Movement for the Abolition of Prostitution

What is the Nordic Model?

The Nordic Model (sometimes known as the Sex Buyer Law, and the Swedish, Abolitionist, Survivor or Equality Model) is an approach to prostitution that has been adopted in Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Northern Ireland, Canada, France, Ireland and Israel. It has several elements:

1. Decriminalisation of selling sex acts

Prostitution is inherently violent. Women should not be criminalised for the exploitation and abuse they endure.

2. Buying sex acts becomes a criminal offence

Buying human beings for sex is harmful, exploitative and can never be safe. We need to reduce the demand that drives sex trafficking.

3. Support and exit services

High quality, non-judgemental services to support those in prostitution and help them build a new life outside it, including: access to safe affordable housing; training and further education; child care; legal, debt and benefit advice; emotional and psychological support.

A holistic approach

A public information campaign; training for police and CPS; tackling the inequality and poverty that drive people into prostitution; effective laws against pimping and sex trafficking, with penalties that reflect the enormous damage they cause. Read more >>

(more…)

Find out more
Posts

Latest Posts

This open letter from a sex trafficking survivor calls on women’s organisations to stand with survivors and challenge men’s demand for prostitution.

Continue Reading

What are some of the lifelong consequences of prolonged trauma from involvement in the sex industry? – A survivor’s perspective

A call for everyone to listen to survivors of the sex industry and to understand the trauma they suffer and to show them compassion and grace.

Continue Reading

The dystopian landscape of porn, AI girlfriends, and sex robots and how they threaten our shared humanity and mutually satisfying relationships.

Continue Reading

The UK Government has introduced amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill that purport to implement Baroness Casey’s recommendation for statutory rape legislation but that in fact fail to protect children under 16 from predatory men.

Continue Reading

Sex trade survivor, Amanda Quick, responds to Ash Regan’s Unbuyable Bill falling with a call for honest discussions about the harms of prostitution.

Continue Reading

FOI requests confirm the DWP considers self-employment on OnlyFans to be regular self-employment that comes under the same rules as hairdressers or plumbers

Continue Reading
Read More
Prostitution Survivors’ Testimony

Prostitution Survivors’ Testimony

Sara Smiles: My Story in the World of Paid Rape.

Sara Smiles started in prostitution in New Zealand in 1988 when she was a homeless 14-year old. She eventually escaped in 2010 when she was in her late thirties. She therefore experienced life in the sex trade in New Zealand both before and after it was fully decriminalised in 2003. []

Ella Zorra

“When I don’t eat I am slyly aiming for suicide.

When I smoke a gram of cocaine on my own I think how nice it would be to feel high when I die.

When I drink so much I hit my head and wake up with no memory, oblivion is at the back of my mind.

I am numb and my insides feel dead. []

Prostitution: Under the Grip of a Sociopath

Interview with Wendy Barnes by Francine Sporenda

Wendy and her daughter Latasha live in Southern California. Wendy works full time as a customer service representative. In her spare time she speaks publicly about her life while being trafficked and her journey out of trafficking and into ‘the real world’.

Wendy Barnes

Two excerpts from Wendy Barnes’ brilliant book “And Life Continues: Sex Trafficking and My Journey to Freedom”, in which she tells the story of how she became a victim of human trafficking, why she was unable to leave the man who enslaved her for fifteen years, and the obstacles she overcame to heal and rebuild her life after she was rescued. []

Sick of all the ‘Happy Hooker’ myths?

Want people to know what prostitution is REALLY like?

Share your story