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Client-Only Criminalization in the City of Stockholm: A Local Research on the Application of the “Swedish Model” of Prostitution Policy

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Abstract

The Swedish prostitution policy model aims at abolishing prostitution, the direct exchange of sexual services for money or other values, by penalizing only its demand. Offering sexual services is not punished by law. According to official sources, preventing prostitutes from earning by selling sexual services is a way of pressuring them into abandoning the trade, and it discourages trafficking in women. How is this policy model implemented at the local level? Seven years after the new law against clients came into force, a research in Stockholm contributes to mapping shifts in prostitution. It reports on the activities of social services and police efforts against clients and trafficking and discusses the evaluations made by other researchers on Swedish prostitution and trafficking laws, including the official evaluation (SOU 2010, 49).

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Notes

  1. I define prostitution policy as the public regulation of the direct exchange of sex for money. It may seem politically uncorrect to use the term “prostitution” instead of “sex work”, but the two terms are not synonymous with “prostitution”. The meaning of “sex work” is broader, as it includes all kind of commerce of sexual services, with or without direct contact between the sex worker and the client, while prostitution refers to situations where there is direct contact only.

  2. Riksdag (2011), May 12 (http://www.riksdagen.se/Webbnav/index.aspx?nid=101&bet=2010/11:101)

  3. “Prostitute” is a term that I am using for persons doing sex work describing laws that do not recognize sex work as such.

  4. The question was indeed worded emphasizing illegality, in a biased way towards a positive answer. Results are published in: “Ska det vara lagligt/olagligt att köpa sex i Sverige?” (10-10-2002) http://www.tns-sifo.se/rapporter-undersokningar/senaste-undersokningarna/2002/ska-det-vara-lagligtolagligt-att-koepa-sex-i-sverige.

    For a discussion of this and other, more recent surveys, see Dodillet and Östergren 2011, 17–18.

  5. The original reference should be Farley et al. (2003), with a controversial methodology (Weitzer 2005).

  6. Visible on the web in Ekberg and Wahlberg (2011): http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/node/895

  7. It happened only just another time in Sweden in 2011 (“Prostitution sting nets hundreds of suspects”, The Local, March 24, 2011 (http://www.thelocal.se/32794/20110324/). Dodillet S and Östergren P (2011, 16) have found the number of 1,251 reported crimes for 2011.

  8. Lindström, L. “Lagen tar inte lagen på allvar.” Expressen, June 18, 2005.

  9. Various article from my press review.

  10. TT.“Hittils längsta straffet för människohandel.” Dagens Nyheter, May 19, 2005.

  11. The two services mentioned (Prostitutionsgruppen and Socialtjänstens prostitutionsgrupp i Stockholm) have been combined in the Pros-centrum, the only centre active at the time of my visit, home to Prostitutionsenhet e Kast.

  12. It ceased to exist. Soon after it was replaced by The Rose Alliance.

  13. The original reference is Johansson, M., and P. Turesson. 2006. Slutrapport från projektet Nätprostitution. Prostitutionsenheten, Stockholms stad.

  14. Rydhagen, M. and H. Borströmm.“Mathias driver.” Expressen, July 5, 2002.

  15. The estimates prior to the change of policy pointed to a diminution in the eighties and then a rise in the nineties. Street prostitution was limited to 650 women, 2,500 should have been in the sex trade in general, with very little organization by third parties (SOU Statens offentliga utredningar 1995). This was a very small number in comparison to estimates for other countries (Danna 2000).

  16. The introduction in 2010 of the Palermo protocol definition of trafficking has probably changed this.

  17. Petterson, Mats. “Svenska torskar ökar norsk prostitution”. Expressen, March 10, 2004.

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  1. Dipartimento di studi sociali e politici, Facoltà di Scienze politiche, Università degli studi di Milano, via Conservatorio 7, 20122, Milan, Italy

    Daniela Danna

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Danna, D. Client-Only Criminalization in the City of Stockholm: A Local Research on the Application of the “Swedish Model” of Prostitution Policy. Sex Res Soc Policy 9, 80–93 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-011-0072-z

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