As the second country in the world to ban the purchase of sexual services, Norway stands out as a key case in NPPR’s comparative analysis, not least because of the sudden shift in policy. In late 2004, for instance, a Justice Department Working Group on Legal Regulation of Purchase of Sexual Services advised against criminalising the purchase of sexual services.

Yet, only a few years later, proponents of the ban had achieved the necessary parliamentary majority for criminalisation, the tipping point being the Labour Party congress in April 2007. Two years earlier, the congress had turned down criminalisation. This year, too, party leadership argued against the proposal, suggesting instead to give government more time to consider the issue. Among those who entered the podium during the debate were party heavy-weights such as Knut Storberget (Minister of Justice), Dag Terje Andersen (Minister of Industry), Helga Pedersen (Minister of Fisheries and vice party chairman) as well as Anniken Huitfeldt, leader of the women’s network, who all endorsed postponing the decision.

Eventually, though, 184 out of 300 delegates voted in favour of criminalisation. Press reported it as a victory for the youth wing, influential regional branches of the party, including Oslo AP, and certain members of parliament, who managed to win the support of the congress. As the Labour Party’s coalition partners, the Socialist Left Party and the Centre Party, already favoured criminalisation (as did the Christian Democratic party), a broad majority now supported criminalisation. A year later, in April 2008, Storberget presented the bill (Ot. prp. 48 [2007-2008]) which resulted in a sex purchase ban taking effect on 1 January, 2009.

Hence, recent prostitution policy in Norway represents an intriguing shift: How did proponents of criminalisation manage to turn the tide? While there are a number of studies which address, broadly, the shifts in Norwegian prostitution policy over the past decade, few studies of Norwegian prostitution policy have reached English-language academic publications. Most existing studies are written in Norwegian, aimed for a national public debate or commissioned by official or semi-official inquiries, and hence rarely seek a structured explanation of prostitution policy reform.

Casting the net widely, however, we can discern three types of resources to draw upon in the literature, focusing on discourse, agents and regulations, respectively.

• Discourse: One type of studies focus on how prostitution, prostitutes and clients are represented in media discourse and, as a sub-theme, how academic research feeds into those debates.
  • Prominent examples of such studies include Dag Stenvoll’s critical discourse analysis of how Norwegian newspapers construed Russian women in prostitution in rural northern Norway in the 1990s, identifying recurring themes connecting prostitution to organised crime, contagious diseases, moral hazard, social stigma and an outside threat to an established social order.¹ Stenvoll has also written on the representation of clients in media, popular culture and politics.²
  • Similarly, Synnøve Økland Jahnsen analyses how Norwegian newspapers covered Nigerian women in prostitution in Norway in the mid ’00s, arguing that media narratives revolve around three conflicts: the ‘Norwegian prostitution market’, emphasising competition between women of different ethnic origins offering sexual services; the ‘Norwegian lines of tolerance and decency’, describing a conflict between prostitutes and ‘regular citizens’ in the use of public space; and ‘a global sex market’, which emphasises unequal relations between women and men and between Norway and Nigeria. Nigerian women in prostitution are portrayed, paradoxically, as both illegal aliens exploiting Norwegian men and victims of cynical networks of transborder crime.³
  • May-Len Skilbrei, too, discusses how recent public debates, both nationally and locally, have dealt with the phenomenon of Nigerian prostitutes in the streets of Oslo. Skilbrei notes that while traditional discourses victimise prostituted women, the terms of debate shifted in these years, casting “regular Norwegian men” as victims of aggressive marketing of sexual services, while the Nigerian women were singled out and blamed for pushing their trade in the wrong place (the Karl Johan Street) and in the wrong way (too aggressively). In effect, prostitution by Norwegian women was either construed as more orderly and less disturbing, or simply neglected.⁴
• Agents: A second type of studies addresses, instead, the agents engaged in prostitution policy making, such as women’s movements and sex workers’ organisations. Often, such studies are written with from the partisan perspective of a particular movement. This type includes Agnete Strøm’s recent historical account of the Women’s Front and its struggle against prostitution over 30 years⁵. From a different perspective, Astrid Renland and Arne Randers-Pehrson both discuss how sex workers’ groups and the women’s movement have struggled over the privilege to define sex work and sex workers.⁶
• Regulations: A third type of research seeks to describe public policies, legal regulations and their implementation and effects through institutions such as courts, the police and social agencies. May-Len Skilbrei has contributed immensely to documenting prostitution policies, laws and regulations in Norway.⁷ While these studies often provide useful, detailed accounts of the dependent variable (prostitution policy), they usually do not aim to provide theoretically founded explanations of policy change, but are descriptive, historical and atheoretical.

Naturally, a study on any one aspect of prostitution policy will necessarily also touch upon related aspects, and hence these types are not mutually exclusive categories. However, few studies claim to establish causal links between the different aspects, say, how media discourse influences policy, or the other way around, how policy implementation feeds back into public perceptions of prostitution. Additionally, there are a few studies which detail the subjective experience of prostitutes and their clients.⁸ While such studies often give insights into very concrete effects of prostitution policy, they are less useful in explaining it, since, as many of these studies document, sex workers and sex buyers are rarely represented in public discourse and policy making.

While existing research provides knowledge about the input and output of prostitution policy reform, we know less about the mechanisms by which such input is translated into output. ("Albertine" by Alfred Seland at Oslo City Hall. Photo: Margaret Maloney.)

However, few of the existing studies have focused on the political processes through which prostitution policy is made. For instance, although we know that prostitution policy has been debated within and across Norway’s political parties for decades, there are no studies that we are aware of that seek to describe, let alone explain, how and why their positions have shifted, and how such changes, in turn affect the opportunities for prostitution policy reform.

As such, while individual studies shouldn’t be faulted for having a particular, limited focus, collectively they leave the political arena as a blank spot on the map, or a black box.⁹ We know the input in form of media discourse, academic and activist knowledge production and various grassroots and elite organisations participating in such discourses, and we know the output in the form of policies and regulations which produce certain effects on prostitution as such and the various agencies in charge of regulating it. But we know little about the mechanisms by which such input is transformed into such output.

This seems especially puzzling if we’re looking for causal explanations of prostitution policy reform, such as why Norway criminalised the purchase of sexual services as of 2009. While it seems likely that changes in media discourse, corresponding to changes in prostitution markets, did influence policy, that shift is only half the story: the nature of the influence as such must also be documented.

Hence, discourse studies need to be complemented with a careful assessment of, for instance, how various policy entrepreneurs, unlike their competitors, were able to use the discursive shift as an opportunity to achieve legislative success. Such processes are by no means a self-evident or mechanical, and while the outcome, in retrospect, might seem overdetermined, it is produced by active, purposive agents: Policy makers might seek to resist changes in the broader ideational framework or selectively draw on available information in order to maintain their preferred policy stance. Drawing on ideational and constructivist theories, the NPPR project hopes to contribute with such an account of prostitution policy change in the case of Norway.

