Victory for Survivors--Ireland passes the Nordic Model

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Victory for Survivors--Ireland passes the Nordic Model

Postby Heaven Swan » Wed Feb 15, 2017 9:08 pm

NEWS from CATW (Coalition Against Trafficking in Women)

International Human Rights Group Applauds Ireland for Law Targeting Buyers of Sex

Survivors of Prostitution and Sex Trafficking Lead Groundbreaking Campaign



New York, Feb. 15, 2017 - The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) commends the Republic of Ireland for the historic passage of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Bill, which decriminalizes prostituted people and penalizes the purchase of sex. After years of intense efforts, the bill passed Ireland's lower house, Dáil Éireann, on Feb. 7 and was approved in the upper house, Seanad Éireann, on Feb. 14.

The new Irish law will help efforts to end demand by holding sex buyers accountable and will also ensure that prostituted individuals and survivors can access comprehensive support services. In addition, it strengthens national laws against sexual grooming, child pornography and sexual harassment in the Republic of Ireland.

Rachel Moran, founder and executive director of SPACE International (Survivors of Prostitution-Abuse Calling for Enlightenment), was a key Irish abolitionist activist who advocated for the law as part of the Turn Off the Red Light campaign, a coalition of direct service providers, survivor-led groups, women's rights organizations, labor unions, medical providers and other groups in Ireland.

"It's been six years almost to the day since I first spoke publicly in Dublin about the harm and damage of prostitution and the need for our government to do something about it," said Moran, also the author of "Paid For: My Journey Through Prostitution." "With great relief, our government has formally responded to the Turn Off the Red Light campaign and voted overwhelmingly to criminalize the demand for paid sexual access to human beings. Ireland is now a hostile territory for pimps and traffickers, and a place where men can no longer legally use women's desperation to buy their way inside our bodies. This is a historic day that sends a message of hope."

The Republic of Ireland follows the example of Sweden, the first country to legally recognize prostitution as a form of violence and discrimination against women in 1999. Norway, Iceland, Canada (with exceptions), Northern Ireland and, most recently, France have also enacted demand-focused, abolitionist laws to combat the multi-billion dollar sex trade and its economic engine, sex trafficking. This legal framework is known as the Swedish or Nordic model.

In enacting the new law, the Irish government upholds its international obligations under the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (Palermo Protocol). Respectively, these international conventions call on state parties to enact national legislation and policies that address the exploitation of prostitution of others and the demand that fosters the sex trade and sex trafficking, among other human rights violations.

"Passage of the Irish law is a testament to the survivors of prostitution and sex trafficking who tell us with immense courage about the unspeakable horrors they've endured at the hands of sex buyers, traffickers and pimps," said Taina Bien-Aimé, executive director of CATW. "This victory belongs to them. Millions, mostly women and girls, continue to be exploited in the sex trade worldwide with unacceptable impunity, but today we applaud Ireland for honoring the tireless campaigners and for showcasing its vision of human rights and equality for all."


The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) is one of the oldest non-governmental organizations working to end human trafficking and the commercial sexual exploitation (CSE) of women and girls worldwide. CATW engages in advocacy, education and prevention programs, and services for victims of trafficking and CSE in Asia-Pacific, Africa, Europe and the Americas.
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Re: Victory for Survivors--Ireland passes the Nordic Model

Postby seemslikeadream » Thu Feb 16, 2017 11:38 pm

thanks for posting this Heaven Swan...I would have missed it
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Victory for Survivors--Ireland passes the Nordic Model

Postby Nordic » Fri Feb 17, 2017 2:43 am

I had to google "Nordic model"

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"He who wounds the ecosphere literally wounds God" -- Philip K. Dick
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Re: Victory for Survivors--Ireland passes the Nordic Model

Postby Heaven Swan » Fri Feb 17, 2017 8:56 am

C'mon England

https://rebeccamott.net
Posted on February 15, 2017 by rmott62

Yesterday I cried when I heard Ireland had got the Nordic Approach.

So England why are you still lagging behind?

I am tired of living in a country that makes invisible the slavery of the prostituted.

I am tired of living in a country that makes invisible that torture is happening in every place where prostitution is made normal.

Harm reduction is no answer, we cannot stop a genocide by placing bandages on the bleeding.

We must fight harder and with more energy for the Nordic Approach.

After all if Sweden, Norway, France, Canada, Northern Ireland and Ireland see the Nordic Approach as a logical approach – maybe we can stop burying our headers in the sand and think about real change.

I am sick of living in a culture that thinks prostitution is funny, that prostitution can made neat and tidy.

I am sick of the old refrain that prostitution has always been with us- there is no archaeological proof that is a fact.

But even if I thought there was some fragments of truth in that cliche – so what murder has always been with us, men have always raped women and children.

Do we just make they cultural choices to do nothing about murder, rape and child abuse when it occurs in the non-prostituted population?

Of course not – but we make all male violence to the prostituted invisible.

I refuse to accept that the country I happened to be born into be so chivalry about tossing away the human rights of the prostituted.

No, I want more from this country.

I want to see generations of English males to be in a culture where the concept of buying another human for sexual greed is seen as bizarre and an sickening act.

I want to live in a culture that knows prostitution can never be sex work.

A culture that knows that no amount of harm reduction will prevent punters from murdering, torturing, mentally abusing and serially raping the prostituted.

A culture that see that this male violence is no accident or sudden whim on a night out – it is pre-planned and often organised.

I am exhausted by the constant excuses made for punters.

They are not lonely or unable to chat up “real women.

It is not ok to service disabled men with women from another oppressed class.

Prostitution does nothing to prevent rape of the non-prostituted or domestic violence.

There is no such thing as underground prostitution, for it always available to punters to find, so follow their trail.

All punters are violent, for they paying for the right to own and fully control the prostituted.

He is paying to rape without consequences.

He is paying to make another human in sub-human sexual goods.

He is paying to torture or murder, knowing the sex trade will clean it all away.

No punter is innocent. No punter can dare to reframed himself as a victim.

All punters are serious criminals.

