Nordic Model Now!
Movement for the Abolition of Prostitution
“I’m a survivor of familial sex trafficking. My father started sexually abusing me before I was even two years old and by age six, he was selling me to strangers for sex. This went on until I was about 16 years old.
He threatened my younger brother and me, saying he would kill our mother if we ever told anyone what he was doing… Read More
The Scottish Government is running a consultation on its prostitution policy. We would like to encourage all our supporters to respond to this consultation. In order to make it as easy as possible, this post provides a crib sheet to help you. You do not need to live in Scotland to respond.
The deadline for responding is: Thursday 10 December 2020. Read More
The Scottish Government is running a consultation on its prostitution policy. The consultation is open until Thursday 10 December 2020. We would like to encourage all our supporters to respond to this consultation. You do not need to live in Scotland to respond.
This post provides the full text of the Nordic Model Now! response to the consultation, which you are welcome to use this as inspiration and/or to copy and paste from it. Because the consultation is fairly complex and, in some places, confusing, we are also providing shorter template responses in an attempt to make it as easy as possible to respond. Read More
A woman who wants to remain anonymous sent this powerful piece about her experiences in, and understanding of, prostitution through our Share Your Story page. This provides a space for women to tell of their experiences of the sex trade in their own words.
“Sex buyers, pimps and traffickers are delusional, narcissistic murderers of innocence that malevolently groom, then prey upon, people who are often victims of child molestation and sexual assault. These vulnerable people also tend to struggle with substance abuse, mental illness and most of all, financial insecurity… Read More
This is an edited transcript of Paula and Claire’s talk at the Experience of Prostitution webinar on Sunday 27 September 2020.
Paula and Claire are campaigners against the decriminalised red-light zone in the Holbeck area of Leeds. They are part of the Save Our Eyes community group. Read More
‘Sarah’ sent this harrowing and powerful piece about her experiences in prostitution through our Share Your Story page.
“Gagged and bound, I’m led down the steps into the basement. A group of men stand there and my legs begin to buckle beneath me. Surely, I’m not to be offered up to all of them? I’m horrified and afraid. But the question has already been answered in my mind and I know that my life will be changed forever… Read More
There are many popular myths about cam girls. The men who pay them often believe cam girls are lazy, superficial, money-hungry [insert gendered slur of your choice here]. A lot of women think the work will be sexually empowering, or at the very least, innocuous.
However, I once worked as a cam girl and got to find out first-hand what being one was actually like. I learned that all the myths about webcamming are not only false and misleading but dangerous. Here is the truth behind three of the biggest myths… Read More
This is an edited transcript of Linda Thompson’s talk at the Experience of Prostitution webinar on Sunday 27 September 2020.
“Hello everyone. My name is Linda Thompson and I am absolutely delighted to join the webinar today on the experience – no, the experiences – of prostitution.
I work for the Women’s Support Project. I am national coordinator on commercial sexual exploitation. I get funded by the Scottish Government to develop and deliver programmes of work to raise awareness of the harms and realities of commercial sexual exploitation as a form of violence against women… Read More
Last month Nordic Model Now! was asked to participate in a University of Exeter student debate on the proposition that “This house believes that sex work is real work.” As a group, we are ambivalent about taking part in such debates. On the one hand, they are seldom a conducive forum for understanding nuanced and complex issues – but on the other hand, if we don’t participate there is a risk that the audience won’t hear the feminist analysis of prostitution. No one else in the group was able to take part that night, so reluctantly I agreed. Read More
This is the text of our submission to a Sheffield University study on human trafficking and online sexual exploitation.
AdultWork and similar sites make it extraordinarily easy for sex traffickers to exploit the prostitution of vulnerable women and girls. In fact it is hard not to come to the conclusion that these sites have been specifically designed for this purpose. If the UK is serious about cracking down on human trafficking, it must hold websites that facilitate sex trafficking and who profiteer from women and girls’ prostitution to account, as it is obliged to under international law. Read More
This is a transcript of Rebecca Mott’s talk at the ‘Experience of Prostitution’ webinar on 27 September 2020.
“I was prostituted from the age of 14 until my early 20s. I will speak to what it is to be prostituted; to the conditions for the prostituted and the breaking down of their humanity.
To understand prostitution, we need to see deeper than the generalised language of it being a bad thing. Instead, I will speak about the mental and physical trauma of the prostituted…
Read More
This article by key members of the International Coalition for the Abolition of Surrogacy (ICASM) calls upon the Hague Conference on Private International Law to show real courage and political leadership and, rather than continuing with work to regulate surrogacy at the international level, instead to recognise surrogacy as the profound human rights abuse that it is and to work for its abolition.
ICASM has drawn up a draft international convention for the abolition of surrogacy. Read More
These powerful and moving pieces were sent to us through our Share Your Story page, which provides a space for women to tell of their experiences of the sex trade in their own words.
“I’m in the US. I have been prostituting for years off and on. I’ve been arrested four times. I have no job skills… Read More
This page provides access to recordings of the talks from our ‘Experience of Prostitution’ webinar on 27 September 2020. As transcripts of the talks become available, you will also be able to access them from this page.
This webinar aimed to provide an antidote to the notion that prostitution is empowering for women and that “sex work” is just a job, not much different from any other work. We heard from women who have lived prostitution, have extensive experience of working with women involved in it, and who see the impact of the infamous red-light zone in Holbeck, Leeds, on their local community. Read More
In this article, Israeli abolitionist activist, Luba Fein, discusses the recent announcement that signals the end of legal strip clubs in Israel and the long history of women’s activism behind it.
