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The Swedish Law to Criminalize Clients: a Failed Experiment

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The Swedish Law to Criminalize Clients: a Failed Experiment ISSUE PAPER 4 APRIL 2012 • THE SWEDISH LAW TO CRIMINALIZE CLIENTS: ISSUE PAPER 1 • OCTOBER 2010 A FAILED EXPERIMENT IN SOCIAL ENGINEERING Ann Jordan Program on Human Trafficking and Forced Labor Center for Human Rights & Humanitarian Law INTRODUCTION street-based sex workers. Despite this failure, the government has chosen to ignore the In 1999, the Swedish government embarked on 1 evidence and proclaim the law to be a success; an experiment in social engineering to end it also continues to advocate that other men’s practice of purchasing commercial sexual countries should adopt a similar law. services. The government enacted a new law criminalizing the purchase (but not the sale) of In 2010, the government released a report sex (Swedish Penal Code). It hoped that the fear claiming that the law reduced street-based sex of arrest and increased public stigma would work, despite the fact that the report does not convince men to change their sexual behavior. contain any evidence supporting the claim The government also hoped that the law would (Skarhed 2010). From the first day of the force the estimated 1,850 to 3,000 women who report’s release, many researchers in Sweden – sold sex in Sweden at that time to find another who could read the entire report in Swedish - line of work. Lastly, the government hoped that have been highly critical of the government’s the law would eliminate trafficking into forced claims. Nonetheless, the English-language press prostitution and the presence of migrant sex and advocates continue to praise the Swedish workers. law for its ‘success’. Their source of information is primarily the government’s initial and short Not surprisingly, the experiment has failed. In English-language summary. the thirteen years since the law was enacted, the Swedish government has been unable to The government later released an English prove that the law has reduced the number of translation of important sections of the report sex buyers or sellers or stopped trafficking. All it revealing that, although street-based has to show for its efforts are a (contested) prostitution has decreased, the government public support for the law and more danger for does not know what caused the drop. It does not know either whether the law caused any reduction in the number of sex buyers, sex 1 According to the Oxford English Dictionary, social workers, trafficking victims or migrant sex engineering is “The use of centralized planning in an workers. Nonetheless, advocates of the law attempt to manage social change and regulate the future development and behaviour of a society.” continue to promote the law as a success. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/272695?redirectedFr om=social%20engineering#eid THE SWEDISH LAW TO CRIMINALIZE CLIENTS ISSUE PAPER 4 APRIL 2012 • This Paper analyzes the English-language text of several other countries have considered or are the report and demonstrates that none of the considering a similar law. government’s claims are supported by When it adopted the law, the Swedish evidence. The Paper has four parts: (1) a government set out aspirational goals about description of the Swedish law, (2) a what the law would accomplish: it would “act as comparison of the government’s claims with a deterrent to those who purchase sexual the government’s evidence, (3) the negative services; the number of purchasers would consequences of the law and (4) a call for less therefore decline and the number of people in politics and more evidence-based research and street prostitution and new recruits to solutions. prostitution would also go down.” It also “could THE LAW CRIMINALIZING SEX BUYERS help make it harder for various groups or individuals in other countries to establish more It is useful to start with a brief introduction to extensive organised prostitution activities in Sweden. It is a small country of around 9 million 2 th Sweden or to carry out human trafficking for people , rich (the 14 highest per capita income sexual purposes.”7 globally3). It has very few sex workers and little evidence of trafficking. The experiment is taking The unofficial agenda was something else place in a small, fairly homogeneous country entirely. As Don Kulick describes it, the law was with a strong sense of a national identity where also meant to elevate Swedish culture above such experiments might be able to work. others. He argues that the law allows “Sweden [to] portray itself as a kind of moral beacon that In contrast, 14 cities have populations larger 4 others [particularly the European Union] will than the entire country of Sweden. India alone 5 rd want to follow” (Kulick 2003, 209; see also has a population of over a billion , is poor (153 Bucken-Knapp 2011). in per capita income6), has an estimated 3 million sex workers (Mukherjee 2004, 77) and The Swedish approach is not practical or reality- tens of thousands of