Chippys_mittensWhat's your opinion on prostitution?
I am for the civilized approach of the Nordic Model.
What is the Nordic Model?
The Nordic Model (sometimes known as the Sex Buyer Law, and the Swedish, Abolitionist, Survivor or Equality Model) is an approach to prostitution that has been adopted in Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Northern Ireland, Canada, France, Ireland and Israel. It has several elements:
1. Decriminalisation of selling sex acts
Prostitution is inherently violent. Women should not be criminalised for the exploitation and abuse they endure.
2. Buying sex acts becomes a criminal offence
Buying human beings for sex is harmful, exploitative and can never be safe. We need to reduce the demand that drives sex trafficking.
3. Support and exit services
High quality, non-judgemental services to support those in prostitution and help them build a new life outside it, including: access to safe affordable housing; training and further education; child care; legal, debt and benefit advice; emotional and psychological support.
A holistic approach
A public information campaign; training for police and CPS; tackling the inequality and poverty that drive people into prostitution; effective laws against pimping and sex trafficking, with penalties that reflect the enormous damage they cause. Read more >>
Home | Nordic Model Now!
Nordic Model Now! is a UK grassroots campaign for the Nordic Model approach to prostitution – the ONLY approach that recognises the prostitution system as part of the structural oppression of women and other marginalised groups, and as both a cause and a consequence of the persistent inequality between the sexes.
This sounds like a good approach, and I would’ve loved for this to work, but unfortunately, this approach does not reduce harm to sex workers, but increases it.
Norway: The human cost of ‘crushing’ the market: Criminalization of sex work in Norway - Amnesty International
The issues described in this report demonstrate that Norway is not implementing its international obligations to respect, protect and fulfil the rights of people who sell sex. Amnesty International spoke with sex workers who had experienced violations of the right to housing, the right to security of person, the right to equal protection of the […]
Figures provided by National Ugly Mugs, a service which allows sex workers to confidentially report incidents of abuse and crime, showed that reports of abuse and crime against prostitutes greatly increased after Ireland’s adoption of the Nordic model approach to prostitution by criminalizing the purchase of sexual services. The figures stated that crimes against prostitutes increased by 90%, with violent crime increasing by 92%.
It is now illegal to be a prostitution-buyer or pimp in Ireland, so of course the number of reported crimes went up. Declaring failure because of more reports is like saying “MeToo” caused more rapes. No, you’re just hearing about what’s always been there, now that it’s safer to talk about it.
I hope pimps that keep women hidden in servitude on the black market face huge consequences for their unethical actions.
unfortunately I don’t have time to read the other two links (long pdfs), but thanks for providing them.