Prostitution: Full Decriminalization v. the Nordic Model in the Context of Marxist Theory

Introduction

One of the most disgusting attributes of First Worldism is its adherence to prostitution as a legitimate form of employment. This is baffling to me. Marxist theory clearly opposes wage labour as a form of slavery and exploitation. Our stance is that wage labour should be abolished and replaced with a whole new system free from exploitation. Yet, for some reason, this does not extend to the subject of prostitution for First Worldists. The theory of Marxism seems to just break down or be negated when it comes to the issue of sexual slavery.

Prostitution has been labelled “the world’s oldest profession.” It’s a phrase used by upper-class individuals to downplay the severity of the harm caused by the industry. It would be more accurate to say that it is the world’s oldest form of oppression. I can think of little that is more dehumanizing than prostitution. It’s a quintessential manifestation of both patriarchy and economic inequality. It dehumanizes women down to the level of both a second-class citizen and a consumable commodity.

When we speak of slavery, the pro-prostitution advocates like to use the term “sex work.” This applies to the so-called Marxists who defend it as well. This term is entirely misleading. Prostitution is not “sex work”; it is rape. The term sex work is intended to legitimize the sexual slavery of women for the benefit of men. When this term is used, it takes away the difference between labour power and rape. Employment in the capitalist mode of production is the commodification of human labour power, the ability to work. Prostitution, by contrast, is the commodification of the person itself. One is not purchasing the labour power of another, but purchasing the person themselves. You are renting a human being, not a human being’s ability to perform labour.

This difference is entirely lost on First Worldists who maintain that they are both merely acts of labour. This is a false notion. Prostitution is the commodification of human sexuality and the individual. Commodification is the opposite of what Marxism strives for. Even within the realm of first-world reformism, this is reactionary. When reformists speak in favour of labour rights, for unionisation, etc., they’re pushing for a further commodification of their labour. The legitimization of prostitution is a further commodification of the human being, not a reduction of it.

The terrible crime here (that is mostly being perpetrated against women) is the normalization of paid rape. If a woman doesn’t want to have sex with you, and the only reason she does is for money, then she is being coerced into it. Marxists consider poverty to be a form of coercion that forces people into wage slavery. (This is also coupled with the fact that people do not own the means of production themselves.) However, when it comes to prostitution, this suddenly doesn’t apply. The truth is 92%, of women who say they want to leave prostitution but can’t due to a lack of money or food.[i] According to First Worldists, wage labour is coerced, but prostitution is not by their own logic. It is wholly anti-Marxist to advocate legitimizing prostitution. Marxists stand for the liberation of all. Prostitution is liberation for no one.

Many pro-prostitution advocates claim that the legitimization of prostitution produces harm reduction. They argue that government regulation of brothels creates better conditions for prostitutes. There is all manner of other supposed benefits like having health plans, unionization, the ability to refuse Johns, and police protection. These claims are fraudulent in the face of actual practice.

EqualityNow.org has some sobering research on the subject of legitimizing prostitution. Does Legalizing Prostitution Protect Women and Girls?:

· GERMANY: A 2007 government report stated that the law has “not been able to make actual, measureable improvements to prostitutes’ social protection” and that “hardly any measureable, positive impact has been observed” regarding their working conditions.[ii] The government also stated there are “no viable indications that the [law] has reduced crime.”[iii]

· NEW ZEALAND: According to a 2008 government report, “the majority of sex workers interviewed felt that the [act decriminalizing prostitution] could do little about violence that occurred” in the sex industry.[iv] People in prostitution also noted that they were not more likely than they were before decriminalization to report acts of violence they suffered to the police.[v]xviii One-third of those working in legal brothels stated that they had to have sex with a client they didn’t want to in the last year.[vi] xix

· NETHERLANDS: A 2007 government report found that “the prostitutes’ emotional well-being is now lower than in 2001 on all measured aspects, and the use of sedatives has increased.”[vii]

