Nordic model approach to prostitution

• Sweden (1999) • Norway (2009) • Iceland (2009) • Canada (2014) • Northern Ireland (2015) • France (2016) • Ireland (2017) • Israel (2020) • One state of the United States : • Maine (2023) == Efficacy after implementation ==

Canada Canada passed the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA), a version of the Nordic model law in 2014. The Women's Coalition for the Abolition of Prostitution, a pan-Canadian coalition of equality-seeking women's groups has been campaigning to end prostitution in Canada. They were instrumental in lobbying for the legislation to be introduced in Canada. Researchers at the Centre for Gender & Sexual Health Equity found that implementation of the law caused prostitutes to experience "significantly reduced access to critical health and sex worker/community-led services"; the authors concluded that full decriminalization would best provide labour and human rights to sex workers. In February 2020, an Ontario court judge struck down three parts of the PCEPA as unconstitutional: the prohibitions on advertising, procuring, and materially benefiting from someone else's sexual services were violations of the freedom of expression and security of the person as defined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, those provisions were then later upheld by the Ontario Court of Appeal. France In France, the practice of prostitution and soliciting are not penalised, but the purchase of sexual services has been illegal and punished since the law of 13 April 2016, by which France joined the so-called "penalisation of clients" model, often referred to as "neo-abolitionist". In 2019, an Ipsos survey questioned more than 1,000 French people on how they perceive the 2016 law and prostitution in general. The survey showed that 71% of French people are opposed to repealing the 2016 law. On the other hand, 78% believe that this law represents a positive step forward. Finally, of the various measures proposed to combat the vulnerability of persons in prostitution, only 4% believe that repealing the law would be the most effective solution. The difference between men and women is significant in this survey, particularly when it comes to perceptions of prostitution: 66% of men see it as "violence", compared with 81% of women. In 2021, five years after the adoption of the 2016 law aimed at combating the prostitution system, its application remains very limited. There are few fines for the purchase of sexual acts (around 4,500 since the law came into force) and they are very unevenly distributed across the country. In 2018, some départements had only one. Only 6% of public prosecutors' offices had implemented the awareness-raising courses provided for by the law, even though these have a strong impact on participants. In addition, the human resources allocated to the fight against trafficking and procuring are derisory: eight police officers in Paris and twenty investigators nationwide. Finally, although the law provides for the transfer of seizures linked to trafficking to support people wishing to leave the prostitutional system, the €14 million seized between 2017 and 2018 had still not been paid to the Women's Rights and Equality Department at the time of publication. Iceland In 2009, after opinion polls indicated that 70% of the population supported banning the purchase of sexual services, paying for sex was outlawed. The vast majority of prostitutes in the country are foreign, There are several factors which prevent the full implementation of the law. One is that suspected victims of human trafficking refuse to cooperate with the police and refuse to testify against their traffickers; another factor is that tourism has increased significantly in Iceland overall during recent years, heightening the demand for prostitutes. Because Iceland is part of the Schengen zone, it is easy for traffickers to smuggle victims from poorer countries of the European Union to Iceland and have them stay there within the three-months rule without them being registered officially. The report stated that no substantial change in attitude has yet occurred within the justice system of Iceland. Trials are often held privately without there being any effect on the reputation of the man being tried for buying sex, and the fines that are given out are also comparatively low. Women from Eastern Europe, the Baltics, and South America are subjected to sex trafficking in Iceland, often in nightclubs and bars. The United States Department of State's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons downgraded Iceland's ranking in 2017 from a Tier 1 to a Tier 2 country. Ireland The Republic of Ireland's Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017 criminalized the purchase of sex with a prostitute. Since the law was introduced, violent crimes against sex workers have "almost doubled". In 2020, the Irish Journal of Sociology published a research paper that analyzed data from the years 2015 to 2019, spanning two years before and after the act. The researchers reported that "crimes (including violent offences) against prostitutes increased following the introduction of the new law and continued with low levels of reporting of said crimes to the police." The authors concluded that the best way to reduce violence against prostitutes is through the full decriminalization of sex work. Northern Ireland Northern Ireland implemented a version of the Nordic model approach in 2015: the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Criminal Justice and Support for Victims) Act (Northern Ireland) 2015. The Anti-Trafficking Review published a criticism of the law which argued that "the sex purchase ban in Northern Ireland is essentially meant to send a moral message about the unacceptability of commercial sex rather than effectively reduce trafficking." The research conducted has been criticized as faulty by Julie Bindel as it gathered data from a website run by convicted brothel owners. Norway Neo-abolitionist laws have been debated in Norway since 1997. During that time, the Norwegian government conducted several evaluations of the prostitution laws in the Netherlands and Sweden. The prostitution laws in both countries were seen as faulty. Driven by a desire to reduce human trafficking in the sex industry, the Sexkjøpsloven (Sex Purchase Act) As in 2013, they failed to get a sufficient majority in the 2017 Norwegian parliamentary election; as of 2014, they hold 80 out of 169 parliamentary seats combined. The majority coalition, consisting of the Centre Party, the Christian Democratic Party (Kristeleg Folkeparti), the Labour Party, and the Socialist Left Party, support the Sex Purchase Act. The practical effects of the law are in dispute. A report conducted by the Norwegian authorities five years after the law came into effect found that the model had a dampening effect on prostitution and reduced sex trafficking; however, other academics say that there are too many uncertainties in the data to claim success. The Co-ordination Unit for Victims of Trafficking in Norway reported that the number of identified potential victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation increased every year between 2007 and 2012. Although the figure dropped in 2013, the number of victims was still higher than in 2007. The number of victims again increased in 2014. but the reliability of these figures has been questioned by other academics. Surveys of prostitutes suggest that customer attitudes and behavior changed after the law was introduced. Prostitutes reported that fewer young men, fewer upper-class men, and more foreigners purchased sex services after the law was passed. Men had a more negative attitude toward purchasing sex services. Surveys also found that prostitutes were afraid to file charges against violent customers due to a fear of being evicted, even though it is illegal to evict prostitutes for violations of the act. Landlords evicted prostitutes out of fear of prosecution under laws that banned profiting from the income of the prostitutes. Landlords also said that police would contact them and ask them to evict prostitutes. Sweden In 2008, the Swedish government appointed a special committee of inquiry known as the Committee of Inquiry to Evaluate the Ban against the Purchase of Sexual Services, headed by the former Supreme Court Justice Anna Skarhed. Its purpose was to evaluate how the law had affected the sex industry since its implementation in 1999 until 2008. The report stated that street prostitution had been reduced by half; it reported that in Copenhagen, Oslo, and Stockholm, street prostitution was at similar levels in 1999, but it was three times higher in Copenhagen and Oslo than in Stockholm in 2008. The police had focused on reducing street prostitution also as a signal to the public, as that form of prostitution was the most visible. The committee further stated that public opinion had changed more in comparison to that in Denmark and Norway, and that 70% of the population were in favour of the ban on the purchase of sexual services in Sweden. It has also been reported that 12.5% of men used to solicit prostitutes before the implementation of the law in 1999, whereas in 2014 only 7.7% of men purchased sexual services. A 2013 report by the Swedish government stated that street prostitution had halved in the previous 10 years but that escort advertisements had increased from 304 to 6,965; however, the report also stated that an increase in advertisements did not necessarily mean that the number of escorts had increased. In December 2017, the Global Network of Sex Work Projects disputed the positive impact of the Nordic model in Sweden, saying the law is "harmful to prostitutes", and that it had resulted in increased police surveillance, discrimination, and social stigmatization, and decreased access to health and social services. == Criticism ==

