Norway hopes to follow in Sweden’s footsteps by criminalising the purchase of sexual services. This would keep prostitution legal but make pimping or buying sex illegal. By forcibly cutting demand, both countries are hoping to bring down the supply of prostitutes.
Norway’s ruling Labour Party, along with its coalition partners, voted last month for a ban on those who pay for sexual services, but the law still has to be approved by Parliament.
“The aim of the ban is to stop human trafficking, because the number of foreign prostitutes from Eastern Europe and Africa has increased a lot in the last years,” says Gunnar Johansen, information adviser at the Norwegian ministry of justice.
“We know many of the girls who are selling sex here as a result of trafficking. They are forced into prostitution,” adds Johansen.
With the discussions within government ongoing, Johansen says that the earliest the law could come into effect is January 1 2009. It would require an increase in police resources to implement the law, she adds.
Sweden’s 1999 law considers prostitution to be a manifestation of male violence against women and children.
“It is officially acknowledged as a form of exploitation of women and children that constitutes a significant social problem, which is harmful not only to the individual prostituted woman or child, but also to society at large,” the Swedish government’s website says.
Nicolé Fick, a researcher from the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (Sweat) in South Africa, believes that the criminalisation of those soliciting sex workers will leave sex workers more open to exploitation and force the industry underground. (See accompanying story.)
The Swedish sex ban has not been overwhelmingly successful, according to a 2002 paper by the South African Law Commission. Swedish organisations have said that repressive legislation neither deters women from entering prostitution nor protects the fundamental rights of women working as prostitutes. While the Swedish government increased spending on police enforcement of the law to the tune of $1,5-billion, no extra allocations were made to social services for sex workers themselves.
In South Africa, a person who performs a sexual act in return for a reward can be prosecuted under the Sexual Offence Act of 1988. The client can legally be arrested but is unlikely to be, except when found explicitly soliciting another person for this “immoral purpose”. The courts have yet to prosecute any clients .
Currently, a Bill seeking to amend criminal law on sexual offences and related matters is under debate in Parliament. If it is adopted, it will criminalise those soliciting sex workers.