So the Nordic Approach is logical- c’mon England get your act together.
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Re: Victory for Survivors--Ireland passes the Nordic Model

Postby Searcher08 » Fri Feb 17, 2017 10:03 am

Rebecca Mott sounded mentally ill to me. I went to her website and... she described having mental health issues.
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Re: Victory for Survivors--Ireland passes the Nordic Model

Postby parel » Sat Feb 18, 2017 2:25 am

Searcher08 » Fri Feb 17, 2017 9:03 am wrote:Rebecca Mott sounded mentally ill to me. I went to her website and... she described having mental health issues.


she wants to criminalise consent by conflating consent with her own abuse. it's sad. it makes everyone feel uncomfortable. and it's misogyny. don't fall for the line that they aren't out to criminalise "the women". that is horseshit. they are not listening when sex workers say that the most dangerous place for a sex worker to be is in police custody. if I had one thing I could ever say to the fundamentalist feminists behind this move it would be: stop siKKKing the cops onto us.
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Re: Victory for Survivors--Ireland passes the Nordic Model

Postby parel » Sat Feb 18, 2017 2:42 am

Sex work in New Zealand - was decriminalisation a good idea?
14/12/2016
By Dick Wybrow


In New Zealand, we've got some of the most liberal prostitution laws in the world.

Sex work was decriminalised in 2003, but was it the right decision?

How it all began: Kororāreka, now known as Russell, was the first permanent European settlement. By the 1820s it became the biggest whaling port in the southern hemisphere.

And it was notorious for its brothels.

Whaling ships would come into the bay, where mainly young Māori women would trade sex for things like muskets, blankets and other supplies.

But European whalers brought venereal disease with them, and the firearms they sold led to the intertribal Musket Wars, which killed thousands of Māori.

As the century rolled on, arguments against prostitution focused on the spread of disease, and later, the "sins of promiscuity".

The first New Zealand laws to ban prostitution were passed in 1866, but that all changed in 2003 with the Prostitution Reform Act, which decriminalised sex work.

The law gave sex workers the same rights as any other worker in New Zealand.

Previously, if a client gave them trouble they had no recourse because they were breaking the law themselves. Now, if you get out of line with a sex worker, they can call the police and sort you out.

Our model is very different from the Swedish model, which still views paying for sex as a criminal activity, in an effort to stem sex trafficking.

However, the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective says getting sex work decriminalised and out of the shadows is the best way to prevent that.

So, who's right?

According to world bodies like the United Nations, World Health Organisation and Amnesty International we are. They point to New Zealand as a model that works.

Our system isn't perfect, but if the idea of decriminalising prostitution was to help better protect people in the sex industry, it looks like Aotearoa is accomplishing that.
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Re: Victory for Survivors--Ireland passes the Nordic Model

Postby parel » Sat Feb 18, 2017 2:47 am

The rules of the game: Did New Zealand get its prostitution laws right?
JEREMY OLDS

"People know [prostitution] is legal, but the subliminal message given all the time is: it's dirty, it's exploitation."

In 2003 New Zealand chose to decriminalise prostitution, but in Europe another model is increasingly favoured.

The secret diary of Bella, a call girl working in New Zealand, begins roughly a year ago, in London. She's in her early 20s, attractive, university-educated, working full-time in an ordinary day job. Her family is liberal, and sex isn't a taboo topic, but they are unaware sex work is on Bella's radar. Just as a sideline. The appeal is the money and the sexual thrill. She has absolutely no moral quandaries about prostitution.

Bella has friends who are sex workers, and through them hears stories of confrontations with police, brothel raids, workers too afraid of legal repercussions to report attacks. The UK's legal system is unkind to prostitutes. It's that fact, rather than the work itself, that makes the job off-limits.

"It had always crossed my mind, the industry, but I wouldn't do it," the 23-year-old says. "It was too dangerous, as far as I was concerned."


Then, a twist: Bella's day job requires her to move to New Zealand, and suddenly sex work becomes a realistic prospect. Bella researches the laws here and is impressed: If a client attacks her, she can file a police report. If she doesn't want to have sex with a client, she can say no, regardless of whether he's paid. "It just seemed like New Zealand had got it right," says Bella.

She is unsettled by the first agency she approaches: "The first thing he showed me when I walked in was a baseball bat behind the counter and was like, 'Don't worry, you'll always be safe here, ha ha.' I was like, what the f*** have I just walked into? The only questions he asked me were, 'How flexible are you?' and 'When can you start?' They didn't even ask me if I liked sex, if I had a drug habit, why I was there."

So she contacts another agency, one she saw on a documentary back home some years ago. Named Bon Ton, the brothel is run by women who charge higher rates than most outfits and screen every client. Bella starts working for them a short time later.

On a recent sunny Saturday afternoon, Bella lounges on a couch in the tiled office of Bon Ton founder Jennifer Souness. The two sip rosé. A large mood board with pinned images and buzzwords takes up one wall. Souness sits on a chair beside Bella, holding a book in her lap: Feminism Unfinished.


Bella knows sex work is risky. When she goes on call-outs to hotels, she gets a bit scared – "What if I meet the guy downstairs, go up and there's six guys there?" But Bella knows her rights, trusts her madam, and enjoys her work.

Smart, empowered, a feminist – Bella is the kind of worker that is thought to make up most of New Zealand's 3500 prostitute workforce. "I earn good money in my daytime job. I don't need to do this; I choose to do this," she says with confidence. "I think that's what scares people. They're like – 'You want to have sex with old men? Why would you possibly want to do that? You must be being forced.' No! I willingly want to f*** these men."

If you're to believe Bella, New Zealand is the best place in the world to be a prostitute. Many share her opinion – there are activists, researchers and workers who think our system, which gives prostitutes the same legal rights as any other worker, is the most effective at protecting women and regulating the industry.

They include Catherine Healy, national coordinator of the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective, who lobbied for decriminalisation. "I know that our system has been rigorously researched, not only domestic research but international research, too," she says. "Sex workers tell us that things are working really well."

No one's saying there aren't problems – there are stories of dodgy brothel owners, of underage workers, of drug and alcohol dependence among prostitutes. All these issues warrant serious attention, but by and large, says Healy, the system works.

