How do we #MakeAllWomenSafe in prostitution? Is that even possible? Read More
Prostitution: How Do We Make All Women Safe?
The long road to abolition
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
What I Learnt at the UN Committee Against Torture’s Review of the UK
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
What nurses need to know about the RCN motion to decriminalise prostitution
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
The problem with sex doll brothels
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
A review of Exit! by Grizelda Grootboom
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
PODCAST: Anna talks about being groomed into prostitution and her subsequent 11 years in the sex trade
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
Who says decriminalised red-light districts are safer for women?
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
From sexual abuse to prison via prostitution: guilty of being victims
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
Submission to UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty & human rights in the UK
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
Minimizing the harms of prostitution
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
Survivors speak out about what prostitution is REALLY like
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
Hate crime as expression of dominance and inequality
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
Sexual harassment of women and girls in public places
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
Harriet’s story
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
Submission to the UK Government’s Consultation on its Domestic Abuse Bill
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 Domestic Abuse Bill: Nice try but it doesn’t come close
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
Submission to the Women & Equalities Committee’s inquiry on the implementation of SDG5
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
Invisible men in London and Telford
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
Statement of support for Heather Brunskell-Evans
There is a long history of women who speak out on behalf of vulnerable girls and women being harassed and silenced. We are disappointed that the Women’s Equality Party has seen fit to censure Heather Brunskell-Evans for expressing concern that adolescent girls are being fast-tracked into life-changing treatments and surgery that cause sterility and which some are likely to grow up to regret. Read More