Footnotes

1. Dag Stenvoll, 2002: “From Russia with Love? Newspaper Coverage of Cross-Border Prostitution in Northern Norway, 1990—2001“, European Journal of Women’s Studies, 9:2, 143–162.
2. Stenvoll, Dag, 2007: “Kundebilder: Representasjoner av menn som betaler for sex”, 113–130, in Jessen, Liv (ed.), 2007: Det ideelle offer – andre tekster om prostitusjon. Oslo: Koloritt.
3. Synnøve Økland Jahnsen, 2007: Women who cross borders – black magic? A critical discourse analysis of the Norwegian newspaper coverage of Nigerian women in prostitution in Norway, Department of Sociology, University of Bergen; cf. Simonsen, Anne Hege, “Ubehaget i journalistikken : verden midt i blant oss” pp. 305–322 in Grenser for kultur? Perspektiver fra norsk minoritetsforskning, Øivind Fuglerud & Thomas Hylland Eriksen (eds.), Oslo: Pax, 2007.
4. May-Len Skilbrei, 2009: “Nigeriansk prostitusjon på norsk: Feil kvinner på feil sted”, in Norske seksualiteter, edited by Wencke Mühleisen & Åse Røthing, Oslo: Cappelen. Cf. Skilbrei, May-Len (2001), “The Rise and Fall of the Norwegian Massage Parlours: Changes in the Norwegian Prostitution Setting in the 1990s” Feminist Review 67, 63–77.
5. Agnete Strøm, 2009: “A glimpse into 30 years of struggle against prostitution by the women’s liberation movement in Norway”, Reproductive Health Matters 17:34, 29–37.
6. Renland, Astrid, 2007: “Fra medsøstre til ofre, horer og streikbrytere”, 29-56; Randers-Pehrson, Arne: “Sanne bilder av prostituerte? Hvilke bilder kan vi tåle?” in Jessen, Liv (ed.), 2007: Det ideelle offer – andre tekster om prostitusjon. Oslo: Koloritt.
7. e.g. Skilbrei, May-Len (1999), “Norsk prostitusjonskontroll på 1990-tallet”, Kritisk Juss 26:1, 59–74; Skilbrei, May-Len (2006),”Prostitusjonslovgivning i Danmark, Norge og Sverige” in Trine Lynggard (ed.): Sex säljer: Kön och makt inom prostitution och pornografi, NIKK-rapport; Skilbrei, May-Len (2008), ”Rettslig håndtering av prostitusjon og menneskehandel i Norge”i Charlotta Holmström og May-Len Skilbrei, red., Prostitution i Norden. Forskningsrapport, TemaNord-rapport; Stridbeck, Ulf (2005): “Prostitusjon i Norge: Realiteter, politikk og regulering”, Nordisk Tidsskrift for Kriminalvidenskab, 92:1, 54–72.
8. e.g., Brunovskis, Anette: “Når ofre for menneskehandel sier nei til hjelp”, in Jessen, Liv (ed.), 2007: Det ideelle offer – andre tekster om prostitusjon. Oslo: Koloritt; cf. Dotterud, Per Kristian: “Prostitusjonsdebatten – en historie om usynliggjøring og undertykking”, in Jessen, Liv (ed.), 2007: Det ideelle offer – andre tekster om prostitusjon. Oslo: Koloritt; Skilbrei, May-Len og Irina Polyakova (2006), “My life is too short; I want to live now”: Kvinner fra Øst-Europa forteller om veien til og livet i prostitusjon i Norge, rapport Institutt for kriminologi og rettssosiologi, UiO; Skilbrei, M-L, M. Tveit and A. Brunovskis (2006), Afrikanske drømmer på europeiske gater. Nigerianske kvinner i prostitusjon i Norge. Fafo-rapport 525.
9. For an exception to this rule, see Skilbrei (2009).

Related posts:

1. Skilbrei on ‘un-Norwegian’ prostitution
2. Skilbrei on ‘un-Norwegian’ prostitution
3. Prostitution policy change as a problem-driven process

This so-called problem-solving approach to policy change assumes that actors respond to societal problems “by implementing new and better policy solutions arrived at through processes of learning.”¹ Corresponding to the intuitive notion that events in the outside world trigger policy change, this perspective would assume cross-national differences in policy outcomes to result from differences in the nature of the problems actors face and the lessons that they learn.

While the problem-solving perspective has rarely been deployed as a self-standing, coherent theoretical perspective, any explanation of policy change needs to take into account, somehow, the phenomena in the external social world which policy is aimed at. In international relations theory, the nature of problems as such is sometimes attributed an important explanatory role. In a family of functionalist theories of international cooperation, the properties of certain common problems, such as climate change, transnational crime or pandemics prevention, are sometimes suggested to explain why actors successfully cooperate on certain issues, but not others. More recently, constructivist IR scholars have suggested that the properties of social problems might explain why some problems emerge as issues of international norm building, while others don’t. Keck & Sikkink argue that certain attributes of a social problem might make it easier to frame it as an issue, for example, “causes that can be assigned to the deliberate action of identifiable individuals; issues involving bodily harm to vulnerable individuals, especially when there is a short and clear causal chain assigning responsibility; and issues involving legal equality of opportunity.”²

While no account of policy change can discount the underlying phenomena in the social context which policy aims to regulate, the puzzle is to explicate the processes through which such phenomena get constructed as policy problems. Photo: Christy Sheffield.

An example, if only partial and implicit, of problem-focused explanations of prostitution policy outcomes is a research report edited by Charlotta Holmström and May-Len Skilbrei.³ In their report, they suggest that recent changes in sex markets is a key causal factor explaining policy outcomes across the Nordic countries. As such, the causes for changes in sex markets are diverse and include geopolitical factors, such as the fall of the Soviet bloc, leading to increased migration across previously closed national borders; the economic downturn in the 1990s, affecting people both in the Nordic region and in eastern Europe; as well as new means of communication, such as the internet and mobile phones. All in all, such diverse factors have shaped prostitution markets and in turn, affect policy, the argument goes. For instance, the increasing number of foreign women in prostitution in the Nordic countries “produces new needs which require changes in the Nordic countries’ social and legal efforts.”⁴ In sum, they write: “Prostitution changes, the law follows behind.”⁵

Undeniably, changes in material, economic and technological conditions might have grave implications for politics and policy. Politicians and other actors in policy processes respond to societal problems around them. But as a theoretical account of policy change, the problem-solving approach needs to be complimented, both in theory and applied to the issues of prostitution and trafficking.

For one thing, the problem-solving approach seems to rely on a technical and depoliticised notion of societal problems and policy issues, which might seem politically naive. Not only do policymakers in different settings often respond differently to similar problems; moreover, problems come to be perceived and constructed as such through discursive processes. Thus, the inherent nature of the problem of prostitution never affects policymakers immediately; such impact only occurs through a process by which a phenomenon becomes represented as a problem.⁶ And those processes of construction, of course, open for a great deal of political maneuvering on the part of various actors with interests in constructing issues one way rather than another.

For instance, while changes in the sex market, triggered by geopolitical, socio-economic and technological developments, have affected the Nordic countries fairly similarly, policy-makers have chosen different policy solutions to those problems. And even those solutions that seem similar in a technical sense are quite differently framed and justified in public discourse, and have different consequences once they are to be implemented. For instance, whereas the Swedish sex purchase ban was presented as a solution to the problem of violence against women and gender inequality, Norway’s similar ban was also suggested to be a solution to the problem of Nigerian women aggressively soliciting in the streets of Oslo.

Thus, it is difficult to talk of changes in a “sex market” which exogenously triggers changes in prostitution and trafficking policies. As Laura Agustin argues, “transactions involving both sex and money mean do not mean the same thing everywhere; sociocultural contexts change meanings”.⁷ Indeed, the very notion of prostitution as a ’sex market’, driven by geopolitical, economic and technological change, might be what’s contested and debated.⁸ Likewise, analysing prostitution debates in Sweden and Germany, Susanne Dodillet (2004) notes that German and Swedish politicians ascribe such different meanings to prostitution that they “do not speak of the same issues when they discuss the same question.”⁹ The politics of prostitution policy frequently just is a struggle to define what the problem of prostitution is.

