Iceland to ban strip clubs and implement Nordic model

[sam]

Blathering blatherskites!

Iceland to ban sex purchases, strip clubs
http://www.breitbart .com/article.php?id=CNG.9693cb86b508e39791bd2fd1b6110420.2a1&show_article=1
March 18, 2009

REYKJAVIK (AFP) ­ Iceland plans to introduce legislation criminalising the purchase of sexual services, the operation of strip clubs, and human trafficking, the government said on Wednesday.

"This plan is long overdue," Icelandic Minister of Social Affairs Asta Ragnheithur Johannesdottir, told AFP.

"This has been a fighting issue for the human rights organisations, women's organisations and many members of parliament for years," she said.

Parliament is expected to vote on the plan before Iceland's general elections on April 25, the minister said.

Prostitution was legalised in Iceland in 2007 in order to protect prostitutes and make it easier for them to seek assistance and go to the police without fearing recrimination.

The ban on buying sex is aimed at hitting users of prostitutes.

According to the bill currently being discussed by parliament, anyone who purchases or promises to purchase sexual services can expect fines or up to one year in jail.

If the person they are purchasing sexual services from is under the age of 18, they risk up to two years in prison or fines.

Iceland's Nordic neighbours Norway and Sweden have already introduced such bans on buying sex.

Gudrun Jonsdottir, a spokeswomen for Stigamot, the Icelandic counselling and information center for survivors of sexual violence, hailed the action plan.

"We have now shown that we understand the connection between pornography, prostitution and human trafficking," she told AFP.

Strip clubs are as a general rule forbidden in Iceland but are allowed to operate with special permission from local authorities. The new legislation would abolish that exception.

Iceland has been hit by a deep recession after the spectacular collapse of its banking sector six months ago.

The economic crisis made the new legislation even more necessary, Johannesdottir stressed.

"In times of economic downturn, it is even more important to tackle this issue. When there are economic hardships there is an even greater danger of criminal activity, like human trafficking and sexual abuse," she said.

[sam]

Found this post at the Radical Left blog. There's also some valuable writing there about the historical and financial situation of Iceland if you're interested.

http://radical-left.blogspot.com/

No place for the sex industry in Iceland

'Prostitution is violence' - Icelandic feminists in 2005

I’ve been writing rather a lot about Iceland lately but this is just too good not to mention. The new left-wing government has decided, in an attempt to eliminate all human trafficking into Iceland, to fully outlaw both the purchase of sex and the running of strip clubs. Describing human trafficking as “the most ing form of international and organized crime that exists in the world” Social Affairs Minister Ásta Ragnheiður Jóhannesdóttir drew up a 25 point action plan which includes the two measures and it is hoped that as much of it as possible can be implemented in time for the new elections in late April.

With stripping banned too this will take Iceland further than both Norway and Sweden and, since pornography is still illegal (at least according to Iceland Review), will in effect mean that the sex industry is more or less completely outlawed. This is a huge victory for the Icelandic feminist movement which is proportionately quite strong and has long been fighting to shut down the few strip clubs that exist as well as campaigning to get the purchase of sex criminalised.

Iceland of course has a history of strong feminists - on the 24th of October 1975 90% of the country's women went on strike for a day, marching out of their workplaces and refusing to cook, clean or look after children. For a time also there was a women's party represented in parliament with many former leading members now involved in the governing social-democratic Alliance and Left Greens.

Under the decades of right-wing rule progress towards gender equality and female liberation was in many ways held back but with capitalism thoroughly discredited, the left in the ascendancy, and for the first time ever, a female Prime Minister and a gender balanced cabinet the feminist movement can hopefully again march forward and take back what should rightfully be theirs. And can act as an inspiration to their sisters and supporters elsewhere.

There's some more stuff in English about Icelandic feminism here if anyone's interested:

http://www.feministinn.is/almennt/english.html
http://www.feministinn.is/generaltfemin ... nglish.htm
Posted by Stuart Miller at 6:15 AM 0 comments
Labels: feminism, iceland, sex industry
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Iceland: a nation in revolt

[bluecoat28]

Iceland of course has a history of strong feminists - on the 24th of October 1975 90% of the country's women went on strike for a day, marching out of their workplaces and refusing to cook, clean or look after children.

That is amazing.