· VICTORIA (AUSTRALIA): The government admitted in 2010 that people in prostitution continued to face stigma and discrimination, despite prostitution now being legal. One service provider noted that “women constantly tell us that their status as having done prostitution is used against them.”[viii]

· NEW ZEALAND: A government report noted that “despite decriminalisation, the social stigma surrounding involvement in the sex industry continues”[ix] and “abuse and harassment of street-based sex workers by drunken members of the public is common.”[x]

· NETHERLANDS: In 2003, the Amsterdam Mayor stated that legalization had failed to prevent trafficking, saying “it appeared impossible to create a safe and controllable zone for women that was not open to abuse by organised crime.”[xi] In 2007, a government report noted that “pimps [i.e. traffickers] are still a very common phenomenon.”[xii]

· NEW SOUTH WALES (AUSTRALIA): One police officer who investigates sex trafficking commented on the effects of decriminalization: “Although the intention was to provide a safe working environment for sex workers the reverse has occurred in that pimps and brothel operators were empowered and enriched.”[xiii]

· NEW ZEALAND: The government noted that the law that decriminalized prostitution “cannot in itself prevent or address the causes of under age prostitution.”[xiv] The National Council of Women of New Zealand, which originally supported decriminal-ization, expressed their concern that “we are still seeing girls as young as 13 and 14 on the streets selling their bodies,” and that men arrested for buying sex from minors are receiving light sentences under the law.[xv]

There is no basis for the claim that the legitimization of prostitution reduces harm. In fact, all evidence shows that making the purchasing of sex illegal, while decriminalizing the prostituted woman, does work towards eliminating the problem. Here are some facts about the Nordic Model from EqualityNow.org, What is the ‘Nordic Model’?:

· The Nordic model challenges this construct and tries to redress these inequalities by promoting women’s and girls’ right to safety, health and non-discrimination, and by challenging men’s perceived – but nonexistent – “right” to buy women’s bodies for sex. Unsurprisingly, 3 of the top 4 countries with the highest level of gender equality have adopted the Nordic model.[xvi]

· In 1999, as part of a Violence Against Women bill, Sweden passed a law that criminalized buyers of sex while keeping the person who sold or was sold for sex decriminalized... Since the introduction of the law, street prostitution has decreased (while increasing dramatically in Sweden’s neighbors) and Sweden has become an undesirable destination for pimps and traffickers.[xvii] In addition, the new law has influenced attitudes regarding the purchase of sex: from 1996 (before the law) until 2008, the number of male sex buyers decreased from 13.6% to 7.9%.[xviii]

Treating prostitution via the Nordic model has proven to be successful in reducing harm by reducing prostitution itself. Decriminalize the act of selling, increase the criminalization of purchasing. What First Worldists propose only continues the oppression and exploitation of women. More importantly, it continues and increases sex trafficking.

These advocates speak of harm reduction to women via the legitimization of prostitution. What harm reduction do they speak of? All experience gives the exact opposite; it creates more harm. The people who advocate such a line, claiming that it reduces har,m produce no results. Their ideas are based on the same line as drug prohibition. These two things could not be any more different. To act as though they are the same is to admit that they see women as objects, not as human beings.

Drug addiction is something someone does to themselves with an inanimate object. Prostitution is something someone does to another, using that person. The commodity, in this case, is a person, not an inanimate object. You cannot treat the person as an object with no humanity and expect them to behave the same way as an inanimate commodity. In drug addiction, the user of the object is the victim, not the object itself. In prostitution, the person being used as an object is the victim.

As Marxists, we want this harm eliminated, not “reduced”. We don’t stand for a nicer, softer, kinder capitalism. We don’t look for people who are used as a commodity to get better conditions; we want the harm eliminated. We want a whole new world, a new system, an end to exploitation and commodification. If you’re not aiming for this, you’re not a Marxist.