On the other hand, if there are any inherent, essential properties to the phenomena of prostitution and trafficking, it is the lack of reliable knowledge. Skilbrei & Holmström emphasise how difficult it is to assess the extent of prostitution and trafficking. Information on such phenomena is usually produced by the police, social services and academic researchers. These different knowledge producers use different methods to gather official and semi-official data on prostitution and sex-trafficking, but all are inevitably biased in their focus. Moreover, as Agustin argues:

“The vast majority of prostitution research bases its conclusions on a small portion of the total of people who offer sex for money, whether researchers conclude from the evidence that prostitutes are victims or not. […] gatekeepers play a large role and researchers’ choices regarding the populations they consider reflect a bias from the beginning.”¹⁰.

To complicate things further, the way in which official discourse conceives of the problem at hand often informs and guides research. For instance, research on prostitution across the Nordic countries tends to regard the problem in the same gendered terms as official discourse, thus reinforcing the notion that prostitution is a problem mainly affecting women, while neglecting other conceivable problem-frames, for instance those including men as both providers and consumers of sexual services.¹¹ In such cases, the knowledge produced would tend to support already established problem frames, indicating circularity between policy-making and knowledge production.

Even so, the problem-solving approach would need to emphasise the mechanisms through which policy makers learn about the social problems they are addressing. For instance, how do they select useful information from available knowledge? For what purposes do they employ it, and in what ways?¹² How do they deal with epistemic uncertainty?

And yet, the lack of knowledge rarely constrains policy makers from taking action. Indeed, actors often seem unbothered by the real extent of the phenomena they construct as problems. For example, Spanger notes a discrepancy in Denmark between the politicisation of trafficking in public debate and the relatively few cases reported by the police.¹³ Likewise, studying the social construction of trafficking, Ronald Weitzer argues that US trafficking policy has been informed by empirical claims that are exaggerated, unverifiable or demonstrably false.¹⁴ Thus, sometimes there is no direct link between social conditions and the particular construction of policy problems.

Thus, problem-solving approach adds important pieces to the puzzle of explaining prostitution policy change: No account of policy change can discount the underlying phenomena in the social context which policy aims to regulate. As regards the the social phenomenon of prostitution in the Nordic countries, political events and long-term developments have changed its nature over the past decades. Yet the important part here is to explicate the process through which actors come to perceive of such changes as problems, as social issues needing solutions in the form of policy, legislation, regulation, resources, etc. In that process, experts play a crucial part, but expert knowledge is not neutral, raw data. For our purposes, the problem-solving approach needs to be complemented with a more elaborated theoretical account of such processes and the ideational approach seems a fruitful start.

Footnotes

1. Bleich, Erik. “Integrating Ideas into Policy-Making Analysis: Frames and Race Policies in Britain and France.” Comparative Political Studies 35, no. 9 (November 1, 2002): 1054-1076.
2. Cited in R. Charli Carpenter. “Studying Issue (Non)-Adoption in Transnational Advocacy Networks.” International Organization 61:3, 2007, pp 643–67.
3. Charlotta Holmström & May-Len Skilbrei (eds.), 2008: Prostitusjon i Norden. Forskningsrapport, TemaNord-rapport 2008:604
4. p. 17
5. p. 18
6. M. Edelman, Constructing the political spectacle (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988); C. L. Bacchi, Women, policy and politics : the construction of policy problems (London: SAGE, 1999).
7. Laura Agustín: “Sex and the Limits of Enlightenment: The Irrationality of Legal Regimes to Control Prostitution.” Sexuality Research & Social Policy 5:4, 2008, p. 73-86.
8. See for instance Synnøve Jahnsen’s critical discourse analysis of media narratives about Nigerian prostitutes in Norway: Synnøve Jahnsen, 2007: Women who cross borders – Black Magic? A Critical Discourse Analysis of Norwegian newspaper coverage of Nigerian women in prostitution in Norway. Master`s thesis, Department of Sociology, University of Bergen.
9. Susanne Dodillet, “Cultural clash on prostitution: Debates on prostitution in Germany and Sweden in the 1990s”, in M. Sönser Breen and F. Peters (eds.) Genealogies of Identity. Interdisciplinary Readings on Sex and Sexuality (Rodopi, 2005).
10. Agustín, op. cit., 78
11. Holmström & Skilbrei, op. cit.
12. In a different policy setting, Christina Boswell argues that organizations might use expert knowledge instrumentally to expand their power or adjust policy output, but they might also value knowledge as a source of legitimation, which they can draw upon in order to establish epistemic authority, or as a way of substantiating their policy preferences, lending authority to particular policy positions. Christina Boswell: “The political functions of expert knowledge: Knowledge and legitimation in European Union immigration policy.” Journal of European Public Policy 15:4, 471-488.
13. Marlene Spanger, 2008: “Socialpolitiske tiltag og feministisk gennemslagskraft indenfor menneskehandel i Danmark”, in Holmberg & Skilbrei, Prostitusjon i Norden. Forskningsrapport, TemaNord-rapport 2008:604
14. Ronald Weitzer, 2007: “The social construction of sex trafficking: Ideology and institutionalization of a moral crusade.” Politics & Society 35:3, 447-475.

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1. Interests, women’s representation and prostitution policy reform
2. Interests, women’s representation and prostitution policy reform
3. Research on Norwegian prostitution policy

Anna Skarhed

Chancellor of Justice Anna Skarhed recently presented the findings from Sweden’s first official evaluation of the 1998 ban governing the purchase, albeit not the sale, of sexual services.   The key details of the report that have already been reported widely throughout the Swedish press are:

1. For the period 1998-2008, levels of street prostitution in Sweden have fallen by half;
2. Surveys show that there is both increased public support for a ban and a declining number of men who admit to having purchased sex, and;
3. Proposals were put forward in the report for more stringent criminal penalties as well as for the establishment of a national center against prostitution and human trafficking for sexual purposes.

Skarhed expressed satisfaction with the conclusions of the report, noting that ‘We believe that this legislation has had the effects that were primarily intended.’  Conservative Minister of Justice Beatrice Ask was equally positive, stating that, ‘I think it’s good that we’ve had this evaluation and it’s pleasing to note that the law is having an effect.’

While the Skarhed report now constitutes a significant addition to the expert knowledge deployed by proponents in favor of maintaining, expanding and exporting the Swedish ban, it is unlikely that its release will result in the end of the debate over the impact and advisability of the Swedish legislation.  Not unlike any other 300 page report, the devil is in the details, and we can imagine that sharply differing perceptions of those details will provide near endless fodder for proponents and critics of the ban alike to continue trading claims and counter-claims as to what the ban has (and has not) achieved since its implementation.

So, what are likely to be some of the key areas on which substantial disagreement may emerge?  Though the following list is not exhaustive, we’d be far from surprised if at least some of the following issues didn’t surface as the policy debate continues:

1. Has the sex purchase ban had an impact on overall levels of prostitution in Sweden?

• Proponents of the ban may likely point to the cross-national comparisons made in the Skarhed report, where both Denmark and Norway (prior to the implementation of its own ban in January 2009) are shown as having substantially higher levels of both street prostitution and internet-based contacts for the purchase of sexual services.  In terms of the former, Skarhed presents data to argue that Danish and Norwegian levels of street prostitution more than doubled between 2003 and 2008 (SOU 2010:49, 146), while in the case of internet-based contacts of sexual services, Danish and Norwegian levels run two and three and a half times higher, respectively, than they do in Sweden.