Yet, around the world, a rather different system is gaining traction. Alternately called the 'Swedish model' or the 'Nordic model', it was first adopted in Sweden in 1999, and shifts the criminality from sex workers to their patrons, making it legal to work as a prostitute, but illegal to pay for sex with one.

"Sweden believes that prostitution is fundamentally degrading and dehumanising to women," says Michelle Goldberg, an American journalist who received a grant in 2014 to research the Nordic system. "Sweden is very upfront that gender equality is a goal of Swedish society, and that prostitution is incompatible with gender equality, and it's something they don't want to condone – even if it means curbing certain people's individual freedoms." The law is Sweden's way of saying prostitution is bad, but it won't criminalise sex workers.

The Nordic system is supported by the European Women's Lobby, an umbrella group of feminist organisations, and in February 2014, the European Parliament passed a resolution urging member countries to consider Swedish-style laws. The model has been adopted by Norway, Iceland, Canada and, last year, Northern Ireland, with other countries looking at it to inform their own laws.

The ultimate effect is the opposite to what we have created in New Zealand. While the Nordic system's goal is to stamp out prostitution, ours is to decriminalise and destigmatise it, to bring it out of sleazy, dangerous corners and into the regulated light of society. But if our system is as world-leading as its advocates would suggest, why is the rest of the world moving in the opposite direction?

***

Joep Rottier is a researcher from the Netherlands' Utrecht University, and knows quite a bit about prostitution legislation. Rottier has studied the laws of his home country (where sex work is legal), Sweden, and now he's in New Zealand, researching our system. He's afraid the approach Europe is taking to the sex industry is horribly wrong.

"I think the Nordic model isn't a realistic model," says Rottier. "The Swedish government tries to show that the number of clients has decreased." Indeed, since the law change, Sweden boasts that demand has dropped, the number of prostitutes is down, and those still working are paid more.

"What they don't mention is that it has decreased the visible sex industry. It isn't visible on the street, but underground it continues. It's a very negative feature of criminalisation of the clients – workers, escorts, go underground, and it makes them very vulnerable for exploitation. Comparing this with New Zealand, the illegal circuit isn't so big. It isn't necessary to go underground because it isn't criminalised
," says Rottier.

Then why is their system so popular? Part of the reason is that supporters of the Nordic model conflate prostitution with human trafficking, says Dr Ivana Radacic, a senior research associate from Croatia's Institut Ivo Pilar. Like Rottier, she is in New Zealand at present, studying our legislation. Her home country is currently considering adopting a system similar to Sweden.

Human trafficking is a huge problem in Europe, and a concern about legalising prostitution is that it will increase trafficking. A 2012 study on the subject, published in World Development, concluded: "We find that countries with legalized prostitution have a statistically significantly larger reported incidence of human trafficking inflows." But Rottier question the validity of the figures often touted.

And anyway, says Rottier, the issues are not one and the same – trafficking happens in all sorts of industries, not just prostitution. By lumping the two together, you perpetuate an idea that every prostitute is working against their will.

"You have to maintain a difference between voluntary sex work and trafficking," says Radacic. "There are ways to address exploitative work conditions without criminalising the industry. And even if you take the position 'Prostitution is bad', women need to be protected – how are you protecting them by criminalising what they do?"

***

It's been suggested that New Zealand's geographic isolation is the reason our model works – human trafficking isn't so prevalent here, because it's hard to sneak people across our borders. (Although there have been several reported cases since the law change.) Further, New Zealand law makes it illegal for migrant workers to work as prostitutes – a condition some say is discriminatory, but others believe prevents an influx of foreign women who could be exploited.

With all the fear and panic whipped up in Europe's discussion of prostitution laws, the voice of the prostitute has been lost in the hubbub, says Radacic. "There has been no effort to try to engage sex workers in the discussion on policy models," she says. Among the foremost critics of the Nordic model are sex workers themselves, who complain the law treats them as victims when they don't identify as such.

Bella wouldn't work under the Nordic system because it plays into the narrative that prostitution is immoral, which only stigmatises workers further. "You're still giving people the idea that what these girls are doing is bad. Prostitutes get attacked by men because they're seen as just property – 'The whole thing's dangerous and illegal and you're worth nothing.'"

Bella and Souness are still sipping rosé. The two contemplate whether our law changes have decreased the stigma attached to prostitution here, if sex work will ever be considered a normal job.

"People know it's legal but the subliminal message given all the time is: it's dirty, it's exploitation," says Souness.

Bella thinks attitudes are far better here than in the UK. Her friends in the sex industry back home can't fathom working in the system she does. "They're mesmerised. Every day they wake up scared to do their job. Whereas, I finish my other job, come to Bon Ton and I'm not scared. I'm happy, excited to go to work."

THE UK VIEW


Sex worker Bella believes the UK's prostitution laws are not fair to workers, and she's not alone.

In the documentary Prostitution: What's the harm?, British journalist and it-girl Billie JD Porter delves into the UK's sex industry, interviewing workers, clients, activists and policemen. Porter says she finds the laws around prostitution surprisingly complex. "New Zealanders will probably watch it and realise how lucky they are."

The take-home message is that legalising and regulating brothels would make the UK industry safer for all involved – though Porter doesn't think that will happen any time soon. "I don't think our current prime minister would make any changes to support the underdogs," she says.



The Queensland Government in Australia examined and rejected the Swedish Model -
http://www.traffickingpolicyresearchpro ... Sweden.pdf
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Re: Victory for Survivors--Ireland passes the Nordic Model

Postby Heaven Swan » Sat Feb 18, 2017 8:50 am

More propaganda from the sex industry.

Just like in all movements, we have our Uncle Toms, Oreo cookies and Kapo-like traitors who have joined into an alliance with our oppressors.

This is a puff piece in defense of the multi-billion dollar sex industry. Straight decriminalization is the absolute worst solution. The Nordic model decriminalizes the prostituted women (and men) and offers them support services such as job training, trauma therapy, etc should they wish to access them.

Will provide more info later or tomorrow.


parel » Sat Feb 18, 2017 2:42 am wrote:
Sex work in New Zealand - was decriminalisation a good idea?
14/12/2016
By Dick Wybrow


In New Zealand, we've got some of the most liberal prostitution laws in the world.

Sex work was decriminalised in 2003, but was it the right decision?