First worldists usually defend the legitimization of prostitution on the grounds of agency. In their view, a woman has the right to engage in the barbarity and dehumanization of prostitution if that’s something they want to do with their body. To them, it’s a manifestation of self-determination, a right to control one’s own body. Commonly, this is referred to as the woman’s “agency.” This argument, however, is entirely bourgeois and reactionary.

Essentially, their argument comes down to the claim that a single act of exchange is a person’s right. That right is considered somehow natural and cannot be questioned. This is the same logic of capitalism: “If two people want to engage in a voluntary act of exchange, what’s wrong with that?” (As defenders of capitalism would say). The problem with the pro-prostitution argument is the same as it is for the pro-capitalist argument. These “voluntary” acts of exchange are seen as isolated acts. They most certainly are not. These so-called isolated acts occur altogether in an entire system of exchange. One is not simply making an exchange as “two men alone on a deserted island,” or “two producers alone in the woods.” It is an entire system of exchanges. These exchanges not only influence each other, but they also produce a set of social relations.[xix] Buying and selling one woman reproduces a patriarchal social and economic relation between men and women.

A society where women are used as a commodity is a system where women are a commodity.

This understanding that social relations flow from the economic relations is one of the most basic aspects of Marxist theory. For a Marxist to simply ignore this shows how far into liberalism they have fallen. Marxism is not about your “free and fair choice,” it is about understanding how social relations form, and how best to organize them along a revolutionary line. It is wholly anti-Marxist to give priority to this bourgeois individualism.

Lenin was in great opposition to it. He spoke of how it ran counter to socialism.

“The philosophy of the anarchists is bourgeois philosophy turned inside out. Their individualistic theories and their individualistic ideal are the very opposite of socialism. Their views express, not the future of bourgeois society, which is striding with irresistible force towards the socialisation of labour, but the present and even the past of that society, the domination of blind chance over the scattered and isolated small, producer. Their tactics, which amount to a repudiation of the political struggle, disunite the proletarians and convert them in fact into passive participators in one bourgeois policy or another, since it is impossible and unrealisable for the workers really to dissociate themselves from politics.”[xx]

Prostitution occurs in a particular context, one that it itself is responsible for reproducing.

The Nordic Model

Those whose desire it is to legalize prostitution claim they are for harm reduction. Their stated goal is that the legalisation coupled with unions and government regulations, will provide safer conditions for prostituted women. This theory is entirely based on the premise of keeping prostitution as a dehumanizing aspect of society. You can’t claim to be “reducing harm” by continuing the very thing that causes the problem. Its basis is that you can never end prostitution, so, therefore, you should legitimize it and make it an acceptable part of society. Nothing could truly show the complete hatred pro-prostitution advocates have for women.

The right question to ask here is, does this so-called harm reduction even work? The resounding answer based on all data available is that IT DOES NOT. Those who claim to be “pro-sex worker” are entirely wrong in their position, in their claim that they wish to reduce harm. There is no evidence to suggest that legalizing prostitution accomplishes anything to end sex trafficking or provide harm reduction. Let me be clear, all scientific inquiry, all honest investigation shows that legalization does not reduce harm. Pro-prostitution advocates are entirely wrong and cause harm to women.

What is advocated instead is the Nordic Model, also known as the Sex Buyer’s Law. This program of the Nordic Model has proven to accomplish the harm reduction that pro-prostitution advocates say they want. The Nordic Model does what legalization cannot.

So what does the Nordic Model advocate?

The basis for the Nordic Model is to decriminalize those who are prostituted and criminalize the buyer of sex. This change in laws is coupled with a rigorous effort to provide support services for women who wish to quit the industry. These two aspects are combined to reduce sex trafficking by ending the demand for it.

The Nordic Model was originally created in Sweden. One of the researchers who spent a great deal of time and effort on it can explain:

“We spent several years doing fieldwork and we developed close relationships with the prostituted women. We heard about their experiences of past abuse, extreme poverty and violence. We were prepared for these stories, because of our previous studies on outcasts and marginalized people. But what the women told us of their concrete experiences of prostitution was unexpected and shocking.