• Critics of the ban may call attention to Skarhed’s conclusion when it comes to shifts in the level of Swedish prostitution as a whole from 1998 to 2008.  Whereas street prostitution is argued to have fallen by half during that period, Skarhed concludes that, overall, ‘as far as we can see, prostitution has at least not increased in Sweden. There may be several explanations for this but, given the major similarities in all other respects between the Nordic countries, it is reasonable to assume that prostitution would also have increased in Sweden if we had not had a ban on the purchase of sexual services’ (SOU 2010:49, 36).  Here, critics may emphasize both the relatively constant levels over time for the  prostitution market, and also the fact that Skarhed concedes additional variables may be of importance beyond that of the ban.  Expect them to elaborate (or request elaboration) as to what those variables are.

2.   What’s the appropriate time period for analysis when it comes to street prostitution?

• Proponents of the ban may argue that focusing on the period 1998-2008 provides strong empirical support for the assertion that the ban has had a meaningful impact on levels of street prostitution.  Based on figures provided by social services, Skarhed concludes that overall street prostitution in the three main Swedish cities (Göteborg, Malmö and Stockholm) declined from roughly 730 prostitutes in 1998 to just under 300 in 2008 (a figure that only includes data from the second half of the year for Göteborg) (SOU 2010:49, 108).  Seen in this time frame, the incidence of street prostitution in the three cities, has declined sharply.  Proponents of the ban will characterize this as a clear victory in terms of the legislation’s effect.
• Critics of the ban may argue that certain trends within that overall time period are of greater interest.  To that end, critics might choose to highlight specific reports that were included in Skarhed’s review, such as the National Board of Health and Welfare’s ‘Prostitution in Sweden 2007‘ report, in which it was concluded, ‘we can discern that street prostitution is slowly returning, after swiftly disappearing in the wake of the law against purchasing sexual services. But as said, that refers to street prostitution, which is the most obvious manifestation. With regard to increases and decreases in other areas of prostitution – the “hidden prostitution” – we are even less able to make any statements’ (NBHW 2007: 14).  They could possibly question how such claims should be viewed alongside Skarhed’s more general conclusion.

3. To what extent should we treat the information provided by interviewees with a degree of caution?

• Proponents of the ban may likely stress that the actors consulted in conjunction with the Skarhed report, and those that were interviewed in previous reports upon which her conclusions are partially based, represent those with the professional and experiential capacity to offer authoritative statements on the scope and character of prostitution in Sweden.  Stated differently, these actors largely derive from the Swedish prostitution policy epistemic community: academics, social workers, law enforcement officials and relevant groups in civil society.  In addition, the Skarhed report also sent survey questions to two organizations — one representing former prostitutes, and one still working in the sex industry.  It could be argued that doing so allowed for a valuable perspective beyond that of the traditional ‘expert’, civil servant or interest group.  On balance then, proponents may argue, the broadest range of relevant voices was consulted.
• Critics of the ban may pursue two strategies when confronted with this question.  First, they could stress that epistemic communities, while possessing issue-specific expertise, rarely do so in neutral terms and might be attempting to influence legislative outcomes.  As the ‘Prostitution in Sweden 2007′ report noted about interviewees in its methodology section, ‘The people involved may have had vested interests in promoting certain information based on their mission, ideological grounds, orientation, experience, need for funding, etc’ (NBHW 2007, 14).  Second, they might argue that not addressing Ulf Stridbeck’s 2004 evaluation of the Swedish ban for the Norwegian Ministry of Justice and the Police in greater detail is problematic.  There could be questions as to how one might square Stridbeck’s highly critical assessment of the Swedish ban with Skarhed’s decidedly more positive conclusions.

4.  Will supporters and opponents of the ban respond to Skarhed’s choice of language in ways that we’d expect?  Consider the following quote: ‘Those individuals who are being exploited in prostitution say that criminalization has strengthened the social stigma associated with selling sex.  They describe themselves as having chosen to prostitute themselves and don’t see themselves as being involuntarily exposed to anything.  Even if it’s not forbidden to sell sex, they feel hunted by the police.  They feel as if they’ve been declared incapable of managing their own affairs in that their actions are tolerated, but their will and choices are not respected.  Further, they believe it is possible to distinguish between voluntary and forced prostitution…(These) negative effects of the ban that they describe can almost be regarded as positive when viewed from the perspective that the aim of the law is to combat prostitution (SOU 2010:49,129-30).’

• On the one hand, proponents of the ban will likely agree with with depictions of prostitutes as exploited by definition.  Moreover, given the prevailing view among ban proponents that voluntary prostitution is not possible, we suspect that ascribing to prostitutes a ‘belief in the possibility’ of the distinction between forced and voluntary prostitution (and, thus, not the view of Skarhed) is unproblematic.  However, we are uncertain whether ban proponents would be unified when it comes to characterizing prostitutes’ sense of stigma, being hunted and lack of respect as ‘almost positive’.  Every report has passages that even most the ardent adherents will not align themselves with, and we wonder if this constitutes one such passage.  In terms of critics of the ban, here we imagine that they would respond largely as expected:  sex worker agency would be emphasized — meaning that a defense of the distinction between voluntary and forced prostitution would likely figure into arguments.  Moreover, the characterization of ‘negatives’ by prostitutes as ‘almost positive’ could serve as a lightning rod for ban critics seeking to highlight perceived flaws in the report’s logic for how society might best assist prostitutes.

5. The Skarhed report notes that some Nigerian prostitutes relocated to Sweden, from Norway, after the Norwegian government enacted their ban in 2009.  What will proponents and critics make of this?

• Here, we’re even more reluctant to make definitive claims, and are very curious to see both whether this issue gains traction and how it is discussed by opposing camps.  Proponents of the ban often assert that criminalizing the purchase of sexual services will result in prostitutes and customers relocating to settings where such commerce is legal.  Indeed, Skarhed states that the implementation of the Swedish ban was a contributing factor to the increased number of Nigerian prostitutes in Norway (SOU 2010:49, 144).  However, the report also notes that the number of Nigerian prostitutes in Göteborg has greatly increased over the past two years as a result of Norway’s newly implemented ban on the purchase of sexual services.  The issue is a tricky one for advocates of either stance, as while the case may seem to be very specific, there are real implications for the general causal story that one wishes to tell when it comes to the effect of criminalizing the purchase of sexual services.  A potentially tricky question– for both proponents and critics — is whether bans do a better job of bringing about the departure of foreign prostitutes than they do in hindering their arrival, or are there additional variables at play?

Undoubtedly, there will be other issues raised as a result of the Skarhed report, not just having to do with the evaluation, but also to do with calls to increase the maximum penalties for those convicted of purchasing sex.  Moreover, this evaluation will likely surface outside of Sweden as the debate continues in other countries as to the advisability of importing the Swedish ban.  There, the degree to which the report is discussed in general or detailed terms will be of particular interest.  However, in the highly contentious debate over Swedish prostitution policy, the Skarhed report represents one more opportunity for both advocates and detractors to dust off their rhetoric and make their best argument.

Related posts:

1. Swedish attitudes towards the purchase of sexual services
2. Norway bans the purchase of sexual services
3. Swedish Liberal MP Supports Ending Sex Purchase Ban, Backing Brothels

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.

