decrease between 1996 and 2008 and can be explained by various factors. So it doesn't look as if there was a decrease in Sweden so I doubt there was one in Norway.

This all seems very light on evidence and correspondingly heavy on hypotheses.

"If someone offered you contraband cigarettes, you wouldn't want to pay the same as cigarettes bought in as shop, even if you no longer had access to legally bought cigarettes."

That is an odd comparison.

Firstly,

• It is NOT illegal to BUY contraband cigarettes: under the Nordic model is illegal to buy sex.
• It IS illegal to SELL contraband cigarettes: under the Nordic model it is, if I have understood it correctly, NOT illegal to be a prostitute.

Secondly, have you ever smoked cigarettes? It is a notoriously addictive habit. If someone "no longer had access to legally bought cigarettes" then they would pay way over the odds if they could afford it in order to buy contraband cigarettes.

£1,000 an ounce: How rocketing tobacco prices are sparking violence behind bars
Tobacco has rocketed in price to £1,000 for an ounce in prison and the sky-high cost is sparking violence among inmates craving nicotine, a Star investigation has revealed.

https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/crime/2021/12/13/1000-an-ounce-how-rocketing-tobacco-prices-are-sparking-violence-behind-bars/