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 >>

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Jenna reflects on a recent interview with Russell Brand and the importance of telling the truth about the prostitution industry.

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Decriminalising “sex work” may sound sensible until you think more deeply about what it means in practice. This article explains why.

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Prostitution survivor, Jenna, responds to reports that Labour MP Samantha Niblett is campaigning to promote sex toys under the guise of sex education.

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Reflections on the ethical failure of telling kids to respect others while our culture soaks them in violent porn and glamorises the brutal prostitution system.

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The parallels, the failure of the authorities & how treating females as commodities that men can trade and abuse with impunity reveals connections with the wider sex trade.

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To mark our tenth anniversary, this article explains how Nordic Model Now! began and what we did in the very early days.

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Prostitution Survivors’ Testimony

Prostitution Survivors’ Testimony

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. []

The toxic world of ‘sugar dating’

When I first set up an account on Seeking Arrangement (SA), I was 16 years old, broke, and bored. I was a virgin. Never in my wildest dreams did I anticipate that soon I would be knocking on the hotel room doors of total strangers to sell my body.

‘I was their ashtray’

In this article, Sian (one of our survivor panel reps) interviews Carmen, a Spanish transwoman, about their experience of street prostitution in Spain.

Beth

My name is Beth, I was a prostitute for five years. I never thought it would happen to me, but debt and almost becoming homeless can drive people to do things they usually wouldn’t do.

Sick of all the ‘Happy Hooker’ myths?

Want people to know what prostitution is REALLY like?

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