by NMN

Open letter to all the sex buyers everywhere

‘Jo’ sent us this powerful and moving open letter to all the sex buyers everywhere through our Share Your Story page.

“Behind your backs we share a very different reality. We are tired of the emotional labour you put us through, not only the fact that you feel entitled to our bodies, but also that you feel entitled to our souls too. We talk about how much easier a client is when he is fast, less demanding. I’m saying ”we” because I’m talking about the majority of prostitutes I talk with, as well as my own experience in the sex trade.”
Read More

by NMN

PRESS RELEASE: Northern Ireland is failing to implement Clause 6 legislation

Northern Ireland is failing to implement Clause 6 legislation to prosecute sex buyers and to provide a programme of support to help the (mostly) women out of prostitution. Nordic Model Now! reports on this and its serious criticism of the review of the operation of the law commissioned by the Northern Ireland Department of Justice. Read More

by NMN

Response to the Queen’s University Belfast review of the operation of Northern Ireland’s sex buyer law

The NI Department of Justice has published a review of the criminalization of paying for sexual services in Northern Ireland (NI). In this article, we respond to that review and show that the law, and the Nordic Model approach of which it is a key part, has not been properly enforced or implemented; key institutions have maintained deep opposition; the lead researcher also opposed the approach and sought assistance from organisations that are similarly biased and/or have conflicting commercial interests; and the research utilised questionable and unreliable methodology. Despite all of this, an astonishing number of punters said that the new law will cause them to change their prostitution using behaviour.
Read More

by NMN

The F*ck Union and 20 years of Stockholm Syndrome

Dana Levy is an Israeli prostitution survivor and abolitionist activist in Israel, where a Nordic Model-style law has recently been passed. In this article she provides a persuasive critique of the Swedish organisation, Fuckförbundet’s recent report on the impact of the 1999 Swedish Sex Purchase Act, entitled ‘Twenty years of failing sex workers.’ She shows that many of the claims in the report simply do not hold up to scrutiny. Read More

by NMN

‘I am a prostitute. I have been a prostitute since I was underage. I’m in my mid-30s now’

‘Jo’ sent us this #MeToo account of her experiences of the sex trade through our Share Your Story page. This provides a space for women to tell their stories in their own words.

“I would just sit on my bed afterwards, looking at the money, focusing on it, counting my savings every day to keep myself motivated, and counting how much more I would have to save to retire. To never return, to leave and to forget all that had happened in prostitution. Ever. To erase every single detail of my past.” Read More

by NMN

‘I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone seeking a short fix. The damage it has done to me is irreparable.’

These #MeToo accounts of women’s experiences of the sex trade came in through our Share Your Story page. This provides a space for women to tell their stories in their own words.

“I made money from it, but felt like I had been all used up doing something that completely went against my core values. That experience induced trauma and I ended up going through even worse trauma in the years following that. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone seeking a short fix. The damage it has done to me is irreparable.” Read More

by NMN

Statement on the Committee on Standards’ report on Keith Vaz

In September 2016, a complaint was brought against Keith Vaz MP who was then the chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee (HASC). The complaint hinged on Vaz’s conflict of interests – he was witnessed buying sex and offering to buy cocaine for another person to use shortly after chairing inquiries into prostitution and psychoactive drugs. In this article we respond to the House of Commons Committee on Standards’ report into the matter. Read More

by NMN

Mobilising against the sex trade at FiLiA 2019

Run entirely by unpaid volunteers, FiLiA is a national feminist conference that takes place annually in the UK. This year it was in Bradford on the weekend of 19 and 20 October. In this article we provide a very brief summary of some of the highlights of the weekend for us – focusing on critique of the sex trade. However, the conference covered many other feminist issues, which we don’t have room to cover here. Read More

by NMN

‘Men circling the streets, looking at the women like meat and yelling at them like dogs’

In this article women who have not been in the sex trade themselves share how it has nevertheless affected their lives in various ways. We received these #MeToo accounts through our Share Your Story page. This provides a space for women to tell their stories in their own words.

“It always made me sick to my stomach, the way that one human buys another. To use her as his toilet and dump her back in the street after – only for another man to pick her up.” Read More

by NMN

Unison NDMC 2019: Vote AGAINST Motion 25 “HIV/AIDS and decriminalisation for disabled people’s safety”

Motion 25 “HIV/AIDS and decriminalisation for disabled people’s safety” at the Unison National Disabled Members Conference (NDMC) 2019 seeks to overturn Unison’s longstanding support for the Nordic Model approach to prostitution and replace it with support for full decriminalisation of the sex trade. In this article, we go through the motion, showing that it relies on partial facts, poor-quality research, and distortion of the bigger picture. We hope that this will help delegates and Unison members understand what is at stake and why we recommend you vote against the motion. Read More

by NMN

From the woman as object to the object as woman

In this brilliant and important interview, Yağmur Arica talks to Francine Sporenda about how technological developments have hugely increased the scale of sexual exploitation that is taking place and the vast profits that are being made from it. Yağmur goes on to argue, persuasively, that the popularity of sex dolls or robots, which she calls ‘masturbatory dolls,’ can be interpreted as yet another backlash against the gains of the feminist movement, as we rapidly approach the terrifying end-point where, “One woman is as good as any other and a doll is as good as a woman.” Read More

by NMN

PRESS RELEASE: Over 50 organisations sign open letter condemning the Law Commissioners’ surrogacy consultation