In September 2020, about two months after the Israeli Sex Purchase Ban came into force, the Tel Aviv municipality made a dramatic announcement: all the strip clubs in the city would be closed and no new clubs would receive a license. This meant the elimination of all the legal strip clubs in Israel, because Tel Aviv was the only place that still had them. Read More
This piece was sent in anonymously through our Share Your Story page, which provides a space for women to tell of their experiences of the sex trade in their own words.
“I am a 43 year-old Irish woman who was actively involved in prostitution for five years from 2008 to 2013. My involvement in the sex trade came about as a result of my chronic addiction to heroin. I was not a victim of trafficking, nor was I being controlled by a pimp… Read More
By Michelle Kelly
As a trafficking survivor who later went on to enter the UK porn industry, I have been following the recent media focus on trafficking in porn with a lot of interest, even though, as I have previously expressed, I am highly cautious of the influence of what is often termed the ‘religious right.’ Nevertheless I believe that calling for — as a bare minimum — greater regulation of sites such as PornHub to be a matter of urgency.
This is why… Read More
Far from being a success, the decriminalised red-light zone in Holbeck is a misogynistic sticking plaster over a cancerous lesion of male violence, organised crime, exploitation and female suffering. Read More
This is a transcript of Liz Purslow’s talk at the What’s wrong with surrogacy? webinar on 6 September 2020.
In this powerful talk, Liz looks at the health risks for women involved in surrogacy and the egg harvesting on which most surrogacy is predicated, along with the inevitable conflicts of interests and safeguarding issues that may arise. She asks, Should the NHS pay women to put themselves at risk of harm to breed babies for others? Read More
This is an edited transcript of Anna Fisher’s talk at the What’s wrong with surrogacy? webinar on 6 September 2020.
I’m going to very briefly run through the law as it currently applies in England and Wales and then I’ll explain the key features of the proposals for change that the Law Commissioners put forward in their recent consultation and what we expect to happen next. Read More
This is a transcript of Heather Harvey’s talk at the What’s wrong with surrogacy? webinar on 6 September 2020.
First, I have to state our position which, is uncompromising. There is no human right to have and rear a child at all, let alone to have one with a genetic connection to you. And, notwithstanding our sympathy for those who desperately want, and are unable to have, a child of their own, our position opposes both the proposals in the consultation and the whole concept of surrogacy. This position arises from the belief that surrogacy is incompatible with women’s rights and equality. Read More
This is an edited transcript of Lexi’s talk at the What’s wrong with surrogacy? webinar on 6 September 2020.
Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining us today. My name’s Lexi. I submitted a freedom of information (FOI) request to the Law Commission on 27 August last year (2019) and it concluded with an internal review that finished on 9 July this year. So, it was almost a year for the entire process. Read More
This page provides access to pre-recordings (and links to transcripts) of the talks from our ‘What’s wrong with surrogacy?’ webinar that was held on 6 September 2020, along with practical ideas for how you can push back against the Law Commission’s proposals.
This webinar aimed to balance the one-sided picture of surrogacy that is mainly provided in the mainstream media with a feminist analysis and a look at the risks and abuses that can be involved. We also provided a brief overview of the proposals the UK Law Commission put forward in its public consultation last year and consider what they might mean for women and children. Read More
This is an edited transcript of a powerful and informative podcast, in which Siobhan from Nordic Model Now! talks with Linda Thompson about her work with women who have lived experience of prostitution in Scotland and why Scotland must urgently address the desperate poverty and inequality that is the backdrop to women’s involvement in the sex trade and introduce the Nordic Model without delay. Read More
This is a transcript of a podcast interview with Anna Fisher, in which she provides a feminist critique of surrogacy and a brief overview of the proposals that the UK Law Commission put forward in its public consultation last year and the grave concerns they throw up – including the risk that the UK will become the commercial baby farming centre of western Europe. Read More
In this podcast, Anna Fisher provides a feminist critique of surrogacy and a brief overview of the proposals that the UK Law Commission put forward in its public consultation last year and the grave concerns they throw up – including that the UK will become the baby farming centre of western Europe. Read More
In this powerful and informative podcast, Siobhan from Nordic Model Now! talks with Linda Thompson about her work with women who have lived experience of prostitution in Scotland and why Scotland must urgently address the desperate poverty and inequality that is the backdrop to women’s involvement in the sex trade and introduce the Nordic Model without delay. Read More
This podcast explains our grave concerns about how the Modern Slavery Act 2015 frames human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. It asks how this legislation could have been passed when it so spectacularly fails to meet binding obligations under international law and shows that as a result, there is a failure to deal effectively with the forms of human trafficking that particularly affect women and children, and that this has profound implications for how society understands prostitution and how the criminal justice system deals (or fails to deal) with it. A video essay is also available. Read More
This week, Wahine Toa Rising, a New Zealand grassroots organisation led by sex trade survivors, launched its website. Here members of the organisation explain what it is about.
“Wahine Toa Rising is a voice for vulnerable, exploited women and children in Aotearoa/ New Zealand, who are overrepresented in the sex trade. Like us, they deserve to know they are WORTHY, VALUED, HEARD, SEEN, and LOVED.” Read More
This is the text of our submission to the Women & Equalities Select Committee’s inquiry into the Unequal impact of Coronavirus (Covid-19) and the impact on people with protected characteristics. (Submitted 27 April 2020). Read More
