The so-called 'Nordic Model', which criminalises the purchase of sex, is often mooted as a solution to women's oppression. But does it work? Anastasia Diatlova offers a view from the Nordic countries.
Another one joins the fray. Her aim? According to Johnson, the UK is just too appealing as a destination for traffickers. Apparently, all those anti-trafficking and anti-exploitation laws already on the booksβ with some of the harshest maximum and actual sentences in Europe βare just not enough to stem the tide. For them, it is quite simply the best and most humane way to support and protect sex workers, and women more broadly.
But my research, conducted in Finland where I live between and , suggests otherwise. During my PhD, I interviewed a number of Russian-speaking women engaged in commercial sex, and conducted fieldwork in various clubs where sex workers looked for clients. My findings, particularly when brought together with similar research from Norway and Sweden, strongly suggest that the Nordic Model causes actual harm to those it claims to protect.
Here, I draw on my research to offer a perspective from the Nordic countriesβone that is informed not by government commissions, but by the actual experiences of sex workers. The Nordic Model, also known as the Swedish Model, criminalises the purchase of sex and by extension, the client while, at the same time, decriminalising the sale of sex.
At the time of writing, the model has been implemented in full in Sweden where it originated in , Norway, Iceland, France, Ireland including the North , and Canada. Usually, the stated goal of the legislation is to end demand and eventually eradicate commercial sex altogether, which would purportedly have a positive effect on gender equality.