“They told us what it was like to use their bodies and vaginas as rental apartments for unknown men to invade, and how this made it necessary to separate their body from their self: ‘Me and my body are two separate parts. It is not me, my feelings or my soul he fucks. I am not for sale.’

“The women had numerous strategies to maintain this separation. To be agents in their own lives they showed great ingenuity and vigour within the little space for manoeuvre they had. However, over time it became more difficult for them to maintain the separation between their body and self. After the punter was done, it became increasingly difficult to bring the self back. Eventually the women came to feel worthless, dirty and disgusting.

“These stories were very similar to accounts we’d heard from victims of other sexual violence, such as incest, rape and domestic violence.

“The research group disagreed about many things, but we shared the same feelings of despair about the women’s pain and the punters’ lack of understanding of the consequences of their actions.

“Then the idea of one-sided criminalisation of the punter struck me like lightning. The idea increased my heart rate, and gave me a sense of everything falling into place.

“There was huge opposition to the proposal at first but after some years opponents in the working group changed their point of view.

“The debate that followed served as a large-scale educational campaign. In Sweden, the attitudes towards the law changed rapidly in a positive direction, and the proportion of Swedish men buying women’s bodies has decreased.” [xxi]

When confronting the issue of prostitution and the damage it does, the message must be clear: society will not tolerate the sale of women for sex. Any legislation must reflect that basic principle. The Nordic Model says, “It’s not okay to sell women for sex.”

To this end, the law is based on the punishment of the buyer of sex, not the seller of sex. Those who purchase sex should be discouraged from doing so. Personally, I believe they should be publicly humiliated for what they do. A public registry should be created, the same as what exists for sex offenders. This is not necessarily what is advocated for in the Nordic Model; it is what I advocate.

What does implementing the Nordic Model entail?

The measures supported are adequately laid out by the creators of NordicModelNow.org

1. The full decriminalization of those who are prostituted

The evidence suggests that the majority of women and children enter prostitution as a result of childhood abuse, poverty and misfortune, grooming, coercion, and/or betrayal, rather than as a free choice between a number of viable options. And the evidence is clear that prostitution is inherently violent and damages those in it, and that getting out of it is much harder than getting into it. And a criminal record makes getting out even harder.

We therefore call for the repeal of all the laws that target those who are prostituted and the clearing of their criminal records of any previous convictions for offences related to their own prostitution.[xxii]

2. High-quality services for those in prostitution

We call for ring-fenced funding for high-quality services for those in prostitution. These must be non-judgemental and cover harm reduction as well as existing support, including housing, legal advice, addiction services, long-term emotional and psychological support, education and training, and childcare.

Because punters are almost entirely men, services for women should be female-only, and services for men and transgender people should be separate.[xxiii]

3. Buying sex is to be made a criminal offence

We call for the purchase and attempted purchase of human beings for sex to be made a criminal offence, regardless of where in the world it takes place. We do not believe British men should be free to cause damage in other countries. As explained earlier, the aim is to change behaviour rather than to criminalize people. We recommend a maximum sentence of one year in prison.[xxiv]

4. The procuring, pimping and sex trafficking legislation to be strengthened

We believe that the UK’s pimping and sex trafficking legislation is not fit for purpose, and we call for it to be replaced with stronger legislation that recognizes procuring, pimping and sex trafficking as the human rights abuses that they are and for penalties that reflect this. The policing of these crimes must be fully resourced and prioritized.[xxv]

5. All the factors that drive people into prostitution should be addressed

We do not accept prostitution as the answer for the poor and disadvantaged, for recent migrants, for single mothers, for women and children. Or indeed for anyone.