How it all began: Kororāreka, now known as Russell, was the first permanent European settlement. By the 1820s it became the biggest whaling port in the southern hemisphere.

And it was notorious for its brothels.

Whaling ships would come into the bay, where mainly young Māori women would trade sex for things like muskets, blankets and other supplies.

But European whalers brought venereal disease with them, and the firearms they sold led to the intertribal Musket Wars, which killed thousands of Māori.

As the century rolled on, arguments against prostitution focused on the spread of disease, and later, the "sins of promiscuity".

The first New Zealand laws to ban prostitution were passed in 1866, but that all changed in 2003 with the Prostitution Reform Act, which decriminalised sex work.

The law gave sex workers the same rights as any other worker in New Zealand.

Previously, if a client gave them trouble they had no recourse because they were breaking the law themselves. Now, if you get out of line with a sex worker, they can call the police and sort you out.

Our model is very different from the Swedish model, which still views paying for sex as a criminal activity, in an effort to stem sex trafficking.

However, the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective says getting sex work decriminalised and out of the shadows is the best way to prevent that.

So, who's right?

According to world bodies like the United Nations, World Health Organisation and Amnesty International we are. They point to New Zealand as a model that works.

Our system isn't perfect, but if the idea of decriminalising prostitution was to help better protect people in the sex industry, it looks like Aotearoa is accomplishing that.
"When IT reigns, I’m poor.” Mario
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Re: Victory for Survivors--Ireland passes the Nordic Model

Postby parel » Sat Feb 18, 2017 1:24 pm

Bro, we NOT part of the same movement.

We are the radicals. You are the fundamentalists.

You utilise State violence to proffer your ideology.

We are building our own movement and our own community development objectives that involves WOMEN helping each other. You never commented on our community development model by the way. Shows how much you care about so-called "survivors". Admit you don't give a shit about anyone working in the sex industry, whether coerced or otherwise.

Our movement is centred in non-white women. Read: centred, as opposed to "inclusive". Your ad hoc gathering of very damaged people offers nothing to anybody. Nothing but law and order initiatives. No support. No understanding. Only stigma and discrimination. Starting with your elastic definitions and conflating sex work with human trafficking (consent with lack of consent), cleverly merging the two when it works to your advantage.

You people are our mortal enemies. The enemies of poor women everywhere.

This is not a feminist approach. This is a carceral approach. You have no plan. No strategy to overcome the patriarchy. Only State violence.

A racist one at that.
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Re: Victory for Survivors--Ireland passes the Nordic Model

Postby parel » Sat Feb 18, 2017 1:54 pm

I'm posting this statement by GAATW who take a more nuanced approach to the human trafficking/sex work question than the lunatics at CATW.
GAATW did not always hold this position. Their own research brought them to this conclusion and guess what - they are working with sex workers to combat trafficking in the sex industry. This happened at the point at which they disaggregated sex work from trafficking. They are LISTENING to the women, men and transgenders working in the industry. The people at the front lines. Wow how sensible right?

Posting purely for counter-propaganda purposes.

The need for a critical approach to ‘demand’ discourses in
work to end human trafficking


The Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) is a global network of more
than 100 non-governmental organisations from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the
Caribbean, and North America.

We thank the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons for her report looking into the
integration of a human rights-based approach in measures to discourage the demand that
fosters all forms of exploitation of persons and which leads to human trafficking. Based on
research for our report, Moving Beyond ‘Supply and Demand’ Catchphrases: Assessing the
uses and limitations of demand-based approaches in anti-trafficking, we recognise the
challenge in discussing ‘demand’, which is still an oft-mentioned but under-theorised
concept in anti-trafficking.
1

It is good to see the growing focus on the demand for exploitative labour practices,
particularly in globalised supply chains. This is a complex, multi-faceted issue and
demands a sophisticated and precise analysis in order to effectively counter exploitative
labour practices. We welcome the Special Rapporteur illuminating some of these
complexities and feel this presents a more promising direction on ‘demand’ than the
traditional debates around ending the demand for sex work that have typically been central
to anti-trafficking debates.

We particularly welcome the distinction made by the Special Rapporteur between the sex
work sector and exploitative labour practices within the sex work sector. Anti-trafficking
discussions on demand have historically been stymied by anti-prostitution efforts to
eradicate the sex work sector by criminalising clients, despite protests from sex workers
rights groups and growing evidence that such approaches do not work.
2

The Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women appreciates the Special Rapporteur’s
recognition of the role of trafficked persons and affected groups in anti-trafficking efforts,
including efforts to reduce the demand for exploitative labour practices. We would urge the
Special Rapporteur also to recognise the work of sex workers rights groups in addressing
demand. These have included efforts to reduce the demand for unprotected paid sex3
,

1
GAATW, Moving Beyond ‘Supply and Demand’ Catchphrases: Assessing the uses and limitations of
demand-based approaches in anti-trafficking (2011), available at
http://www.gaatw.org/publications/Movin ... TW2011.pdf
2
See for example, Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, Sex Work Law Reform in Canada:
Considering problems with the Nordic model, Briefing Paper, January 2013; Dodillet, S. and
Östergren, P. The Swedish Sex Purchase Act: Claimed Success and Documented Effects, Conference
paper presented at the International Workshop: Decriminalizing Prostitution and Beyond: Practical
Experiences and Challenges. The Hague, March 3 and 4, 2011, available at:
http://www.petraostergren.com/upl/files/54259.pdf ; FIRST, Swedish Model a Failure, 2010,
available at: http://www.firstadvocates.org/swedish-m ... ex-workers
; Östergren, P. (n.d.) Sex workers Critique of Swedish Prostitution Policy,
available at: http://www.petraostergren.com/content/view/44/38/; Thing, S., Jakobsson, P., and
Renland, A. When Purchase of Sex is a Crime: About New Legal Measure and its Impact on Harm
Reduction Among Sex Workers in Sweden and Norway. Presented at International Harm Reduction
Association’s 22nd International Conference, 3-7 April 2011, Beirut, Lebanon, available at:
http://myweb.dal.ca/mgoodyea/Documents/ ... 20of%20sex
%20is%20a%20crime.%20IHRA%202011.doc
3
See The Report of the UNAIDS Advisory Group on HIV and Sex Work, December 2011:
http://www.uknswp.org/wp-content/upload ... ec2011.pdf
A/HRC/23/NGO/29
3
increasing awareness about sex workers’ rights among clients4
, and critiquing ‘end demand
for prostitution’ efforts.5
Given that sex workers are negatively impacted by anti-trafficking
measures and given their growing body of work on these harms,6
it is critical that any
efforts regarding demand for sex work include sex workers rights groups in order to avoid
the ‘unintended negative consequences’ identified by the Special Rapporteur.7
The Special Rapporteur notes that international bodies have called for more research on the
dimensions of demand that impact on the rights of trafficked persons, migrants and other
affected groups. We would suggest that future research on demand examine the impact of
demand-based approaches that criminalise sex workers’ clients (such as the Swedish
model) and the effect of this on anti-trafficking efforts. The Special Rapporteur notes that a
number of States have criminalised sex workers’ clients in an effort to address demand.
However, there is a growing body of research that supports sex workers’ argument that the
criminalisation of clients has not reduced trafficking or sex work, but has increased sex
workers’ vulnerability to violence, harmed HIV responses, and infringed on sex workers’
rights.8
The Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women agree that debates about demand need to be
grounded in evidence in order to move beyond simplistic ‘supply and demand’ analogies.
An example of this includes critically analysing the manufactured media hype about the

