Nordic Prostitution Policy Reform

Eyebrows were raised and pointed questions were asked recently in Denmark when a local job center allowed an unemployed woman to receive four weeks of training at a Copenhagen brothel as part of labor market activation programs.

The woman located the training position herself, with the Slagelse job center subsequently signing off on the placement as part of her employment plan.  According to Hans E. Rasmussen, director of the Slagelse job center, the placement proceeded in accordance with existing guidelines:

We checked that the business was listed in the Central Business Register.  It is a completely legal establishment, and our business consultant contacted the firm by telephone and received confirmation that the citizen would receive instruction in body massage and zone therapy so that she would be able to apply for new employment opportunities.

Rasmussen stated that, as per guidelines, no one from the job center visited the business in question, Viva Massage, prior to giving the green light to the woman’s training placement.  In response to a question from a Politiken journalist as to whether any alarm bells went off when it became clear that the business advertised in the massage section of the tabloid Ekstra Bladet, Rasmussen stated that he wasn’t familiar with the advertisements, but that any number of things could be listed there.

A number of Danish politicians immediately seized upon the story, demanding an explanation from government ministers.  Red-Green Alliance MP, Line Barfod, questioned whether it could be regarded as reasonable to allow for the unemployed to be activated for job training in brothels, and also how such a decision could be seen as consistent with the government’s ‘general view’ of prostitution as a ‘social problem’.  Further developing her critique, Barfod noted:

You almost can’t believe this is true.  But this is, unfortunately, just the latest absurd example of the unemployed being sent to insane or pointless activation projects in the municipalities.  The problem is that the government only provides economic incentives for placing the unemployed in activation schemes, but it doesn’t make demands as to the quality (of those schemes).  It’s the government’s responsibility to tighten the rules so that the unemployed aren’t sent out to participate in anything that comes along.

Torben Hansen, employment spokesperson for the opposition Social Democrats labeled the decision as ‘completely absurd‘, maintaining that it was the responsibility of Slagelse job center to ensure that the activation plan for the woman could receive the stamp of approval in terms of quality.  Hansen stressed that current labor market activation programs allowed for what he derisively termed ‘find your inner tiger’ courses and that the system requires a substantial tightening up in terms of quality. Socialist People’s Party employment spokesperson Eigil Andersen stated that it ‘couldn’t be the case that the public (sector) approves of a woman increasing her level of qualifications at a brothel.’  Conservative MP and parliamentary labor market committee chair Helle Sjelle referred to the case as a ‘grotesque example of pointless activation’, and that she failed to see how ‘this form of activation could help the woman (get back onto the labor market).’

In response, the minister of employment, Liberal Inger Støjberg, voiced her agreement with those criticizing the decision of Slagelse job center, and also made it clear that she expected the city to correct the ‘error’ and to ensure that there would be no similar cases.  Helle Blak, the Social Democratic chair of Slagelse’s labor market and integration committee, expressed understanding for those who termed the case ‘grotesque’, emphasizing that it ‘underscores the necessity of ensuring that trade unions and municipalities work closely together to stop those firms that are swindling (public authorities in order to get) activation and salary grants.’

Undoubtedly, there are many, particularly in an international audience, that will regard this story as somewhat of a novelty, filing it alongside other anecdotes thought to confirm impressions of Scandinavians as decidedly liberal. However, NPPR finds the incident intriguing because of the arguments that were raised — as well as those that weren’t — in the subsequent debate.  If one confines an analysis solely to the remarks made by elected representatives at the national and municipal level, as reported in the Danish media, then it is clear that the chief focus of the discussions was on the degree to which labor market activation programs were being appropriately implemented.  While both Barfod and Andersen’s comments did include subtle references to ideas about gender equality, such claims were not the primary thrust of the overall criticism of Slagelse job center.  Rather, the decision to allow a woman to spend four weeks in job training at a brothel was highlighted as an extreme example of the need to conduct an overview of labor market policy measures intended to reduce unemployment.

The degree to which gender equality ideas, as well as related claims about a more gender-neutral victimhood, were absent from the debate over the decision taken by Slagelse job center becomes all the more apparent when one contrasts the remarks from politicians in the national media with those of interest groups and political party youth sections.  In conjunction with the announcement of a blockade of the Slagelse job center, the Zealand Region of the Danish Social Democratic Youth issued a press release that put ideas of gender equality at the heart of their critique:

We do not recognize prostitution as an occupation and believe that it represents the exploitation of weak women in society by some men who purchase sex.  The Slagelse job center has either behaved cynically and sent a woman into inhumane conditions, or it has also been unusually clumsy and committed an unforgivable mistake.

Similarly, the March 8th Initiative, a coalition of Danish organizations seeking to prohibit the purchase of sexual services, issued a press release noting that if ‘activation at brothels becomes a regular component of job plans (for the unemployed), then the next step will have to be that we send young girls to compulsory education internships to be prostitutes.’  Here, however, it is interesting to note that all other references in the press release to those who are, or could be, involved in the sex industry, were made in gender neutral terms that stressed a more generic victimhood:

Public authorities should not recognize prostitution — on the contrary — they should make an effort to help people obtain an existence without potential exploitation and serious injury to both body and mind.

…

The decriminalization of prostitution in 1999 was intended to lift the responsibility for prostitution off of the shoulders of the prostitutes, not so that the authorities could help the sex industry exploit even more people.

Thus, while we accept that the decision of Slagelse job center represents nothing more than an interesting anecdote to some, we also believe that it speaks very directly to the importance of ideas for prostitution policy debates, particularly when viewed in a comparative perspective.  The contrast between the Danish debate — in this instance — and that of Sweden, where prostitution is regarded by many as an expression of violence against women, is striking.  While the effects of the Swedish legislation would not allow for a comparable case to crop up in Sweden, it is nonetheless difficult to imagine that Swedish politicians would choose to discuss labor market activation schemes in brothels as solely being a policy problem wherein implementation had gone awry. Rather, given the salience of gender ideas for shaping Swedish prostitution policy, we would expect that claims based on those ideas would figure prominently in their rhetoric.  That such statements are not central to the Danish debate at this stage, and that prostitution is instead cast in terms of being ‘a social problem’ in Denmark, says a great deal about the comparative ability of gender equality ideas to be mobilized in order to shape prostitution policy debates.

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