Nordic Model Now!
Movement for the Abolition of Prostitution
Prostitution survivor, Sian, explains why she wholeheartedly welcomes the EU Parliament resolution of 14 September 2023 on the regulation of prostitution in the EU: its cross-border implications & impact on gender equality & women’s rights. Read More
Sian describes her experience of prostitution as a teenager and its link to child sexual abuse. She explains why the term ‘sex work’ obscures the violence and horror of the sex trade. Read More
Why Surrey students’ union’s ‘Safety Toolkit for Student Sex workers’ will NOT make students involved in the sex industry safe. Read More
A discussion of the new NPCC Sex Work National Police Guidance for the UK, welcoming its new ban on police buying sex but showing that in other ways it is misguided, ill informed, naive, and worse. Read More
Searing critique of the recent Journal of Law and Economics study that claims rape rates go down after countries legalise prostitution. Read More
Why you should sign and share our petition calling for a change in the sexist police culture by banning police from paying for sex. Read More
Cajsa talks about her experience of prostitution in Sweden under the Nordic Model and why she believes it is the best approach to prostitution law and policy. Read More
Thoughts on “He Chose Porn Over Me”: Women Harmed by Men Who Use Porn, edited by Melinda Tankard Reist Read More
Chelsea Geddes draws on her more than 20 years in New Zealand’s legal brothels, to explain how the full decrim prostitution system works out in practice. Read More
A heartfelt plea to Unison to not abandon its 12-year support for the Nordic Model at its National Delegate Conference in Brighton in June. Read More
Andrea Heinz’s moving and powerful speech at the webinar to launch the Nordic Model Now! Handbook for Universities. Read More
Subtitled, ‘A brief reflection on pornography leads to a reflective tirade in statistical mode,’ this article by Elizabeth Matz was first published in Women & Therapy in 1994 and is reproduced here with the author’s permission. Read More
Must-read transcript of our ‘Talking with men and boys’ webinar that was held on 11 April 2021. Read More
Audio and video recordings of our ‘An evening with Suzzan Blac’ webinar that was held on 14 July 2021. Read More
Statement from Nordic Model Now! on the UK government’s new strategy for tackling violence against women and girls. Read More
Male-pattern violence is never merely an individual act. It sends out a message to those nearby: This is what happens to women and girls who do not submit. It therefore serves to uphold the power of other men and of men as a class… Read More
This is the Nordic Model Now! response to the British government’s consultation on its Women’s Health Strategy. Read More
We need to ask, what is it in our culture that gives men and boys the entitlement and impunity to treat women and girls as second class, as less than human, as ‘other’? 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
This is an edited transcript of Linda Thompson’s talk at the Experience of Prostitution webinar on Sunday 27 September 2020. 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 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 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
“The global onslaught of online sexualised violence, competing for clicks with acts of destruction, torture and murder, its enactment against prostituted women and men, and its mainstreaming as part of a ‘bucket list’ of steps in a sexual apprenticeship dictated by untouchable, global corporations, has severe consequences for both women and men…” Read More
In this important post, Ally-Marie Diamond explains how she was introduced to a feminist analysis of prostitution as a form of violence against women, her first tentative steps into the feminist movement for the abolition of the sex trade, and her desire to share her own painful experiences as a way of helping others understand the reality. She then goes on to describe how she was silenced and ostracised within the movement and her determination to put aside division and work with other women to bring about real change for the most vulnerable women and children. Read More
In this ground-breaking and harrowing article, Esther, who was herself involved in prostitution and the making of porn, shows how the eroticisation of cruelty in both the political and personal arenas is fed by the global sex industry’s violence and cruelty, and she reveals the hypocrisy of those who insist that ‘sex work’ is a private matter of no consequence to anyone else and who wilfully ignore its devastating consequences for both individuals and society. Read More
When HARRIET EVANS fell into difficulties with her housing, and universal credit was too little to live on, she turned to prostitution as a way of keeping a roof over her head. Here she explains how the Nordic Model could have helped her and others in the sex industry.
“‘Sex work’ as a valid form of income redefines ‘consent.’ Full decriminalisation colludes with the notion that a woman’s consent is negotiable; it can be bought; it can be ignored.” Read More
“I have decided to try this avenue and post here, not my story, not the story of a relative, not even the story of a friend, but the story of a whole country, my country – Romania. It is a gruesome story – in fact, ‘story’ is a misnomer. It is a gruesome reality. Of course, you are well aware of it, but I’ll tell it nonetheless.
“Here in Romania, we’re at the end of our wits and we, as common people, are doing everything we can on our part and I can only hope I can contribute by telling it here in the hopes of making a dent, at least…” Read More
Before we consider options for prostitution law and policy, we need a full understanding of how prostitution affects both the women and men involved, and the wider society. This article provides a brief summary of the impacts of prostitution and shows that prostitution is part of a wider systemic problem and that it therefore requires a systemic solution. The article goes on to show that the Nordic Model approach provides such a systemic solution – unlike full decriminalisation which would exacerbate the very problems that we need to solve. Read More
Drawing on her own lived experience, Jade looks at the ‘everyday reality’ of prostitution for women operating under three key models of prostitution law and policy – legalisation, full decriminalisation, and partial decriminalisation (aka the Nordic Model), and asks which model is safest for the women involved. Read More
This is the text of our submission to the Women & Equalities Select Committee’s inquiry into prostitution. Unfortunately the inquiry is now closed because parliament has been dissolved for a general election. However, the evidence collected will remain available for future consideration. Read More
How do we #MakeAllWomenSafe in prostitution? Is that even possible? Read More
A reflection on the transatlantic slave trade – what drove it, how it was justified, and the long road to its abolition – and the current battle between those who want to open up the sex trade to the free markets and those who want to abolish the sex trade and the entire system of prostitution.