We therefore call for a fairer and more equal society with a guaranteed minimum income for all, the elimination of the pay gap between women and men, better resources and support for parents and “looked after” children, an end to student fees and zero-hour contracts, and the tackling of all the other factors that trap people in poverty.[xxvi]

6. A holistic approach

Public information campaign

To be effective, the Nordic Model must be accompanied by a widespread public information campaign (like the one that accompanied the change in the smoking laws).

Education programmes in schools

That explains honestly the damage that prostitution causes.

Training for police and others

Experience in other countries has shown that for the Nordic Model to be effective, it needs to be accompanied by in-depth training for the police, judiciary, Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), and frontline workers in education, social services, local government, the NHS, etc.

The law is to be prioritized and coordinated nationally

For the Nordic Model approach to be effective, it needs to be prioritized and implemented consistently across the country; pimps and punters will simply move to areas where it is not enforced. Similarly, services for those who are prostituted must be coordinated nationally and not be left to the localism agenda.[xxvii]

Does the Nordic Model Work?

So does the Nordic model work? It certainly does; the proof is in the research and statistics. Since Norway has implemented the Nordic model, there has been a reduction in violence towards women. The data shows that rapes of prostituted women have decreased by 48%.[xxviii] Violence by pimps has been decreased by half. In addition, “violence from regular clients went down 65% and violence from an unfamiliar man in a car declining 60%.”[xxix]

Pro-prostitution advocates have claimed that legalizing prostitution brings it indoors and that, as a result, it’s safer than working “on the street.” Nordic model advocates have long known that this is a false claim. Most violence committed against women occurs indoors by a man she knows, as opposed to a stranger on the street. The data shows that indoor prostitutes inside brothels are being sexually assaulted by clients more than those who are street walkers.

Here’s some more important information put forward by Samantha Berg on Feminist Current:

“The information about indoor versus outdoor violence also disproves the common refrain that because it’s now a “buyer’s market,” prostituted women are harmed by the lack of negotiation time. Streetwalkers mostly suffer verbal abuse and minor physical assaults that aren’t violations of sex act negotiations, whereas indoor prostitutes with the supposed luxuries of pre-screening and unlimited time to negotiate are much less capable of keeping their johns from robbing, raping, and threatening/forcing them into sex that was not agreed upon.

“Placing all the focus on how prostituted women negotiate distracts us from questioning the varying motivations of negotiation-inducing men. It is common sense that a man who wants a quick blowjob from a streetwalker would be less invested financially and emotionally in his sexual entitlement to a prostitute than a man who pre-arranges to pay for an hour alone with a prostitute and brings a sixty minute gameplan of fantasy fulfillment with him.”[xxx]

Often, those who defend the legalization of prostitution claim that men are paying for the right to sex, not the right to abuse women. This, however, has not proven to be the case. The Johns are abusers. The Johns do not see it in the way that these advocates claim. Even when legalized, the violence the prostituted women suffer from Johns remains: biting nearly tripled (6% to 15%), hair pulling nearly tripled (12% to 32%).[xxxi] The Johns frequently cross the line.

Why?

“Radical feminists know prostitution is coerced sex, aka rape. We notice that most rape victims are teenage girls abused by older men and recognize the same demographic patterns in prostitution. As with rape, the sexual aspect of the crime triggers so many cultural prejudices that the core of the crime being male violence is often left on the cutting room floor. Oslo’s reduction in severe violence combined with the increase in more personal boundary violence like biting and hair pulling is a reminder that, as with other kinds of rape, sex is the preferred tool of violation but violation itself is the main point.”

“Prostituted women in Oslo are effectively altering violent johns’ behaviors by threatening to call police, and johns are responding by lowering their violence to under the threshold that would trigger that response. Instead of rape and aggravated assault, johns have moved to getting more of their violation kicks though biting and hair pulling knowing these won’t result in a call to the cops.”[xxxii]

The data here is limited and does not include all the positive aspects of the Nordic model. However, it does demonstrate the point that it is better for harm reduction to follow the Nordic model. To support legalization is to continue the harm that is done to women in the name of “progressivism.”