4
For example, Living in Community, Tools for Customers: http://livingincommunity.ca/toolkit/toolsfor-customers;
Chez Stella, Dear Client: http://library.catie.ca/PDF/P42/22575.pdf ; Prostitution
without compulsion or violence, Rules for Punters (including guidelines for identifying forced
prostitution): http://www.verantwortlicherfreier.ch/en/index.html ; British Columbia Coalition of
Experiential Communities’ (BCCEC) For Our Clients:
http://tradesecretsguide.blogspot.com/s ... %20Clients
5
For example, Casella, E. & Martinetti, I. (2007). Critique of Focus on Demand in the Context of
Trafficking in Persons: A Position Paper of the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center. New
York: Urban Justice, available at: http://www.sexworkersproject.org/mediat ... emand.pdf;
Best Practices Policy Project, Initiatives to
“end demand” for prostitution harm women and undermine good programs, available at:
http://www.bestpracticespolicy.org/subpage11.html ; Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP-USA).
(n.d.). Analysis of “End Demand” Initiatives, available at:
http://www.swopusa.org/en/enddemand.php ; Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center. (n.d.).
What is “Demand” in the Context of Trafficking in Persons? Available at:
http://www.sexworkersproject.org/downlo ... Demand.pdf ; Urban Justice
Center Working Group on Sex Work and Human Rights. (n.d.). The truth about demand. Media
Toolkit, available at: http://www.sexworkersproject.org/media- ... nloads/07-
TruthAboutDemand.pdf ; Walker, S. (1999). The John School: A diversion from what’s needed. In N.
Lopez (Ed.), Some Mother’s Daughter: The Hidden Movement of Prostitute Women Against
Violence (165-168). London: Crossroads Books.
6
GAATW, Collateral Damage: The Impact of Anti-Trafficking Measures on Human Rights around the
World (2007), available at
http://www.gaatw.org/Collateral%20Damag ... final.pdf; Empower
Foundation, Hit and Run: The impact of anti-trafficking policy and practice on Sex Workers' Human
Rights in Thailand (2012), available at http://www.empowerfoundation.org/index_en.html
7
Report of the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children, to the 23rd
session of the UN Human Rights Council, A/HRC/23/48, 18 March 2013, paras.72-75.
8
See GAATW, Moving Beyond ‘Supply and Demand’ Catchphrases; Godwin, J. 2012. Sex Work and
the Law in Asia and the Pacific: Laws, HIV and human rights in the context of sex work. UNAIDS,
UNFPA, UNDP, available at http://www.snap-undp.org/elibrary/Publi ... px?ID=699; Global
Commission on HIV and the Law. 2012. Risks, Rights & Health, available at
http://www.hivlawcommission.org/index.php/report; Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right of
everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, Anand
Grover, A/HRC/14/20, 27 April 2010.
A/HRC/23/NGO/29
4
role of international sporting events in creating a demand for trafficked women and
children, which the Special Rapporteur refers to in her report.9
This always garners a lot of
attention by media and anti-prostitution groups, but there is no evidence that international
sporting events create a demand in trafficking for the purposes of prostitution.10
To reduce the demand for exploitable migrant labour and all forms of forced labour, the
Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women urge States to:
• Enforce labour standards, improve working conditions, and allow workers to
organise;
• Ensure coherence between immigration policies and labour market needs – increase
access to fair and legal migration channels for working class migrant workers;
• Fight discrimination against migrants and women, including by giving trafficked
persons and undocumented workers the opportunity to regularise their migration
status and access labour and education markets;
• Consider the potential of decriminalising sex work and practices around it,as a
strategy to reduce the opportunities for exploitative labour practices in the sex
sector.11


file:///Users/Tracey/Downloads/GAATWStatement_05.2013.pdf
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Re: Victory for Survivors--Ireland passes the Nordic Model

Postby Cordelia » Sat Feb 18, 2017 3:44 pm

The Nordic model decriminalizes the prostituted women (and men) and offers them support services such as job training, trauma therapy, etc should they wish to access them.


So my understanding is that under the Nordic Model, selling sex is legal; buying is illegal. A prostitute's customers will be arrested and prosecuted whereas the prostitute will be remodeled supported.

Which makes no sense to me because sex is a basic human function/need and the sale of sex will never go away. Yes, make prostitution legal, safe, reduce harm and offer alternatives to whoever seeks alternatives. (If one seeking support is an addict, their addiction is treated, not their profession, whatever that profession is.)

'Fixing' and punishing people who don't want/need fixing or punishing people for seeking sex doesn't work (nor should it); working with people at their level of need/desire makes far more sense imo.
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Re: Victory for Survivors--Ireland passes the Nordic Model

Postby Heaven Swan » Sun Feb 19, 2017 9:04 am

https://nordicmodelnow.org/what-is-the-nordic-model/

What is the Nordic Model?