“For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” – Nelson Mandela, 1995 Read More
Last month I went to Geneva to attend the 66th session of the United Nations (UN) Committee Against Torture as it reviewed the UK’s progress in implementing the UN Convention Against Torture. This is what I learned. Read More
There is a motion calling for the “decriminalisation of prostitution” on the agenda at the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Congress in Liverpool on 19–23 May 2019. This article explains all you need to know before making a decision about how to vote on this motion or how you ask your branch representative to vote on your behalf. Read More
Many people who promote and support the sex industry insist that sex doll brothels are a good thing and they will not affect women involved in prostitution. In this short article, Chelsea, who has had many years’ experience in the legal brothels in New Zealand, responds to a piece promoting this viewpoint. She explains why it is mistaken and that in fact sex doll brothels spell disaster for prostituted women. Read More
Exit! is the harrowing true story of Grizelda Grootboom’s journey into and through prostitution. Many people justify prostitution on the basis of the prostituted person’s choice. Grizelda’s story reveals the shallow irrelevance of this idea in a life blighted by childhood neglect and abandonment, rape, racism, poverty and lack of opportunity, coercion, betrayal and abduction. While Grizelda’s story is unique, there are many elements that are common to many of those who are prostituted worldwide. Read More
In this podcast, Trixie talks with Anna, who was groomed into prostitution as a teenager and continued in that life on the streets of Leeds for 11 years. Her story shows the insidious nature of the grooming process and the increasing violence and coercive control of her pimp, who was also her partner and the father to her kids. She talks about the punters, the women she was prostituted with, the connections with the local lap dancing club, and the long-term effects of ‘the life’ on herself and her children. Read More
A kerb-crawler attempting to pay a woman £10 to hand over her baby shows the Leeds ‘managed prostitution zone’ is a failed experiment. This shouldn’t surprise us because anything that legitimises prostitution implicitly legitimises one-sided sex and the commodification of women. Read More
Francine Sporenda interviews Yasmin Vafa, co-founder and executive director of Rights4Girls, which works to end male violence against young women and girls in the United States. She is a lawyer and her work focuses on the intersections between race, gender, violence, and the law. She educates the public and policymakers on these issues and how they affect the lives of marginalized women and children. She has successfully advocated for several anti-trafficking laws at the federal level, has testified before Congress and international human rights bodies, and co-authored a seminal report mapping girls’ unique pathways into the justice system: The Sexual Abuse to Prison Pipeline: The Girls’ Story. Read More
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Professor Philip Alston, is undertaking an official visit to the UK from 6 to 16 November 2018. He is investigating the interlinkages between poverty and the realization of human rights. Before his visit he made a call for written submissions to help him prepare for the visit. We made the following submission about how extreme poverty and widening inequality between the sexes is driving many women into prostitution, in violation of their human rights. Read More
This is the text of a short talk Anna Fisher gave at a Public Policy Exchange event, called “The Future of Sex Work in the UK: Working in Partnership to Support Sex Workers and Minimise Harm,” on Wednesday 19 September 2018.
When the state sanctions prostitution as work, it institutionalises male domination and female suffering, and motivation to address women’s poverty and fix the broken benefits system is lost – because prostitution is institutionalised as welfare for poor women. Read More
As a group campaigning for the Nordic Model approach to prostitution, people often berate us for not “listening to sex workers.” If we did, they say, we’d know they all want full decriminalisation of the sex trade and not the Nordic Model. But our group includes survivors of the sex trade and we know that the reality is a little more complicated. In this article we explain why we created our Share Your Story page and distill some of the themes that have emerged from the moving and heart-breaking stories we’ve received so far. Read More
This is the text of our submission to the APPG on Hate Crime’s inquiry into hate crime in the UK. We argue that hate crime is typically the behaviour of members of a dominant group towards members of a less powerful group – usually with the motivation of maintaining their collective and individual dominance; that the hate crime framework must never be used to silence respectful debate and dissent; that porn should be considered a form of hate propaganda; and that the hate crimes that are centrally monitored and for which perpetrators can get an increased sentence should be extended to include misogynistic hate crime. Read More
This is the text of our submission to the Women & Equalities Committee’s inquiry into Sexual harassment of women and girls in public places, sent in early March 2018. Read More
This is another #MeToo personal story that arrived through our Share Your Story page. We felt it demanded its own post. Be warned: it is powerful, upsetting, important. Read More
The text of the Nordic Model Now! submission to the UK Government’s recent consultation on its proposed Domestic Abuse Bill, without the questions we did not answer and those for which we simply endorsed the responses given by End Violence Against Women (EVAW). Read More
The UK government is consulting on a new Domestic Abuse Bill. While we welcome some of its measures, male violence against women and girls is at emergency proportions, and the Bill is too much like a sticking plaster. We need something bigger and bolder – for the government to also urgently address the worsening inequality between the sexes, the low pay and precarious nature of so much work, the lack of affordable housing, and to implement a mandatory gender mainstreaming approach in all government departments. Read More
This is the written evidence that Nordic Model Now! submitted to the Women & Equalities committee in the UK Parliament in response to its 2016 inquiry into the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG5) in the UK. Read More
The London Mayor’s VAWG strategy no longer commits to targeting men’s demand for prostitution and does not even mention sex buyers once in its 100 pages. Meanwhile the men who bought children to rape and sexually abuse in Telford are mostly excised from the media reports. How can we address the heinous crimes of CSE, sex trafficking, and the pimping of women in prostitution if we refuse to look at the men who drive it and the culture that creates this behaviour and gives it impunity? Read More