So given all this data, why do pro-prostitution advocates still insist on their pro-rape scheme?

Pro-Prostitution as Identity

When we pan the debate regarding prostitution we see a total banning of data and measured results. Those who support prostitution as something that should be legitimized ignore the failure to carry out any harm reduction. Why? Such dishonesty is a product of identity. They want their side to be right because they’re on it. No amount of proof that they’re wrong can convince them otherwise. Prostitution is an identity for those who oppose the Nordic model.

This desire to turn prostitution into an identity is symptomatic of nothing less than liberal first-world identity politics. This reactionary ideology has been a terrible bane on the science of Marxism. It has corrupted the ideology down to nothing less than petty bourgeois individualism. This is amply demonstrated in the realm of debate on the issue of prostitution. Those who support the continuance and legitimization of prostitution seek out this individualism to the detriment of women.

Their whole argument rests upon the idea “it’s my body, it’s my choice.” Of course, they forget that their actions take place inside a social context. The individual choices made by people make up the whole of society. This is the same argumentation of capitalism. They own their own property and means of production and can do with it as they please. When confronted with what harm capitalism does to the world, they simply dismiss it as their “right” to do what they want with their property.

Of course, we cannot compare women’s bodies to the means of production. But what we can do is compare the individualist logic. Prostitution doesn’t just harm the women engaged in it; it has a societal effect on how men see women in general. To say otherwise is to be wholly dishonest, and more importantly, to deny Marxist theory in general. If we relate to each other by commodity exchanges, what does that say when a woman is a commodity herself?

It means that she is less than her labour power. It means she is the commodity herself. She is not engaging in an act of exchanging the products of labour power, but she is exchanging herself. The commodity versus the labour power behind the creation of a commodity. Liberals and conservatives cannot understand this concept because it does not exist in their ideology, but Marxists should understand it. Yet, we see Marxists enamoured with this idea of legitimizing rape and attempting to make it out to be an issue of labour power, not of the commoditization of women themselves.

This commoditization of women bears little difference to slavery. The person is wholly owned by the purchaser of her body. Not her labour power, her body, her sexuality is a commodity. To ignore this is to uphold the greatest of dishonesty. First worldlists have rejected critical analysis and debate in favour of feelings and their incorrect desires to hold women’s sexuality and bodies as property.

I personally see it as little more than another manner in which they can demand access to women’s bodies.

This identity politics seeks to outright ignore the real existing material conditions of prostitution, to reject real analysis on the effects and solutions to this problem in society. There can be no room for facts, data, and experience in dealing with prostitution advocates. They simply cannot allow any such rational behaviour or thinking into their minds. Facts offend them as prostitution activists; the facts are wrong and should be ignored. This is entirely how they frame debate. If you disagree with them, you’re being mean or reactionary, with no explanation. Outrage and emotional charges are what they substitute for honest debate and critical thinking. It is nothing more than an emotional reaction to an offence to their identity.

First and Third World Prostitution

When we look at leftists who want to legalize prostitution, we see something very interesting. First-world communists want to legalize prostitution, while third-world communists support abolishment. This difference is rather significant. We see this in their political activities.

First worldists are quick to defend prostitution as something that should be institutionalized. They make all kinds of fanciful claims, like prostituted women want to be prostituted. They point to examples like Las Vegas, where the infamous Bunny Ranch is. They go on about the working conditions there and how they’re really just renting a space for sex and protection while doing it. They glorify the glitz and glamour that television makes it out to be. They sometimes express a wish to be able to do something like this themselves.

What they forget is that this Bunny Ranch-style prostitution is an incredibly small minority of the actually existing industry. The vast majority is drug-fueled barbarity. In their eyes, if legalization occurs, it will all be just like the Bunny Ranch. Legalization, it seems, will cure all ills, and all prostituted women will be just like those glamorous figures on television.