The Nordic Model approach to prostitution (also known as the Sex Buyer Law) decriminalises all those who are prostituted, provides support services to help them exit, and makes buying people for sex a criminal offence, in order to reduce the demand that drives sex trafficking.
How did this approach come about?

The Nordic Model was pioneered in Sweden after extensive research. One of the researchers was Cecilie Høigård. Here she describes what happened (translated by Daisy Elizabeth Sjursø and edited slightly for length):

“We spent several years doing fieldwork and we developed close relationships with the prostituted women. We heard about their experiences of past abuse, extreme poverty and violence. We were prepared for these stories, because of our previous studies on outcasts and marginalized people. But what the women told us of their concrete experiences of prostitution was unexpected and shocking.

They told us what it was like to use their bodies and vaginas as rental apartments for unknown men to invade, and how this made it necessary to separate their body from their self: ‘Me and my body are two separate parts. It is not me, my feelings or my soul he fucks. I am not for sale.’

The women had numerous strategies to maintain this separation. To be agents in their own lives they showed great ingenuity and vigour within the little space for manoeuvre they had. However, over time it became more difficult for them to maintain the separation between their body and self. After the punter was done, it became increasingly difficult to bring the self back. Eventually the women came to feel worthless, dirty and disgusting.

These stories were very similar to accounts we’d heard from victims of other sexual violence, such as incest, rape and domestic violence.

The research group disagreed about many things, but we shared the same feelings of despair about the women’s pain and the punters’ lack of understanding of the consequences of their actions.

Then the idea of one-sided criminalisation of the punter struck me like lightning. The idea increased my heart rate, and gave me a sense of everything falling into place.

There was huge opposition to the proposal at first but after some years opponents in the working group changed their point of view.

The debate that followed served as a large-scale educational campaign. In Sweden, the attitudes towards the law changed rapidly in a positive direction, and the proportion of Swedish men buying women’s bodies has decreased.”

continues here-

https://nordicmodelnow.org/what-is-the-nordic-model/
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Re: Victory for Survivors--Ireland passes the Nordic Model

Postby American Dream » Thu Feb 23, 2017 11:04 am

http://salvage.zone/in-print/marxism-for-whores/

Marxism for Whores

by Magpie Corvid


My story is the same as many thousands of people who have found themselves unable to find steady, decently paid work. Our story is about austerity; we are everywhere, subsisting on meagre benefits, part-time work and a few occasional jobs. Some of us go into business for ourselves; some of us make websites; some of us fix cars, and some of us do sex work.

I entered sex work, along with so many other people, as a straightforward solution to the awful risks of poverty. I am not a sex worker because of a poignant story. I am not a sex worker because I am mentally ill, or have a history of abuse, or have daddy issues, or because I want attention. It is sometimes wonderful and sometimes difficult, and it’s not a job for everyone, but sex work is my job. It is a job that I can do, that I am good at; it provides for me. When I sell my sexuality as a product, the only difference between me and another service worker, or another performer, is in the sexual nature of the work. Of course, sexual labour can be intense, and dangerous, and of course making it illegal does nothing to alleviate these factors. Activist Jenny Pearl, of the English Collective of Prostitutes, said;

I go out to work now because of economic pressures. Benefits don’t cover the cost of gas, electric, water rates, replacing household equipment. I can’t live on benefits long term. When I have to buy coats or shoes I can’t afford them. Most of the other girls or women that I meet on the street are there for very similar reasons, purely to keep their families together, their children out of care. It gives them a little bit of control about when to have the heating on or not, instead of having to stay in bed with the covers on to stay warm. They go out for an hour and make enough money to pay a bill. Sometimes that is the only control, the only choice we have in our lives. We can stay in bed, live in squalor, survive on bread and jam, but personally I feel I deserve more and so does my daughter. So I choose to go on the street and earn some money because I want a better life. What I do is not dishonest. It is hard work. I wouldn’t do it if I had a choice. But now that I have a criminal record for soliciting, it is the only job I can do that enables me to earn some money without neglecting my daughter. Because of my daughter’s disability, when I go out I have to earn £60 just to cover sitting costs even though she is twenty-five, before I get the money to pay the bills.


Image

I was not born into poverty; I was raised in a middle class family, and aimed by my parents like a rocket at the American Dream. But before I became a sex worker, I was broke, with a precarious hold on food and rent. Two years into sex work, I am living a decent life, in a wonderful marriage as a financial equal with my husband, and I am able to save up for a mortgage while having enough time to devote to writing and politics. So why, when it looks like, superficially, I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps, like a stocking-wearing Horatio Alger with a crop, am I a Marxist?

I am a Marxist because the Whore Imagined – the cheater, the deceiver, the trafficked, the downtrodden, the insane, the streetwalker, the courtesan, the dominatrix – is used as a tool to keep women in line, and under the thumb of patriarchal control. It is no wonder that the hegemonic, corporate feminism, the feminism of the Angelina Jolies and the Sheryl Sandbergs of this world, so champions the rescue industry; that statistics-fabricating, lie-telling machine that conflates voluntary sex work with sex trafficking. If the corporate feminists would liberate women, why not start with the undocumented migrant workers of America? Why not start with those suffering appalling conditions legally, without the right to change employer, under the tied visa system in the UK? They will not, because they still want the marginalised and controlled cleaning their boardrooms, plucking their chickens and watching their children. But not as whores; never as whores.

The feminism of the rescue industry is a carceral feminism, one that strengthens the state, one that ‘rescues’ with arrests. The new raft of anti sex work laws and police tactics attack the screening tools of sex workers, like our advertisements online and identity verification tools, making all of us less safe under the aegis of stopping sex trafficking. The Stop Advertising Victims of Exploitation (SAVE) Act in the United States and the accompanying series of high-profile raids against internet-based sex workers, Canada’s Bill C-36, which restricts advertising and criminalises clients, along with the adoption of laws criminalising clients across Europe mean that sex workers are thrown into jail more often, and our work is more difficult, and increasingly dangerous.

