Fuckförbundet, 20 years of failing sex workers: A community report on the impact of the 1999 Swedish Sex Purchase Act, 2019.
This community report examines the impact of twenty years of the Swedish Sex Purchase Act which was introduced in 1999, Sweden being the first country on the world to criminalize the purchase of sexual services and clients of sex workers using a feminist argumentation. Currently, the Swedish model is implemented in Norway, Iceland, France, Ireland, Northern Ireland and Canada and has inspired policy recommendations of the European Union and the Council of Europe.
The report entails four parts and ends with policy recommendations. The first part deals with the structural violence against sex workers, in particular the increase of stigma, exclusion and discrimination. It analyses how sex workers are depicted in the Swedish media, the difficulty for Fuckförbundet to collaborate with other associations and the racist rhetoric of the Government in the implementation of the Act. It also shows that the discourse on the ban of buying sexual services impacts the selling of it as well.
The second part examines the interpersonal violence against sex workers, a big issue being the rapport with the police and the border police. But because of the decrease in the number of clients, sex workers are confronted to exploitation and violence by non-state actors too.
Among other things, because it has become more difficult for sellers and buyers of sexual services to make direct contact with one another, they become dependent on third parties which take profit of sex workers.
The third part focuses on the right to health of sex workers. No government-funded studies on sex workers’ health have been conducted since the introduction of the Swedish model, and neither have specialized or low threshold services been set up. Besides providing condoms, free anonymous health checks and testing for sex workers are seen as ‘encouraging prostitution’. There is a lack of non-judgmental, low threshold provision. The situation is of course worse regarding intersecting stigma and discrimination, in particular for sex workers who are migrant, LGBT and/or use drugs.
The fourth part takes a view of how the Swedish model impacts other legislations, like Norway, France or Ireland.
Finally, the rapport ends with policy recommendations in three fields, namely sex work, migration & trafficking and health.
Access to the report (nswp.org)