The UK and Scottish Law Commissioners’ joint consultation on opening up commercial-style surrogacy in the UK ends today (11th October 2019). The proposals and the methodology of the consultation have been heavily criticised by numerous women’s groups from the United Kingdom and around the world in an open letter sent to the UK and Scottish Law Commissioners today. The open letter, organised by campaign group, Nordic Model Now! was also signed by hundreds of concerned individuals. Read More

by NMN

Open letter to the UK and Scottish Law Commissioners about the surrogacy consultation

This open letter, signed by 27 UK organisations, 24 international organisations, and 794 individuals, calls on the UK Law Commissioners to scrap the biased consultation on their flawed proposals to open up commercial-style surrogacy in the UK and to go back to the drawing board, this time centring women’s and children’s welfare and human rights. Read More

by NMN

Report on the Scottish Parliamentary Prostitution Fact Finding Trip to Sweden

In this article, Dr Stoyle, the Secretariat of the Cross Party Group for Commercial Sexual Exploitation (CPG CSE) in the Scottish Parliament, reports on a Scottish parliamentary trip to Sweden to find out more about how the Swedish prostitution law works in practice. The trip took place on 22nd and 23rd August 2019. Read More

by NMN

Statement on signing as a supporter of Stop Surrogacy Now

Nordic Model Now! is proud to have signed up as an official supporter of the Stop Surrogacy Now campaign.

Although our main focus is campaigning for the Nordic Model approach to prostitution, we have always considered surrogacy to be closely related to prostitution. In both, the woman’s very body and being are instrumentalised for someone else’s benefit, while a whole feeding chain of third parties benefit economically from the arrangement. Read More

by NMN

Dismissing our arguments as ‘lies’, and other misconduct

Earlier this year, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Congress voted overwhelmingly for a motion that requires the RCN Council to lobby Governments across the UK for the “decriminalisation of prostitution.” We believe this was a terrible mistake and that the debate was biased and those promoting the motion behaved improperly.

We therefore wrote a letter, jointly with Stand Against Sexual Exploitation (SASE), to the members of the RCN Council setting out why they might want to revisit the matter. We offered to meet with them to discuss the issues in more depth and we asked for a response by the end of August. We have not had a single reply and so we are publishing the letter here. Read More

by NMN

A little something for the men

A few years ago, feminists in Hungary ran a publicity campaign aimed at helping men to understand the harms of prostitution and how the money they pay for sexual access to women and girls drives the whole exploitative system, right up to the sex trafficking of children. The Hungarian women have generously given us permission to use the photo that was central to the campaign and translations of the key messages. We have created postcards and hope they will help start a conversation with men. Read More

by NMN

Flyers about the UK Law Commission’s Surrogacy Consultation

We’ve had some flyers printed to raise awareness about the important consultation that the UK and Scottish Law Commissioners are currently running about proposed new surrogacy legislation that aims to encourage surrogacy in the UK. We want the flyers to be used to raise awareness of the consultation and encourage people to respond objecting to the proposals. Read More

by NMN

Porn is Videoed Prostitution and Fully Decriminalised. That Doesn’t Make it Safe.

By Scarlett X

As a survivor of commercial sexual exploitation, both within prostitution and the porn industry, I find the claim that decriminalisation of third parties such as pimps to be necessary to ‘keep all women safe’ absolutely ludicrous.

This is why. Read More

by NMN

How to respond to the UK Surrogacy Consultation in 10 easy minutes

Should babies be on sale as commodities in the UK? Should disadvantaged women be paid to be a ‘breeder’ for people much richer than she is? Should those richer people become the legal parents of that child the moment it’s born? Do you think Facebook and Google should be allowed to present adverts to hard-up female students suggesting that becoming a ‘surrogate’ would provide the solution to their financial worries?

No? Then please respond to the Law Commission’s consultation – otherwise all these things and more are likely to come to the UK very soon. This page explains how to do it in 10 easy minutes. Read More

by NMN

The Holbeck red light zone: condoms, sex offenders and cars full of jeering men

Holbeck in Leeds has been dubbed the UK’s first and only ‘legal’ red light district and there have been claims that it proves that legalising or decriminalising the sex trade is the way to go. Many other local councils are watching carefully as they are tempted to introduce copy cat zones. But what is it really like? Does it really make things safe for the women? Has it ended the practice of giving women cautions, fines, ASBOs and prison sentences for prostitution-related activities? What do the local residents have to say? We visit the zone to find out for ourselves. Read More

by NMN

The Law Commission’s Surrogacy Consultation: How to bamboozle through a dangerous new law

The UK Law Commission is running a consultation on proposals that would open up surrogacy in the UK, including provisions for paying birth mothers and allowing the advertising of surrogacy-enabling services. This article provides an overview of these proposals, and explains why we profoundly disagree with them, and how they are an assault on both women’s and children’s human rights. We show that the consultation is confusing, misleading, one-sided, and fails to ask clear questions about the high-level ethical issues. Read More

by NMN

‘The psychological damage & impact on my self esteem was devastating’

We received these #MeToo stories of the sex trade through our Share Your Story feature. This provides a space for women to tell their stories in their own words.

“They’ve even managed to get me to think that because I found prostitution and pornography traumatic that I was just one of the ones who ‘weren’t cut out for it,’ or was lacking in character and resilience somehow. I hate this so much.” Read More

by NMN

Online Pimping: A New Dystopia

Just as the Internet has changed how we buy books, holidays and electronic items, so it has changed how prostitution is organised. Now the Internet is one of the main ways that punters connect with the women (and others) they pay to use sexually, and it has opened up whole new opportunities for pimps to make vast fortunes while creating a living hell for many of those advertised. Read More