Those in the very elite of the feminist movement – women like Gloria Steinem and Germaine Greer – are championing this work as noble rescue. They are captivated by the Whore Imagined and ignore the reality of sex workers. The police conducting periodic raids in Soho find many sex workers, but seldom those who have been trafficked, instead labelling sex workers working together traffickers and pimps. As new regimes settle in, in countries where clients are criminalised, work gets scarce, screening becomes more difficult and those who are truly on the margins of the sex work scene, where coercion might well be taking place, retreat even further into the shadows. It is because I am committed to solutions that address the plight of those who are indeed coerced into sex work, and am not willing to accept a superficial approach that merely pushes coercion offstage, I am a Marxist.

I am a Marxist because I know that women are expected to become avatars of male sexual desire, but that if a woman sells her skills and appeal, tunes them, hones them and sees her work as a challenge, then all of her art, drive and ingenuity is reduced to the sale of her body. And I am a Marxist because we all sell our bodies, our time and our will to our bosses, our families, our countries, our religions, our lovers and our friends, but it is the Whore Imagined who allows us to distance ourselves from all the countless ways that we whore ourselves. When we see them, the whores, lined up and filmed after a raid, exposed on television, we do not see the real sex workers – disrupted, outed, deprived of work, jailed, hounded, deported – we see the skirts and the heels. We do not see the ambition to cross an ocean or the drive to provide for a family.

Image

People all over the world, mostly women, often mothers, become sex workers, often to support their families. If a radical feminist says to me that my work is an abomination, I say to her that all work is an abomination, and invite her to step down off her pedestal. Here on the ground, women clean fish, and toilets, and the bottoms of the disabled and elderly. And some of us do sex work. I stand with her against the coercion, degradation, and fear that is undeniably present in some parts of sex work, but if she wishes to end it, let her stand with me against austerity, and the indignity of so much of the labour of women. Let her stand with me for decriminalisation. The abolitionists offer the most harrowing stories of women kidnapped, tricked and drugged into sexual slavery, and posit themselves as the inheritors of the tradition of Wilberforce, but without a critique of capitalism, the coercive force of the market, we cannot end any form of slavery, which, of course, never truly ended at all.

I am a Marxist because I understand that the taboo, the marginalisation and the othering of sexual labour is not intrinsic, like the mass of a thrown rock. My work exists because of patriarchy, and many feminists feel that the abolition of my work would be a boon for women everywhere. But it is a misguided feminism that would jail and terrorise sex workers, and would sacrifice our safety, freedom and livelihoods for the empty trophy of a raided brothel. The carceral ‘feminism’ of the elites has no problem with raiding a brothel and forcing its occupants into a sweatshop to sew. But a socialist, intersectional feminism must listen to the voices of sex workers, rather than ignoring them and treating them as symbols. While American courts divert sex workers into faith-based programs, sex workers themselves organise to share safety and screening information. Surely we could do even more to improve our working conditions if police and society stopped targetting us.

I acknowledge that my work is privileged relative to that of many other sex workers. But as a Marxist I understand that if they are not free, to choose – or to not choose – sex work and to organise for better working conditions, than neither am I; and the ultimate freedom and safety of sex workers lies in our work being viewed as work. Millions upon millions of workers all over the world, the overwhelming majority of whom are not sex workers, work in appalling conditions under a greater or lesser degree of coercion. There are, in fact, many millions of actual slaves – more than there have ever been – and the vast majority work in trades other than sex work. The Whore Imagined is often a standard bearer for campaigns against modern slavery, but the solution to modern slavery, even that part of it that does involve sex workers, is not – as the rescue industry would claim – to criminalise the sale or purchase of sexual services. The solution may be a number of things, all of which would be wholly unacceptable to a mainstream government. What would end the scourge of modern slavery? For a start, a radical re-thinking of borders and migration, so that those who migrate for work have all of the rights and services that citizens have. Add to that a dramatic increase in the powers of trade unions and the full decriminalisation of sex work, without the restrictive legalisation of places such as Germany, which has merely subjected sex workers to the oppressive regimes of massive brothels. And a fundamental part of the solution would be a sustained effort to end poverty, starting with a guaranteed minimum income.

I hold out little hope that the traditional Left – in all its forms, from the Labour Party to anarchism – will wholeheartedly embrace the movement for sex worker rights any time soon. There are many leading voices in the sex worker rights movement who distrust feminism and anything that smacks of the state, and they are well advised to be wary; the Whore Imagined has made too powerful an imprint on the consciousness of the Left, and on its notions of its intellectual history. Dworkin invoked her when she said,

Prostitution in and of itself is an abuse of a woman’s body. Those of us who say this are accused of being simple-minded. But prostitution is very simple … In prostitution, no woman stays whole. It is impossible to use a human body in the way women’s bodies are used in prostitution and to have a whole human being at the end of it, or in the middle of it, or close to the beginning of it. It’s impossible. And no woman gets whole again later, after.


And even those feminists who claimed to be more sympathetic to Marxism, like Gayle Rubin and Catherine Mackinnon, essentially wrote out class, condensing it into a mere attribute, rather than a dynamic relationship within society. As Brooke Beloso said in her 2012 paper, ‘Sex, Work, and the Feminist Erasure of Class’,

Absent Marx’s conceptualization of class as a dynamic relation under capitalism, feminists writing about sex work in the wake of MacKinnon and Rubin generally fail to distinguish between woman-as-laborer and sex as “the particular product of individual labor”. Instead, feminists tend to conflate the two, everywhere seeing prostitutes as victims who always happen to be women (or girls) but never workers.


Although there were many close alliances between the sex worker rights movement and the mainstream feminist movement during the early days of second wave feminism, the later predominance of essentialising ideas about sex work within radical feminism has broken that alliance. Today’s sex worker rights campaigners often use the language of intersectional feminism and privilege theory, and make their case in terms of social and economic justice, but, even in this recent year of feminism, the ideas of leading voices like Melissa Gira Grant have remained outside the mainstream. Similarly, even as people campaign against austerity, the issue of sex worker rights has remained on the outer margins.

The fierce, anarchic blessing of our age is the Internet, and through it, sex workers have the capacity to relate to the public without the mediation of activists, scholars or political parties. New York City’s Red Umbrella Project recently made international headlines when it conducted a study of Brooklyn courts’ diversion program for prostitution arrests; instead of jail it offered mandatory classes, from life skills to yoga. RedUP activists attended court proceedings, monitoring and analysing them, and determined they were racist and persistently marginalising of defendants. With their results they engaged directly in politics, taking for themselves the long privileged role of researcher.