people trafficked into based. It envisions a time when all men who prostitution, factories, farms and homes. It is a purchase sex are either in prison or are so afraid large multi-cultural, multi-religion and multi- of being arrested that they no longer seek language country. commercial sex, at least not in Sweden. Obviously, it is impossible to arrest, let alone So, it is important to keep these numbers (and imprison, all men who purchase sex. So, the law the extreme differences) in mind when is an experiment in social engineering to change considering campaigns to export the Swedish the behavior and thoughts of Swedish men. law to other countries. As of publication, only Prior to the law, men did not have to worry wealthy countries – Finland, Norway and about being arrested. The hope was that the Iceland - have adopted similar laws although mere threat of arrest, plus social stigma, would be enough to change their behavior 2 World Bank http://data.worldbank.org/country/sweden The law focuses on increasing the social stigma 3 World Bank 2010 against buyers, as well as sellers, of sex. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DATASTATISTI Although it is constructed upon the theory that CS/Resources/GNIPC.pdf 4 sex workers are passive ‘victims’, in practice, it Geohive is intended to increase stigma and http://www.geohive.com/earth/cy_notagg.aspx 5 http://data.worldbank.org/country/india discrimination against the sex workers who 6 World Bank 2010 refuse or are unable to quit selling sex. These http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DATASTATISTI CS/Resources/GNIPC.pdf 7 http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/4096/a/119861 2 THE SWEDISH LAW TO CRIMINALIZE CLIENTS ISSUE PAPER 4 APRIL 2012 • issues are discussed later in the section on work voluntarily in prostitution (Clausen 2007, negative consequences of the law. 11). As a result, it considers all migrant sex Prostitution is violence against women workers to be victims who need to be saved ore rescued and, more than likely, deported. Campaign supporters attribute prostitution’s existence to unequal power relations between It is important to be aware of these men (clients) and women (sex workers) and consequences of the ‘all prostitution is violence’ equate all commercial sexual transactions with viewpoint because also results in a belief that male violence. The Swedish government prostitution, trafficking and migrant sex work believes that prostitution is a “serious harm are one and the same. So, when the both to individuals and to society” that must be government is discussing ‘trafficking’ or ‘sex abolished (Skarhed, 2010, 31). As such, “the trafficking’ in its discussions, it is not possible to distinction between voluntary and non- know whether it is referring to migrant sex voluntary prostitution is not relevant” (Skarhed workers, domestic sex workers and/or persons 2010, 5). Since all sex workers are considered to trafficked into the sex sector. This makes any of be ‘victims’, they must be protected, even if the already unreliable statements by the they do not want or need the government to government even more problematic and intervene. unreliable. In support, advocates cite research done about Lastly, the branch of radical feminism that violence in street-based sex work in countries supports this analysis of sex work uses the where all or some aspects of prostitution are rhetoric of ‘violence against women’ and criminalized. For example, they cite a five ‘victimhood’ as a tool to silence and country study of street-based sex workers disempower ‘socially objectionable’ women. (Farley 1998). While it is true that prostitution is They collaborate with governments to create firmly situated within patriarchy (as is most tools to enforce their views about appropriate work in patriarchal societies) and that violence gender roles. The Swedish approach exists within prostitution – particularly in street- disempowers women who happen to be sex based sex work - prostitution is not, per se, workers and prevents them from asserting their violence against women. labor and other rights. The government and its supporters apparently believe that they know Rather, in most countries, laws exist that ‘what is best’ for others, even though they have disempower sex workers and prevent them not bothered to consult with those ‘others’ at from taking reasonable steps to ensure their any time, before, during or after adopting and safety. Canadian sex workers sued the enforcing the new law (or promoting it government to challenge the constitutionality elsewhere). of such laws and won (Bedford 2010; Bedford Sex workers are passive ‘prostituted’ Appeal 2012). The case is discussed in more women detail on pages 10-11 but, at this point it is important to note that selling sex is legal in This viewpoint also positions all sex workers as Sweden (as it is in Canada) and that Sweden has passive objects (not agents) who are not in laws that are similar to the ones being control of their actions or able to speak for challenged in Canada.
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