Switzerland’s “harm reduction” approach to prostitution represents a systemic failure that enables exploitation while enriching NGOs:
- The government spends millions on ineffective programs.
- NGOs receive substantial funding, with funds overwhelmingly going to personnel costs.
- Harm reduction NGOs actively oppose real solutions and demand control of any new funding.
- Despite Swiss courts ruling consent to prostitution is impossible under economic or social hardship, 95% of women in prostitution are migrants, many facing economic coercion.
- Almost 50% of brothels evade mandatory health inspections.
- On average, successful inspections result in meeting with only one or two people.
- Police interviews fail to detect victims as traffickers coach victims, who do not expect their later exploitation.
- Language barriers lead to third parties negotiating sex acts with buyers.
- Inspections and outreach visits reveal shocking conditions:
- “Very young,” pregnant migrants supervised by “capos”.
- Women with sleep disorders due to being kept awake 24/7 for sex buyers on demand.
- Unsafe, unventilated facilities.
- In 2022, 66% of convicted traffickers receive fully suspended sentences or sentences of less than one year.
- Police no longer check brothels for signs of human trafficking because victims – who fear retaliation from pimps and traffickers – rarely cooperate.
- Police sometimes charge abusive brothel operators with regulatory violations with which they do not need victim cooperation.
- 28% of brothels in one district of Geneva were closed in 2022 due to regulatory violations and “unscrupulous” practices.
- Rather than receiving support and shelter when brothels were closed, many women who lived in the brothels were suddenly homeless.
- 100 sex trafficking victims are identified annually at the “successful” sex box project, yet many remain trapped in exploitation due to the inaction of officials.
- After mounting pressure to introduce exit services, new exit services in Zurich are being run by an NGO that supports full decriminalization of prostitution and claims the goal of the project is not to help women exit prostitution – but destigmatize prostitution.
- The state has remained steadfast in their decision to maintain a legal system due to claims that prohibition will drive the sex trade “underground” and increase violence, despite admitting this has never occurred elsewhere and that organized crime has overrun the legal sex trade in other countries with legal prostitution.
- During COVID lockdowns, when prostitution was banned, there was no reduction in victim referrals, identification, or assistance and no increase in violence against women in prostitution.
Article continues at https://nordicmodelnow.org/2025/08/01/whats-really-happening-in-switzerland-a-case-study-in-regulated-prostitution/