The Nordic model is controversial and receives both support and opposition across the political spectrum. Supporters of the Nordic model include feminist organizations such as the American National Organization for Women, anti-sex trafficking NGOs such as Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, and political parties such as the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party. Many sex worker rights, aid organizations, and civil-liberties organizations oppose the Nordic model, and call for complete decriminalization, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, and the World Health Organization. In 2012, researchers in Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom examined the effect that legalization of prostitution had on human trafficking. The overall conclusion was that human trafficking inflows increased and that trafficking was overall not reduced because the substitution of illegal prostitution with legal prostitution could not compensate for the higher number of people being trafficked. The increase in illegal prostitution following the legalization of prostitution might be caused by two factors: illegal supply can masquerade as legal, and legalization reduces the stigma associated with the consumption of the banned service. The Danish National Board of Social Services estimated that after prostitution was legalized in Denmark in 1999, the volume of prostitution increased by 40% between 2002 and 2009. Some studies within Europe suggest that human trafficking is lower in countries where prostitution and its procurement are illegal and highest in countries in which prostitution is legalized. However, the conclusions of these studies have been criticized for being misleading; researchers at the London School of Economics published a paper which "suggested that the decriminalization of sex work in several countries led to increased human trafficking", despite acknowledging the fact that the data they used "does not reflect actual trafficking flows", and that it is "difficult, perhaps impossible, to find hard evidence establishing" a relationship between legal prostitution and human trafficking. Human rights advocates and community organizations have also raised concerns about the effects of Nordic model–style laws on sex workers’ safety, particularly in Canada. Critics argue that these dynamics can push sex work further underground, limiting opportunities to ensure safety or the ability to screen clients before an encounter. In an interview published by openDemocracy, SWAN Vancouver reported that migrant sex workers who attempt to report violence may "become the target of a prostitution or trafficking investigation" or be "arrested, detained and deported under immigration policy", and noted that Canada's 2014 client-criminalization framework "contributes to violence against sex workers and creates conditions in which unscrupulous individuals can target sex workers". Research cited by The Guardian similarly found that repressive policing makes sex workers "three times more likely to experience sexual or physical violence from a client" and reported that client criminalization has led sex workers in Canada to engage in rushed negotiations and work in more isolated conditions. The article also notes that countries such as France, Iceland, Northern Ireland, Norway, the Republic of Ireland, and Sweden have adopted similar laws targeting buyers. These countries' adoption of buyer criminalization illustrates how the Nordic model has circulated globally, with its impacts shaped by differing policing practices, immigration regimes, and social contexts. Legal challenge in France at the European Court of Human Rights A 2019 analysis by Le Bail, Giametta, and Rassouw of France's adoption of the Nordic model approach to prostitution found that "42 per cent of prostitutes were more exposed to violence and 38 per cent have found it increasingly difficult to make sure men use condoms." In response to this study Nordic Model Now, a British not-for-profit company describing itself as feminist, published a criticism of its methodology and conclusions. Meanwhile in 2019, a total of 261 migrant, queer, and women sex workers in France took the French government to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), saying that their fundamental human rights had been violated due to the adoption and enforcement of the new 2016 law, which Médecins du Monde stated had forced them to work in secluded, dangerous locations after the law criminalised their clients. As a result, more than ten sex workers in France had reportedly been murdered within half a year, some of them allegedly due to police brutality targeting the sex workers. On 31 August 2023, the ECtHR declared the complaint of the 261 sex workers against France's Nordic model law admissible for a hearing. == References ==