No related posts.

Research Assistant

University of Stirling, School of History & Politics

Fixed Term, 12 months

£23,566-£28,983 p.a.

The School of History & Politics, University of Stirling, is seeking to appoint a Research Assistant to work with Dr Gregg Bucken-Knapp on the Nordic Prostitution Policy Reform (NPPR) Project, funded by the Swedish Research Council.

The NPPR Project draws upon ideational approaches in both international and comparative politics to analyse cross-national variation in prostitution policy outcomes in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The Research Assistant will be assigned to the Finnish case.

You will be expected to play a key role in locating relevant material from recent Finnish debates over prostitution policy reform. This includes, but is not limited to, documents and reports from interest groups and organisations, as well as statements made by actors central to the reform process in the Finnish-language print media.  You will be expected to translate material from Finnish into English, and to assist in building up the database of the Finnish case.

Fluent Finnish is essential for the post. The ideal candidate will also have an honours degree in Politics or a cognate discipline and familiarity with scholarly research into sex work. Previous research experience involving collecting and translating Finnish language primary sources is advantageous, as is fluency in Swedish.  While the post will be based in Stirling, it is expected that the Research Assistant will make some data collection trips to Finland.

The post is on a fixed term basis for 12 months, at 0.4 fte, to start in October 2010. The maximum starting salary will be £23,556 pro-rata, (Grade 6, Spine Point 22).

Informal enquiries by email to Dr Gregg Bucken-Knapp at gregg.bucken-knapp@stir.ac.uk

Further particulars and an application form can be found on www.hr-services.stir.ac.uk and are available from the HR & OD Department, University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA; tel 01786 467028; fax 01786 466155; email: hr-services@stir.ac.uk.

Please quote ref: 16577/7451

Closing date for applications: Wednesday, 30 June 2010 @ 12 noon

www.hr-services.stir.ac.uk

AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES EMPLOYER

Related posts:

1. NPPR relocates to Scotland and Norway
2. NPPR relocates to Scotland and Norway
3. Project presentation at the University of Gothenburg

This phase of feminist activism against pornography and prostitution started in 1977, with the formation of Women’s Joint Action Against Pornography. Formed on the initiative of the Women’s League of the Centre Party, the Joint Action was a broad, makeshift coalition including feminist groups such as the radical feminist Women’s Front, far left parties such as the Maoist Worker’s Communist Party, Christian Democrats and church parishes, trade unions and housewife assocations, joining forces in the struggle against prostitution and pornography. At its peak, it gathered some 30–40 organisations claiming a total membership of ca 500,000 people and local groups across the country.¹

The Joint Action was triggered by a series of events which had put pornograpy on the public agenda in the mid 1970s. For instance, two female train conductors in Oslo were fired after having refused to collect tickets in wagons with advertisement for a pornographic men’s magazine, but were re-employed after public outrage and intense campaigning by various women’s groups. Feminist activists also demonstrated to have strip clubs and massage parlours closed.²

However, pornography had been a hot topic in Norwegian politics for decades.³ Admittedly, these earlier debates had rarely discussed pornography in explicitly feminist terms, but rather in terms of Christian puritanism and traditional values versus sexual liberation and freedom of expression. On the other hand, feminist groups had initially paid little attention to matters of body and sexuality in the early 1970s, but the struggle for abortion rights drew such matters to the forefront, according to Unni Rustad of the Women’s Front.⁴

In the early years, a series of militant direct actions were directed against porn shops and strip clubs. Women’s Front activists would enter porn shops, seize magazines and put them on fire in public places while addressing the public. However, the Joint Action also aimed for broad, mass actions in which all grassroot members should be able to participate, such as postcard campaigns and petitions.

Egertorget at Karl Johans gate, Oslo -- the site of a public porn burning arranged by the Women's Front. Photo: Kjetil Ree.

In 1981, the organisation changed its name to Joint Action Against Pornography and Prostitution (Fellesaksjonen mot pornografi og prostitusjon), which also reflected a partially broadened focus. “We decided to take on prostitution because a study about prostitution in Norway had suddenly made us aware of the conditions that women live under in the prostitution industry”, says Agnete Strøm of the Women’s Front in a speech tracing the history of the Norwegian sex purchase ban. The study by Liv Finstad & Lita Fougner summarised the so-called Oslo Project, which, according to Unni Rustad, “demonstrated how the two themes hung together.”⁵ The Joint Action now also allowed men to become members.

While the members of the Joint Action had different reasons for opposing pornography, they developed a common understanding over time, a process in which the Women’s Front seems to have played a leading role.⁶ The Joint Action’s 1984 platform – a short text, less than a page long – addresses pornography and prostitution in roughly equal length:

“Pornography gives a flawed and superficial view of sex life and love. The basic attitude in pornography is that women are sexual objects for men. Pornograpy has nothing but economic profit as its motive. … The Joint Action wishes to safeguard freedom of the press, but this freedom must be used with social responsibility. The Joint Action cannot accept that press freedom is used to degrade women.”

“Prostitution is a societal evil that must be fought. It is an expression of social problems and misogyni. For prostitutes, it implies a life in degradation and misery. Accepting prostitution strengthens the view of woman as an inferior sex object that can be bought for money, and furthers a use-and-throw-away mentality in relations between human beings.”

In the platform, the Joint Action also embraces criminalisation:

“The Joint Action supports measures to limit the supply of customers. We therefore wish for a legal prohibition against the purchase of sexual services. This would stress that society does not accept the purchase of human beings.”

While making normative assertions and demanding political action, the platform also repeatedly makes factual claims: That pornographic films and magazines show increasing brutality, that the industry is growing rapidly, and that “several recent studies show clearly that violent porn increases violence against women and that child porn inspires sexual abuse of children.” Interestingly, the platform refers twice to the Malmö Project, which was influential in Swedish prostitution policy at the time. Claiming that the Malmö Project demonstrates that prostitution can be fought, the platform demands “support measures for prostitutes similar to the Malmö Project.”⁷

In the struggle against prostitution, too, activists used militant methods, if not mass actions, in order to draw media attention. For instance, in April 1981, radical feminist activists spray-painted “hore client” (“horekunde”) on cars, the drivers of which had attempted to pick up prostitutes in Oslo. Radical newspaper Klassekampen published de-identified photos of the stunt, which sparked a debate on whether such vigilante methods should be used in the struggle against prostitution. In 1986, similar controversy was stirred after Klassekampen had published photos of a prospective client who had been set up by activists at a café. While faces had been covered, the man later sued the newspaper, claiming to have been identified as a someone who buys sex. According to Nilsen, this series of events made it legitimate to talk of men who buy sex as “whore clients” (horekunder).

