Charlotta Holmström

Is There a Nordic Prostitution Regime

Prostitution policies in the Nordic countries have undergone major changes in the past 15 years. One that has drawn attention, within the Nordic region and internationally, is the criminalization of purchase of sexual acts or services in Sweden, Norway, and Iceland. Finland has criminalized buying sex from victims of trafficking or persons involved in pimp-organized prostitution. Laws concerning prostitution have to be understood in the light of how prostitution is defined and dealt with as a social problem. The recent changes can be explained by reference to ideological developments and developments in the prostitution market. That several countries have implemented similar regimes does not mean that the Nordic countries take a consistent approach. National policies have emerged from different ideological and empirical contexts and have been combined in diverse ways with different models for social work and other interventions.

The Swedish Prostitution Policy in Context

The Swedish Sex Purchase Act has sparked considerable interest and debate internationally since it was introduced in 1999. This chapter describes and contextualizes the political process preceding the introduction of the Swedish Sex Purchase Act. We then describe its implementation and existing knowledge and assessments of its consequences. One key point is that analyses of legislation in the field of prostitution must consider the relationship between the expressed intentions of the law, the formulation of the law, and how the law is implemented. Legal measures are taken based on specific agendas, but their symbolic value and implications are transformed by the way in which the criminal law interacts with other policy domains. With the Swedish Sex Purchase Act, there has been an interaction between the feminist abolitionist agenda, which was the original basis for the policy, and other agendas. Laws are not made once and for all but are continually revised and readily appropriated by new aims, agendas, and actors.

Linking Prostitution and Human Trafficking Policies: The Nordic Experience

In international debates on prostitution policy and in debates on prostitution that takes place within individual countries, references are often made to ‘the Nordic’ or ‘the Swedish’ model of prostitution policy. In Sweden, Norway and Iceland, the purchase of sex is a criminal offence, while it remains legal to sell sex. In debates, references are made to the effects of such a policy on the extent of human trafficking. While politicians and activists are eager to treat this particular way of regulating prostitution either as a great success or a great failure, researchers need to take into consideration how a country’s anti-trafficking and anti-prostitution efforts impact identification of cases, and therefore available figures. In this chapter, we investigate the evidence for how the Swedish Sex Purchase Act influences trafficking to Sweden, and we particularly argue that researchers must avoid underestimating the complexity of the relationship between law and the phenomena they regulate.

Social workers’ opportunities to work with safer sex

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to increase knowledge about social workers’ opportunities to work with safer sex among at-risk adolescents and young adults. To investigate this issue, a survey has been sent to outreach work and non-institutional offices whose work focuses on alcohol and drugs to some extent. The survey was sent to 89 workplaces distributed throughout 33 municipalities in the region of Skåne in southern Sweden. Altogether 229 responses were collected, a response rate of 60.1%. The study shows that social workers have limited opportunities to work with safer sex issues and that the organizational resources to support this work are weak. Michael Lipsky’s theory of street-level bureaucrats was applied to the data, with the analysis indicating that knowledge and organizational resources are key to enabling work with safer sex. It is also important that the personnel are interested in the subject and that they feel comfortable working with safer sex. The factors found to have the strongest direct effect on the personnel’s work with safer sex are: having the possibility to set aside time to work with safer sex, experiencing that safer sex is discussed at the workplace and being personally interested in the subject.

HIV and Sexuality : Perceptions and Experiences of Sexuality among Women Who Live with HIV in Sweden

The aim of this study has been to investigate the potential effects on women’s experiences of their sexuality and their sexual relations after being diagnosed with HIV. The result of the qualitativ ...