In the UK, sex workers have taken politics by storm, decisively routing November’s attempt by abolitionists to slip the criminalisation of clients into the Modern Slavery Bill. The English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP), which spearheaded that effort, is pressing its advantage with a simple pledge in support of the full decriminalisation of sex work. They have long had a focus on the relationship between poverty and sex work, particularly for single mothers, and they hope that their campaign, aimed at trade unions, will make visible the broad support for decriminalisation, and will force a difficult but necessary debate. They’re already seeing some results; in his personal capacity, Austin Harney, Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) representative to the Ministry of Justice, told the ECP:

It should never be in the interests of any Trade Union to allow the lives of sex workers to be endangered, especially as they are entitled to pay, terms and conditions in line with the human rights of all employees. Criminalising clients will, only, exacerbate the limited safety of sex workers who could face life threatening attacks in the criminal underworld and be subjected to false arrests by the police who are supposed to protect the innocent. Sex Workers are of no threat to society and should be welcomed to stand in solidarity with all communities that are facing destruction in an age of austerity!


Meanwhile, much of the Left’s been left behind. While the Green Party, the Liberal Democrats, and even some elements of the Labour Party have moved forward on the issue of sex worker rights, alliances like Left Unity and individual revolutionary groups are still debating whether sex work is work or not. By lending credence to outmoded ideas about the essential awfulness of sex work, they strengthen conservative moral panics and contribute to the marginalisation of sex workers as well as ignoring the voices of some of the people most affected by austerity. The Left hopes to take inspiration from the unprecedented victory of Greece’s SYRIZA, and their successful election strategy of drawing connections between different types of marginalisation. But even SYRIZA has shown itself willing to backtrack on issues such as LGBT rights; while it has promised to open up civil partnerships, it backtracked on the issue of adoption by LGBT people. It remains to be seen whether Syriza will backtrack similarly on sex worker rights. That the British Left largely ignore or dismiss sex worker rights is a missed opportunity, but that ignorance will not stop us from making the connections ourselves. It is my belief that sex workers can rebuild the Whore Imagined in our true image, without the guidance of any sage or party.

Since I walked away from the organised Left, I have never done so much politics. Sex workers, and many others, are finding that we can build real world community, and effective campaigns, through the ferment of social media. Supporters of Monica Jones, a black trans woman who was arrested for ‘manifesting prostitution’ in 2013, built an international campaign that incisively exposed the intersections of race, class, trans identity and sex work. When the charges were overturned on appeal, her campaign victory had left a strong and organic network in its wake, with a politics and a feminism that is decidedly radical, with a robust critique of austerity. The brilliant upsurge of sex worker resistance to the laws and moralities that would criminalise us is a part of a broader resistance to austerity, but it remains to be seen whether the global movement against austerity will acknowledge sex workers as full comrades in that struggle. I am a part of both worlds, both movements, but in my hope that feminism and the organised Left will let go of the Whore Imagined and embrace the struggle for sex worker rights, I am a Marxist.
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Re: Victory for Survivors--Ireland passes the Nordic Model

Postby Project Willow » Thu Feb 23, 2017 5:57 pm

Thanks for posting this.

There is a lot of confusion over the concept of consent. Consenting to practicing non-consent is not consent, and it has demonstrable deleterious effects, including profound dissociation, as outlined in this article.

I am normally against prohibition approaches, but in this case, we're talking about a central battle in the war between the sexes, one that involves mate selection, the continually evolving process and balance of which is essential to the survival of the species. Women must be able to exercise ultimate choice in mate selection, but patriarchy implements structures and practices that directly challenge or negate female choice, including child sexual abuse, sex slavery, child marriage, arranged marriage, and FGM. I do not support any culture or system that enshrines male entitlement to sex or access to women's bodies, which is what legalization of prostitution does. Outside of extremely limited scenarios, the practice undermines the power and emotional well being of all women.

Heaven Swan » 19 Feb 2017 05:04 wrote:https://nordicmodelnow.org/what-is-the-nordic-model/

What is the Nordic Model?

The Nordic Model approach to prostitution (also known as the Sex Buyer Law) decriminalises all those who are prostituted, provides support services to help them exit, and makes buying people for sex a criminal offence, in order to reduce the demand that drives sex trafficking.
How did this approach come about?

The Nordic Model was pioneered in Sweden after extensive research. One of the researchers was Cecilie Høigård. Here she describes what happened (translated by Daisy Elizabeth Sjursø and edited slightly for length):

“We spent several years doing fieldwork and we developed close relationships with the prostituted women. We heard about their experiences of past abuse, extreme poverty and violence. We were prepared for these stories, because of our previous studies on outcasts and marginalized people. But what the women told us of their concrete experiences of prostitution was unexpected and shocking.

They told us what it was like to use their bodies and vaginas as rental apartments for unknown men to invade, and how this made it necessary to separate their body from their self: ‘Me and my body are two separate parts. It is not me, my feelings or my soul he fucks. I am not for sale.’

The women had numerous strategies to maintain this separation. To be agents in their own lives they showed great ingenuity and vigour within the little space for manoeuvre they had. However, over time it became more difficult for them to maintain the separation between their body and self. After the punter was done, it became increasingly difficult to bring the self back. Eventually the women came to feel worthless, dirty and disgusting.

These stories were very similar to accounts we’d heard from victims of other sexual violence, such as incest, rape and domestic violence.

The research group disagreed about many things, but we shared the same feelings of despair about the women’s pain and the punters’ lack of understanding of the consequences of their actions.

Then the idea of one-sided criminalisation of the punter struck me like lightning. The idea increased my heart rate, and gave me a sense of everything falling into place.

There was huge opposition to the proposal at first but after some years opponents in the working group changed their point of view.

The debate that followed served as a large-scale educational campaign. In Sweden, the attitudes towards the law changed rapidly in a positive direction, and the proportion of Swedish men buying women’s bodies has decreased.”

continues here-

https://nordicmodelnow.org/what-is-the-nordic-model/
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