During the 1980s campaigns, the Joint Action seems to have put both prostitution and pornography on the political agenda. Proposals for criminalising the purchase of sexual services surfaced repeatedly throghout the decade. In 1982-83, the Justice Department evaluated criminalisation, and again in 1986-87.⁸

Members of the Joint Action lobbied within their respective political parties to have the pornography paragraph of the Criminal Code sharpened. In 1985, the law was amended, which seems to have brought some closure to the controversy. The paragraph still referred to pornography in terms of indecency, but also introduced the concept of “degradation of one or both sexes”, seen as a feminist claim.⁹ While partial victory for the Joint Action, the pornography law also signalled the start of the demise of the movement.¹⁰

For one thing, the new law seemed not to have the consequences desired by anti-porn activists. The Joint Action had claimed that the 1985 law would prohibit porn magazines to be put on display in kiosks, such as the partially state-owned chain Narvesen. A set of mass campaigns were directed against Narvesen in the 1980s. For instance, 25,000 postcards were printed to and distributed for people to send to Narvesen, calling on the kiosk chain to “respect the human dignity of women” by neither selling nor distributing pornography. Another action encouraged people to report Narvesen to the police for violating the anti-porn law. Independently of the law, however, many shops stopped selling porn magazines and the Joint Action awarded them stickers praising their contribution to “a porn free neighbourhood”.¹¹

Toward the end of the 1980s, however, the Joint Action was torn by internal division over means and ends. One divisive issue concerned the use of pornographic material in campaigns. In lecture tours, school visits and exhibitions, a key method was to use “porn against porn”, that is, to display pornographic pictures and video clips in order to shock people. Re-evaluating such methods, some leading figures within the Women’s Front came to argue that the female porn models in these materials should be de-identified, so as not to objectify the porn models even further. In the words of Unni Rustad, leader of the Women’s Front:

“It struck me as lightning what I had done, for these women had agreed to have photos taken of them at some point in their life, I knew nothing about these ladies, other than what the porn mafia told me, and I pasted them on the wall in a giant format and let everyone look at them.”¹²

“We used the pictures as they were in pornography until we realised that when we used the pictures in that way, we excluded the women from women’s solidarity, from our community. I would never have used pictures of women I know in such a way that I had been using pornographic pictures for years. When I realised that, I felt ashamed for a long time.”¹³

Others, however, claimed that using porn against porn was an efficient method, and that showing the eyes of the porn models was essential to this strategy. These debates revealed a deeper dispute abouts means and ends in the struggle against pornography, described by Asta Håland & Ane Stø in the following terms:

“in 1989, the new leadership of the Women’s Front became positive both to [erotic magazine] Cupido and ‘feminist porn film’. The leadership of the Women’s Front also distanced itself from the grand alliance with traditional popular organisations. Puritanism and Christian people were again defined as the main enemy. To campaign against porn and prostitution was seen as a violation of the women in the sexual trade, and as an expression of puritanism. at the same time, the main strategy for more than ten years – porn against porn – was rejected by the same leadership. The reason for this was again that the method was seen as a violation of the female porn models, first they were exposed in porn magazines, and then we would divulge them again! … We who support the old line were not willing to give up such an efficient method. We thought that it was important to show the eyes, which show that they often are drugged and scared, rarely happy, and that they are real people. The eye-covering debate [Sladdedebatten] concerned the foundation of our political work, charity or solidarity.”¹⁴

The use of militant action against prostitution was also debated. While the militants claimed to take precaution not to mistake ‘innocent’ men for “whore customers”, some argued that the campaigns affected the innocent anyway, such as the men’s families.

“The Women’s Front emphasised that women should not suffer in these actions, the women should be in focus. But [those who later formed the more radical organisation] Ottar wished to take more drastic measures”, says Liv Finstad.¹⁵

Eventually, these internal differences over means and ends led to the dissolution of the Joint Action in the early 1990s. It would take another two decades before the purchase of sexual services was criminalised in Norway, and then on strikingly different grounds than the ones that moved the Joint Action in the 1980s. A Justice Department working group rejected criminalisation as late as in 2004, but mass media’s sudden attention to Nigerian prostitutes in the streets of Oslo changed the terms of debate. While the anti-pornography law remained in place, the Norwegian Supreme Court struck it down in 2005, making it legal to show uncensored sex between adults in print (though not in cable TV hardcore porn).

The controversy does not end there, though: In early 2010, Ottar called for reviving a broad coalition against pornography, demanding that the purchase of pornography be legally prohibited, per analogy to Norway’s recent sex purchase ban. Unsurprisingly, the Women’s Front disagreed to prohibiting all pornography and instead expressed a wish to invite Mia Engberg, the Swedish director of Dirty Diaries, a feminist porn film.

Still, from the NPPR perspective, the rise and fall of the Joint Action raises a number of intriguing questions.

• The Joint Action seems to have been closely interrelated with experts’ knowledge production, drawing on and acknowledging scholarly research as an important source of information and arguments. As a research report had led the Joint Action to take on prostitution too, scholarly knowledge production served a key role in mobilising the movement and shaping debates.¹⁶ Here, we see the velvet triangle at work, with tight links and sometimes blurred boundaries between activists, politicians and researchers.
• While the Joint Action campaigned against prostitution as well as pornography, the latter seems to have been the key target. Perhaps it was precisely the tight linkage between pornography and prostitution that served to both facilitate and limit legislative success. For one thing, there was already a law in place regulating pornography in Norway, which made it easier for the political establishment to accomodate the anti-porn movement’s demands, whereas criminalising the purchase of sexual services was uncharted territory in the 1980s.
• Interestingly, radical, militant action seems to have been a unifying rather than divisive factor, at least according to radical feminists writing the history of their own movement. While they sought to engage women across the country and to build a mass movement, they were surprised to see militant actions, such as book burnings, draw such a broad appeal among the most different groups of women and men. Naturally, this is history seen from the perspective of radical feminists. Were the militant measures accepted in other parts of the movement against pornography and prostitution?
• Why did the Joint Action fail in reforming prostitution policy? Given the broad, cross-political coalition of organisations representing hundreds of thousands of Norwegians, given the combination of elite and mass action which drew, at times, intense media attention, and given that criminalisation seems to have been considered by the Justice Ministry several times – why did the campaign fail? Who provided resistance and with what arguments?

Footnotes

1. Unni Rustad: Nytter det å slåss mot porno?, excerpt from “Vad tjänar vi på att föra kampen mot pornografi?”, in Pornografi – verklighet eller fantasi, ROKS, 1991.
2. Unni Rustad, 2007: Kampen mot pornografi på 1970-tallet.
3. For instance, having published the novel The Song of the Red Ruby in 1956, Agnar Mykle and his publisher were charged with publishing immoral, obscene material because of the novel’s allegedly pornographic contents. The book was withdrawn from the market, although Mykle and his publisher were eventually acquitted. In 1967, author Jens Bjørneboe and his publisher were similarly put on trial – and found guilty of violating the pornography law – for publishing the erotic novel Uten en tråd. At the peak of the porn debate of the 1960s, evangelical preacher Arild Edvardsen gathered 12,000 people in 1969 in a march under mottos such as “Get rid of the porn plague – love is pure”, “Norway needs old-fashioned child rearing” and “Norway! Remember Sodom and Gomorra”. In the 1970s, Leif Hagen started selling illegal hardcore pornography via post-order and founded the softcore men’s magazine Aktuell Rapport in 1976 – and reportedly drew a lot of controversy in the media. And in 1976, the Norwegian Housewives’ Union, which had campaigned against porn already in the 1960s, demanded a ban against putting porn magazines on display in grocery stores and kiosks.
4. Unni Rustad, 2007: Kampen mot pornografi på 1970-tallet.
5. Unni Rustad, 2007: Kampen mot pornografi på 1970-tallet.
6. Magnhild Nilsen, 2008: “‘Når man gir seg ut for horekunde, får man finne seg i karakteristikken’: Kampar mot prostitusjon 1981–1991“, Rödt! Marxistisk Tidsskrift 2008:1.
7. For an extensive, critical analysis of the Malmö Project, see Susanne Dodillet’s dissertation Är sex arbete? Svensk och tysk prostitutionspolitik sedan 1970-talet (Vertigo Akademi, 2009).
8. Synnøve Økland Jahnsen, Bergens Tidende 2008-11-04.
9. Strøm, Agnete. “A glimpse into 30 years of struggle against prostitution by the women’s liberation movement in Norway.” Reproductive Health Matters 17, no. 34 (November 2009): 29-37.
10. Five years later, Unni Rustad commented sarcastically on this anticlimax:

