Sex Market Shrinks in Norway

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Sex Market Shrinks in Norway

Postby StuartM » Thu Dec 24, 2009 9:43 am

Here's a recent article that was in the Norwegian left-wing daily paper Klassekampen ('The Class Struggle') about the effects of the sexkjøpsloven which criminalises paying for sex. I've translated it into English:

Sex Market Shrinks

Fall: The market for sexual services has fallen considerably a year after the ban on the purchase of sex. The police have reported more than 260 customers.

From the 1st of January 2009 the purchase of sex could be punished with large fines or up to 6 months in prison. The law has been controversial but all actors are in agreement that the market has shrunk.

Pro Centre's figures show that 20% fewer are selling sex through advertisements than before the law. There have been considerably fewer street prostitutes in Oslo in 2009 than in 2008, but Pro Centre points out that in 2008 it was especially high due to a large stream of Nigerian prostitutes.

"Market mechanisms work, also in this area. When customers must stretch themselves and take more risks the demand goes down. Both customers and prostitutes must now work harder for the activity. The prostitutes complain about a poorer market and fewer customers" says Harald Bøhler who leads the Stop Project in Oslo Police District.

Police in the large towns have reported more than 260 customers for breaking the law. In Oslo just before Christmas it was 111 people. The fine levels in Oslo have increased from 9000 (over £900) to 25,000 kroner (over £2,500).

More than a search for customers

Bøhler says that the police are doing much more than just searching for individual customers.

"The Stop Project primarily fights human trafficking and pimping. We try to strangle the market through many measures. We have in the course of the year came across 60 or so places in Oslo where we have brought an end to the indoors sale of sex. We're working on 5 large pimping cases and have got indictments for 3 of them. We have received 22 reports of human trafficking and we're currently investigating 11 such cases" he says.

Bøhler believes it is too early to judge the effects of the sex purchase law after just 1 year.

"The politicians said they didn't just want to punish people but to have a normative law that alters behaviour over time. At times in the year before the sex market was such that out at night one could buy a blowjob cheaper than the last pint. Such conditions can influence people who otherwise might not find it natural to buy sex. Now the situation is completely different and this can limit the numbers".

Cleansing

Pro Centre's leader Liv Jessen was and still is an opponent of the law.

"I am not in doubt that a ban and large police efforts can reduce the prostitution market as a cleansing effort. Cleansing was undeniably a part of the reason for the movement towards a ban on the basis of a stream of Nigerian women who behaved in a provocative way people weren't used to. But I am concerned with whether or not the new restrictions mean that the women who go out of prostitution have it better. That in the meantime is an open question" says Jessen.

Jessen questions whether the new penalties are the right way to go to change social behaviour.

"Norway has had, in a European context, one of the smallest markets for prostitution. The sad thing with a law which targets those who buy is that it inevitably also hits those who sell. It was said by the politicians that the law wouldn't hit the prostitutes but this is an effect which no doubt comes in addition" she says.

There has, in the course of the autumn, come a number of media reports which say that street prostitution is Oslo is back to the same level as before following a reduction at the beginning of the year.

Far less

"I give up when I see such reports. We see close up that this is not true and have measures to record the market. The extent is much less than before, even if there has been a certain upswing in the second part of the year" says Olav Lægdene who leads Oslo's Town Mission's centre for women and men in prostitution.

The Town Mission's experience is that police visibility is decisive for the sex market.

"The number of customers has got much smaller, something the women confirm. But a number of young women still come to Oslo to try, especially from Nigeria and Romania. Recruitment from other countries has almost completely stopped" he says.

From http://www. klassekampen.no/56976/article/item/null
StuartM
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