In a recent statement, the Council of Europe (CoE) Human Rights Commissioner called on all member states to adopt the full decriminalisation of prostitution, including pimps, brothel keepers, and sex buyers. She did this while the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) (which comes under the auspices of the CoE) is considering a challenge to the Nordic Model legislation that is in force in France. In England and Wales, such behaviour by a high-ranking official during a criminal trial could be seen as contempt of court, a very serious matter. But she appears to be unaccountable.

We have prepared an open letter to the CoE and the ECHR, which is currently open for signatures. Please do sign it if you haven’t already done so.

However, we are also calling on people who live in CoE countries, to write to your country representatives in the CoE Parliament (PACE). (This is separate from the EU Parliament and is relevant in the UK post-Brexit.)

There is a list of all the countries in the CoE on the PACE website. If you click the link for your country, this shows the names of all the PACE representatives for your country. Below the list of representatives are contact details for the delegation secretariat and officers. We recommend sending your letter to the secretariat and requesting they forward it to each of the representatives.

The contact details are not provided for the representatives themselves. However, they are typically also members of national parliaments and you may be able to find their contact details on your national parliament website. For example, the UK parliament website has a look up page for both MPs and members of the House of Lords.

Writing your letter

Below, we provide a template letter that you can send. However, it is always preferable to write your own personal letter. But it’s better to send the template letter than nothing at all.

Be brief and to the point – we recommend no more than two sides of A4. Include why this is a personal issue for you – you may want to mention your own personal experience of prostitution or how it has impacted you or someone close to you or those you work with.

Include your full name and postal address so that they know you are a real person.

You are welcome to copy and paste all or parts of the template letter.

The template letter

Dear [PACE member]

I am writing to you in your role as member of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) to express my very grave concern that on 15 February 2024 the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner, Dunja Mijatović, published a ‘Human Rights Comment’ entitled, ‘Protecting the human rights of sex workers’. In essence, it argues for the full decriminalisation of prostitution, including of pimps and other third party profiteers, in direct contravention of Article 6 of CEDAW, and against legislative measures aimed at deterring men from buying sex, in direct contravention of Article 9 of the Palermo Protocol.

Opinion on prostitution legislation is highly polarised in Europe, with some countries, (for example, Sweden, Norway, France, and Ireland) having what is known as the Nordic Model, and others (such as Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Belgium) having legalised or decriminalised systems. That countries within the Council of Europe legitimately have different ways of approaching an issue is recognised by the European Court of Human Rights in the principle of ‘margin of appreciation’.

The Nordic Model approach recognises prostitution to be harmful both to the individual and to society. It has the key aims of reducing the size of the industry and changing men’s behaviour. It decriminalises selling sex while providing those involved with high-quality support, including genuine routes out of the industry and alternatives for making a living; has strong laws against pimping and brothel keeping; and makes buying sex a criminal offence.

Legalisation and decriminalisation on the other hand do not see prostitution as inherently harmful and seek to regulate it (legalisation) or take it outside the criminal law altogether (decriminalisation). Both of these approaches tend to lead to a thriving industry, large numbers of men buying sex, lower prices, and an influx of marginalised women, many, if not most, trafficked from the poorest regions of Europe, Asia and Africa, as not enough local women are willing to enter the industry to meet the skyrocketing demand. Women who have viable alternatives seldom voluntarily choose to enter such an exploitative industry.

Many women who have lived experience of prostitution describe their experiences as torture. For example, Harriet, one of the members of Nordic Model Now! (NMN) says:

“In my experience, prostitution is a form of torture. My ‘clients’ weren’t paying me to play-act; they were paying me to genuinely submit. One ‘client’ beat me with paddles, belts, shoes, canes and batons. Subsequent ‘clients’ were aroused by my bruises, cuts and scars.

I was spat at, beaten, and raped over and over and, worse, was forced to look like I enjoyed it – or risk him not paying and I end up homeless.”

Esther, another NMN member, talks about the discrepancy between the recognition of the brutal, humiliating and sexualised treatment the CIA employed against detainees at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere as torture and the lack of recognition of similar practices employed against women involved in porn and prostitution as torture. She said that as a prostituted woman, she experienced almost every practice that the CIA has been documented as inflicting on detainees in the “war against terror”.

The right to freedom from torture, inhuman and degrading treatment, set out in Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, is an unqualified right – meaning that measures to address practices that amount to torture, inhuman and degrading treatment must be prioritised. Such understanding underpins the Nordic Model.

It appears that Mijatović did not investigate the thinking behind the Nordic Model and how it is working out in practice. Rather her article reads like a propaganda piece for the sex industry lobby (which of course favours decriminalisation) and makes a number of unevidenced claims. For a more on this, please read the open letter organised by Nordic Model Now! and the detailed critique from data scientist, J Smith.

However, what concerns me most is that Mijatović published her piece while the European Court of Human Rights is currently considering a challenge to the French Nordic Model legislation. This raises the question of whether the Commissioner was seeking to influence the Court’s decision. But regardless of her motivation, it reads like an attempt to influence the Court in this matter.

There is little doubt that she failed to consult with stakeholders who do not support the full decriminalisation of the sex industry. Failing to listen to both sides is inconsistent with the rule of law, which the Council of Europe has a duty to uphold.

I am writing to you, because I believe that as a member of PACE, you need to understand what is happening in the Council of Europe’s name and to ask you to do whatever is in your power to hold the Commissioner to account and to bring about more accountability generally and to ensure that her successor listens to both sides of all issues, evaluates evidence and research in a neutral and evidence-based way, and undertakes not to publish similar partisan unevidenced comment as if it were impartial fact.

Yours sincerely

[Name and full postal address]