    “Since 1985, activity has decreased. In that year, there was an election, and we had grown big, strong and numerous. … Suddenly, Norwegian politicians became very engaged against pornography. There was competition in Parliament who could run fastest with a law proposal in hand, who could be in the biggest photos in the newspapers and make the most serious face, the biggest tears and say that ‘this is horrible’. When this competition had been running for a while, a law was elaborated, even though that had never been our most important demand. Norway already had a law [against pornography]. But a new law was produced, and many people around the country thought that we had finally been heard, after so many years. … And then there was an election, and there was a law, and the law was thrown in the dust bin together with all the speeches that had been held during the election campaign, and then the law was forgotten. One of the activists said that the purpose had never been to stop the porn industry, but to stop us.” (Unni Rustad: Nytter det å slåss mot porno?)

11. Nilsen, 2008. One suspects, though, that the decision not to sell porn magazines coincided conveniently with pornography shifting to video, satellite, and eventually Internet distribution.
12. In Nilsen, 2008.
13. Unni Rustad: Nytter det å slåss mot porno?
14. Asta Håland & Ane Stø, “Kampen fortsetter”, Klassekampen 2005-05-14, cited in Nilsen, 2008. My translation.
15. In Nilsen, 2008. The left radical, activist and militant feminist group Ottar, named after socialist agitator Elise “Ottar” Ottesen-Jensen, was formed in 1991, and it seems that its militant methods still stir up controversy.
16. Four publications seem to have been especially influential:
    • Liv Finstad, Lita Fougner & Vivi-Lill Holter (1982): Prostitusjon i Oslo. Pax Forlag. The book summarised a research project in 1979–81 on young prostitutes in Oslo.
    • Ida Halvorsen (1982): Hard asfalt. Pax Forlag.
    • Liv Finstad & Cecilie Høygård (1986): Bakgater: Om prostitusjon, penger og kjærlighet. Pax Forlag.
    • Annick Prieur & Arnhild Taksdal (1989): Å sette pris på kvinner. Menn som kjøper sex. Pax Forlag.

Related posts:

1. Contra bonos mores and the sex purchase ban in Norway
2. Contra bonos mores and the sex purchase ban in Norway
3. Race and prostitution in Norway

Katarina Wennstam

With just over one month to go until Anna Skarhed delivers her completed evaluation of the Swedish ban on the purchase of sexual services, Swedish commentators and journalists continue to focus attention on the severity of sentences that have been handed down in conjunction with sex purchase convictions.  One particularly contentious exchange recently took place in the op-ed pages of the liberal daily Dagens Nyheter in May, when author/journalist Katarina Wennstam alleged that the “obsolete attitudes and patriarchal structures” of the Swedish legal system are to blame for what she regards as excessively mild sentences — fines that are proportionately too low in relation to the income of the accused. (While the current legislation allows for sentences of either fines or up to six months imprisonment, a ruling by the Swedish Supreme Court established the precedent that no sentence greater than fines would be imposed.)

Wennstam pointed to cases in which men in positions of power — “highly positioned CEOs” and “municipal directors” — were able to avoid formal charges when prosecutors chose not to pursue their cases any further, even when admissions of purchasing sex had been made. To further substantiate her argument, Wennstam referred to an April 2010 reportage on Swedish Radio’s Kaliber program, in which data was presented showing that excessively low fines had been levied in half of the instances.  Noting that other criminals in Sweden largely don’t receive this preferential treatment, Wennstam stated that, “I can’t escape the feeling that men who buy sex, who are often well-established members of society, have an easier time in securing understanding of their situation from lawyers, who are also well-established citizens.”

Arguments such as Wennstam’s are not difficult to locate.  Professor Madeline Leijonhufvud, asked by Kaliber to comment on the findings of the reportage, reached a similar conclusion, noting that “(Fines that are too low) are a sign that this crime is receiving preferential treatment and that there is a prevailing understanding that (purchasing sex) is a less serious crime.”  In 2009, Stockholm city prosecutors and criminal inspectors were cited in a Svenska Dagbladet story as saying that the Swedish judiciary needed “to shape up” and see that probation for repeat offenders was necessary, as fines — even large ones — were not proving to be an effective deterrent for men who sought to purchase sex.

Yet, just over a week after Wennstam’s article appeared, Malmö District Court Judge Monica Nebelius responded in Dagens Nyheter with a sharply-worded rejoinder to Wennstam, taking strong issue with the allegation that prejudice and old-fashioned attitudes are the key causal factor determining the level of fines that men convicted of purchasing sex must pay.  According to Nebelius:

The legal system that we have today is not populated by upper middle aged men who live a detached, conservative life marked by patriarchal structures.  For the most part, it’s judges in their forties who are holding the gavel. A very large portion of them are actually women, who are parents of small children, and share the same everyday experiences as the rest of us.  Many of us are active in addition to our role as judges and engage in work on questions such as prostitution, human trafficking and the problems that arise in conjunction with those questions.

The prejudices and antiquated ways of thinking described by Katarina Wennstam are — with one exception — not something that I have experienced when I have lectured throughout the country.  I would dare to say that, within the judiciary, there is continuous discussion as to values, and that there is great vigilance against the type of degenerative views that Katarina Wennstam speculates about in her article.  This is also true of prosecutors.

Nebelius concludes by stressing the importance of an ongoing societal debate regarding the purchase of sex, the crucial role of demand, and the significance of the current legislation, but emphasizes that such a discussion “is made more difficult by this type of simplified argumentation being put forward by Katarina Wennstam.”  (An earlier critique of Wennstam, rejected by the editors of the op-ed page at Dagens Nyheter, was published at newsmill.se shortly before Nebelius’s article.  In it, former prosecutor Rolf Hillegren leveled similar accusations against Wennstam’s framing of how fines were set.)

Nebelius’s critique is intriguing because it comes from a well established figure within the Swedish legal system, one with substantial experience in examining various facets of the commercial sex trade.  In dismissing Wennstam’s argument that “obsolete attitudes and patriarchal structures” are causally important in this instance, and by characterizing her overall logic as faulty, muddy and simplified, one might have easily concluded that Nebelius belongs to the comparatively small number of public figures in Sweden who question the conventional wisdom underpinning the sex purchase ban.

However, to do so would be a mistake.  Nothing in Nebelius’s op-ed piece suggests a blanket dismissal of attitudes or structure (patriarchal or otherwise) as being potentially important for understanding prostitution policy outcomes. Indeed, Nebelius is quite clear that she seeks a debate on “how those who purchase sex should be punished and how the legislation can be improved.”  There, her stance is fully consistent with the Department of Justice’s requirement that “a point of departure (for Anna Skarhed’s forthcoming evaluation) is that the purchase of sexual services shall remain criminalized.”  Rather, Nebelius’s critique is limited to how Wennstam develops an argument on the basis of unsubstantiated assumptions about allegedly prevalent attitudes in the Swedish legal system.  At its most basic level, Nebelius’s article can be read as calling for a debate over sex work that rests more firmly on a carefully constructed and evidence-based logic.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether Nebelius’s caveat will be taken to heart by those who debate prostitution policy reform and implementation.  It has become something of a conventional wisdom to refer to the Swedish prostitution policy debate as highly infected.  In such a climate, where policy goals as well as assumptions over cause and effect are so deeply entrenched as to be taken for granted, how will people respond to a call that their assumptions should be examined critically, against the weight of available evidence?