[sam]

The following was found whilst poking around for info about prostitution in Iceland, but it's Wiki so I'm searching for a fact-based source.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Iceland

There was no visible prostitution in Iceland until the 1990s, therefore there was no legal regulation for prostitution. In the mid-90's there emerged night clubs in which women worked not only as barmaids and dancers, but also as prostitutes, especially in Reykjavík.

++topic change++

The meticulous info gathering Wiksters have done on prostitution takes my breadth away. In addition to the main page on prostitution, there's a "Prostitution by country" page wherein each country in the world gets its own Wiki page. I have never before seen Wiki break up a social subject into a country-by-country series of pages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:P ... _by_countr

Wanna weep? Look at the "Women's Rights by Region" page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:W ... _by_region

W
*Women's rights in Africa
*Women's rights in Asia
*Women's rights in Europe
*Women's rights in Oceania
*Women's rights in the Americas
*Women's rights in the Middle East

Now look here, no not at the "Prostitution by Region" page, but at the "Prostitution in India" page. Notice it is broken down into many pornstitutional categories, and each one has its very own Wiki page. There is no women's rights in India page or women's rights in Kolkata page.

A
* Aadhiya System
* All Bengal Women's Union
* Ambapali

B
* Bachara
* Blue film
* Born into Brothels

C
* Chukri System

D
* Dance bar
* Devadasi
* Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee

G
* G. B. Road

K
* Kamathipura

N
* Nagarvadhu

P
* Prostitution in India
* Prostitution in Kolkata

S
* Sanlaap
* Shivdaspur
* Sonagachi

T
* Tawaif
* Template:Prostitution in India
* Tulasa Thapa

U
* User talk:Dwaipayanc/Archive3

[phio gistic]

That section of wikipedia reads like a menu for rapists (what they like to call "sex tourists").

"What are the penalties if I buy someone to rape in ____ country? In what countries can I buy children to rape? Let's check the handy guide on wikipedia!"

[MaggieH]

Wikipedia is so patriarchal. It is full of scumbag johns.

[StuartM]

Quick update: The sex purchase ban was passed on Friday and came into effect immediately but sadly the strip club ban failed - for now. This is according to an article in the Norwegian newspaper Klassekampen (English translation here: http://209.85.227.132/translate_c?hl=no&ie=UTF-8&sl=no&tl=en&u=http://www.klassekampen.no/55891/article/item/null&usg=ALkJrhi4hptSyAn0vgsZ2NmrNhqR_09ACA). The fight certainly isn't over and with the left expected to gain a huge majority in Saturday's election I think we could see strip clubs being banned quite soon (especially as a recent poll found 58% of Icelanders - 74% of women and 43% of men - in favour).

[sam]

Muchas gracias for the link.

The Icelandic law against sex costumer buying is very similar to both the Norwegian and the Swedish sex costumer buying law. Jónsdóttir believes therefore that we now should be able to talk about "the Nordic model" of prostitution laws.

I'm going to change the title of this thread to reflect the new human rights term.

In March 2007 showed a poll from Gallup Capacent that 82 percent of women and 57 percent of men supported the proposed bill. Only eight percent were completely opposed, 12 percent "somewhat opposed" and ten percent took no position. There was a majority for the prohibition of all parties, however, was not adopted as law.

We have been given the statutory ideological recognition that prostitution is violence against women and that it therefore should be treated as any other type of sexual violence, namely the punishment of those who commit the violence.

[StuartM]

Now out of the Nordic countries we've just got Denmark and Finland which still haven't changed their laws. Public opinion towards prostitution in both countries seems to be a bit more liberal but I think it might be gradually shifting now a little.

Here's another article I came across which was initially in a US feminist magazine Rain and Thunder and has been posted on the website of the Norwegian feminist organisation Kvinnefronten in which a Swedish activist talks quite extensively about the background of the law and the progress which has been made since then: http://www.kvinnefronten.no/2876

Sweden of course has undergone a pretty astonishing shift of opinion in the last few decades considering how liberal things were in the 60s and 70s. There's some stuff here: http://www.kvinnofronten.nu/FmP/fmpenglish.htm about the Swedish anti-porn struggle in the 80s and 90s and includes a pamphlet focussing on the fight against child porn (which was shockingly fully legal there between 1971 and 1980). Fortunately radical feminist ideas gained prominence in Sweden very quickly from the mid 1970s onwards and since then have had a large amount of influence upon Swedish society and politics.