Criminalisation, of sex workers or clients, undermines safety.
The law criminalising clients, first implemented in Sweden in 1999 and known as the “Nordic Model” is touted as feminist because it criminalises men (i.e. the clients) rather than women (i.e. the victims). But its effect on women has been disastrous. Sex workers face increased stigma, are more at risk of violence, and are less able to call on the protection of the police and the authoritie as this can lead to police harassment, the loss of custody over children, or deportation.
For more information please see our briefing No Nordic Model
By Dominic Casciani BBC News home affairs reporterWhat is the current law on prostitution?The laws around prostitution in England and Wales are far from straight-forward. The act of prostitution is not in itself illegal – but a string of laws criminalises activities around it. Under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, it is an offence to […]
Letters The Guardian, Monday November 17 2008Feminist contempt for prostitutesWhat is most striking about feminist reporters who single out prostitution as worse than any other industry is their contempt for prostitute women. Zoe Williams describes sex workers as either “better at sex than they are at anything else” or “so disadvantaged that they may as well have […]
WHEN the Netherlands legalised brothels eight years ago, the mood was upbeat. Politicians thought they were well on the way to solving one of the world’s perpetual policy dilemmas: how to stop all the bad things that are associated with the sex trade (coercion, violence, infectious diseases) while putting a proper, and realistic, limit to […]
COMMENTS ON GOVERNMENT’S PROPOSALS We oppose the government’s proposals which would create new offences: 1) a new criminal offence of paying for sex with a person controlled for gain; 2) a new civil order to enable police to close brothels; and 3) amendments to the Sexual Offences Act 1985, to remove the requirements of persistence, annoyance […]
The Suffolk Murders of 2006 have yet again highlighted the problem of how to deal with ‘the oldest profession’. The government’s Criminal Justice & Immigration Bill is again reviewing the law on prostitution, but some say it doesn’t go far enough.The Criminal Justice & Immigration Bill is passing through the Houses of Parliament and it […]
Government feminists and Christian fundamentalists have joined forces claiming that prostitution is violence. They rightly say that attacks against prostitute women are common and that it’s only when five are murdered in one place that it starts to provoke debate.They want to criminalise men who buy sex, as Sweden has done. But prosecuting clients is […]
The tragic murders of five young women in Ipswich in December last year led to an unprecedented outpouring of public concern and showed that the government, police and media are way behind where the public is at.The media was caught off guard. One Guardian journalist told us recently that she arrived in Ipswich with other […]
Experts from New Zealand and Sweden With the debate on prostitution raging in the press, and given the opportunity to hear experts from New Zealand and Sweden, it was no surprise that the meeting in Committee Room 10 of the House of Commons was packed to the rafters. 200 people were joined by 10 Peers […]
“Safety First” Against further criminalisation of sex workers in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill 2007 Wednesday 17 October 2-4 pmHouse of Commons, Committee Room 9 Hosted by John McDonnell MP, long-term supporter of the ECP’s work and recent contender for the leadership of the Labour Party The Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill 2007 (CJIB) is part […]
Joan Smith acknowledges that “women are driven into prostitution by poverty”, but doesn’t address benefit cuts, low wages, debt, lack of affordable housing, and addiction to expensive drugs. Instead, she targets clients (“Prostitutes are victims not criminals”, 13 April). She claims that police can’t deal with sex workers being beaten or raped because they are […]