No related posts.

According to Lindberg, the current ban has failed to reduce prostitution, as well as having had little impact on the psychological well-being of women involved in sex work. She suggests that the ban be scrapped and replaced by a number of measures, including brothels with doormen, doctor-issued certificates of health for sex workers, and economic measures to facilitate the integration of sex workers into Swedish society, such as access to unemployment insurance and the ability to accrue pension funds.

So, what makes this story of interest?  After all, isn’t this simply the case of a single MP in rural Sweden speaking to a small newspaper about a proposal that is likely to be ignored?

Well, yes and no.

While the comments are simply those of one MP, it should be recalled that Lindberg held the top place on Dalarna’s Liberal Party election ballot in 2006 and will do so again in 2010. This is not to argue that her views represent those of Liberals throughout Dalarna, or that she has any significant backing among Liberal MPs elsewhere in Sweden.  However, it will be interesting to see — given her prominent placement on the ballot — whether national Liberal spokespeople feel compelled to distance the party from her remarks. Indeed, her stance appears to be sharply at odds with one of the most prominent Liberal Party figures, Cecilia Malmström, the current European Commissioner for Home Affairs, who has championed the Swedish legislation as a crucial instrument for targeting trafficking in human beings for sexual purposes.  Moreover, the story has now been picked up by the national media, with an account being published in the tabloid Aftonbladet.

In a debate where prostitution has generally been framed as men’s violence against women, Lindberg maintains that the most common form of prostitution involves “men selling sex to men”, and pointedly calls into question the “story of the tragic woman who is exploited” as one that is not entirely true.  To that end, Lindberg is challenging what is sometimes considered to be a hegemonic discourse that has underpinned the popular Swedish understanding of prostitution by highlighting the comparatively under-analyzed phenomenon of gay male prostitution. Similarly, Lindberg calls into question the aim of the Swedish legislation, suggesting that it is not prostitution more narrowly that is the ultimate target, but rather combating trafficking.  While key proponents of the legislation would certainly disagree, Lindberg’s argument implicitly rests on making a distinction between the voluntary sale of sexual services (that she terms as prostitution) and trafficking (exemplified by kidnapping). Claiming that this distinction can be made, even implicitly, raises questions as the degree to which those who sell sexual services can be regarded as having exercised choice, or whether they have been forced to do so, either by specific individuals or by broader structural circumstances.

Whether Lindberg’s comments generate sustained debate remains to be seen.  Yet, there remains little question that the impact of the legislation will be a hot topic in the Swedish media this June, when Chancellor of Justice Anna Skarhed will publish her evaluation of the ban on the purchase of sexual services.  Recall, though, that proposals such as Lindberg’s will not be considered, as the instructions from the Swedish Department of Justice have specified that the evaluation may not propose repealing the legislation.

Related posts:

1. Evaluating the Swedish Ban on the Purchase of Sexual Services: The Anna Skarhed Report
2. Evaluating the Swedish Ban on the Purchase of Sexual Services: The Anna Skarhed Report

Edinburgh, Prince Street. Photo by VerseVend.

Last week, we presented our paper on Sweden’s trafficking policy at the Political Studies Association conference in Edinburgh, Scotland. Providing a case-study of Sweden’s response to trafficking in women for sexual purposes, the paper explains how this policy has evolved from mainly being framed in terms of state security and border-transgressing crime to also include references to gender and human rights. As this paper represents work in progress, we appreciate comments and critique.

Chaired by Kelly Kollman (University of Glasgow), the panel Regulating sex in western Europe also featured a paper on LGBT activism behind same-sex unions policy convergence in Europe by Kollman and David Paternotte (Cambridge University) and a paper by Susanne Dodillet (University of Gothenburg), documenting the roots of Germany’s prostitution policy in the 1970s feminist campaign Lohn für Hausarbeit.

All three papers can be downloaded from the PSA conference website; the NPPR paper is also available here.

Related posts:

1. NPPR relocates to Scotland and Norway

A year after it went into force, the effects of the Norwegian sex purchase ban are still debated. Newspapers report that prostitution has not ended, but rather taken different, less overt forms, and prostitutes claim that they are now forced to accept a less reliable clientele. Some even report that the sex trade is back in the streets of Oslo, albeit marketed less aggressively than before. However, the number of clients purchasing sex has decreased in Norway, claims Astri Aas-Hansen, State Secretary of the Department of Justice in an interview with Aftenposten.

But the ban has also had some rather unexpected and, presumably, unintended consequences, as a recent court case illustrates.

In October 2008, a woman was assaulted by a prospective client in downtown Oslo. As she could not work for several months due to the injuries inflicted on her, she sued the perpetrator for 100,000 NOK to compensate for her lost income.

Borgarting Lagmannsrett, Oslo, Norway.

Oslo District Court sentenced the man to two years in prison (which included the remainder of a previous prison sentence for rape in 2006) and to pay the woman 30,000 NOK in reparation for her injuries, but rejected the woman’s claim for compensation for income loss.

The woman appealed to the regional appeal court, and while the appeal court raised her reparation for injuries to 50,000, it rejected her claims for compensation – interestingly, referring in its decision to the law prohibiting the purchase of sexual services.

Borgarting Lagmannsrett, Norway’s biggest appeal court, based in Oslo, argued that while prostitution is not prohibited by Norwegian law, it is an activity which society considers unwanted, since the purchase of sexual services was criminalised as of 2009:

“This [the sex purchase law] clearly shows that society regards prostitution as an unwanted activity,” the court writes in its sentence, according to Norwegian daily Dagbladet.¹ The court thus considers contracting to buy or sell sexual services as violating decency – more or less as contra bonos mores. Hence, such contracts are not legally binding or enforceable:

“Such contracts are not binding on the parties and cannot be enforced with the Court’s assistance. When the contracting parties’ rights have no legal protection, and one party’s condition moreover is considered a punishable condition, there would, in the Court’s view, be little consistency in the law, if the prostitute’s revenue would still be safeguarded by tort law rules.”²

While the Appeal Court referred to three similar cases, including one from the same court, which concluded that income of prostitution is protected by tort law, this is the first case of this kind to be dealt with by Norwegian courts after the sex purchase law took effect in January 2009.

Hence, this case indicates how a law can take on a life of its own. While the Norwegian sex purchase act was passed for partly different reasons than Sweden’s similar law a decade earlier, feminist arguments played an important role in both policy settings: Proponents of prohibiting the purchase of sexual services suggested that penalising the clients rather than the prostitutes was an appropriate expression of the notion that buying sex is unacceptable behaviour in a society striving for gender equality. However, once it is in effect, an act passed for noble reasons may serve quite different purposes — and target other people and other acts than those for which it was originally intended. In this case, it seems that the sex purchase act can fill a role similar to decency laws prohibiting prostitution in the old days.

Footnotes

1. Not online. 2010-03-23, p. 6.
2. Our translation of Dagbladet’s quote from the Court ruling.

Related posts:

1. Race and prostitution in Norway
2. Norway bans the purchase of sexual services
3. The rise and fall of the Joint Action in Norway