Reality is quite stark from this idyllic image. In the vast majority of the world’s population, the third world, prostitution is basically a death sentence. Incredible poverty forces women and girls into the most horrid business practices. Prostitution in the third world is being literally chained to a bed to prevent the prostituted women from leaving. They’re often sold into life. This is the kind of industry they promote for the poor women of the world. Make no mistake, they do advocate it for the third world.

There must be some logical disconnect in their minds that makes them think that this Bunny Ranch exception will apply to the world’s majority. Such an idea is utter nonsense. Of course, they will not overtly say that they’re applying it to the third world, but it is, given that it is the product of their position on legalization: it will be better if you legalize it. They’re not saying it, but it’s the basis of their position.

They don’t see the global divide in the world; they only see what they want to see. They rely on identity and outrage at daring to question what they feel they are, or what they may actually be. The truth about prostitution and how it affects women globally is not on their minds. They’re only thinking about themselves.

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Sources:

[i] Why can’t women in prostitution just leave when they want to? WomensLaw.org. (2023, August 21). https://www.womenslaw.org/about-abuse/forms-abuse/sexual-abuse-and-exploitation/forced-prostitution/leaving-prostitution/why

[ii] German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, Report by the Federal Government on the Impact of the Act Regulating the Legal Situation of Prostitutes (Prostitution Act), July 2007, pg. 79.

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] New Zealand Ministry of Justice, Report of the Prostitution Law Committee on the Operation of the Prostitution Reform Act 2003, May 2008, pg. 14.

[v] Ibid pg. 58.

[vi] Ibid pg. 46.

[vii] Daalder, A.L., Prostitution in the Netherlands since the lifting of the brothel ban, WODC (Research and Documentation Centre, Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice, 2007.

[viii] Parliament of Victoria Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee, Inquiry into People Trafficking for Sex Work: Final Report, June 2010.

[ix] New Zealand Ministry of Justice, Report of the Prostitution Law Committee on the Operation of the Prostitution Reform Act 2003, May 2008, pg. 154.

[x] Ibid pg. 124.

[xi] “Why streetwalkers are getting the boot,” Expatica, 9 December 2003.

[xii] Daalder, A.L., Prostitution in the Netherlands since the lifting of the brothel ban, WODC (Research and Documentation Centre, Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice), 2007.

[xiii] “Licensing law to tighten screws on brothel chiefs,” The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 October 2011.

[xiv] New Zealand Ministry of Justice, Report of the Prostitution Law Committee on the Operation of the Prostitution Reform Act 2003, May 2008, pg. 112.

[xv] “Men ‘the only winners of Prostitution Reform Act’,” Stuff.co.nz, 20 Nov 2008

[xvi] Iceland is 1, Norway is 3 and Sweden is 4. World Economic Forum, The Global Gender Gap Report 2013

[xvii] Swedish Ministry of Justice, English summary of the Evaluation of the ban on purchase of sexual services (1999-2008), 2 July 2010. The report acknowledges the limitations in determining the revalence of illegal activities, but even with these limitations, it is confident in the statements above.

[xviii] Kajsa Claude, Targeting the sex buyer, the Swedish Institute (2010)

[xix] 1859 Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy

[xx] Vladimir Lenin. Socialism and Anarchism (1905)

[xxi] What is the nordic model?. Nordic Model Now! (2023, June 19). https://nordicmodelnow.org/what-is-the-nordic-model/

[xxii] Ibid.

[xxiii] Ibid.

[xxiv] Ibid.

[xxv] Ibid.

[xxvi] Ibid.

[xxvii] Ibid.

[xxviii] Berg, S. (2013, January 22). New research shows violence decreases under Nordic model: Why the radio silence? Retrieved June 22, 2017, from http://www.feministcurrent.com/2013/01/22/new-research-shows-violence-decreases-under-nordic-model-why-the-radio-silence/

[xxix] Ibid.

[xxx] Ibid.

[xxxi] Ibid.

[xxxii] Ibid.