by NMN

The women behind the windows in Amsterdam’s red light district

A review of ‘Body for Rent’ by Anna Hendricks and Olivia Smit.

This is the true story of two girls being groomed, and then pimped into the windows of the famous De Wallen red light district in Amsterdam on the day they reach 18, the magical age that prostitution becomes legal in the Netherlands, and their subsequent years of struggle to get free. Underlying this story is another one: the power of the love and friendship between the two women, even under the most brutal circumstances and the best efforts of their pimp to drive a wedge between them. Read More

by NMN

Has the Nordic Model worked? What does the research say?

This article reviews the key research that has been undertaken on the results of the Nordic Model in the countries in which it has been implemented, and provides a summary of the findings. All of the studies show evidence of a significant reduction in men’s demand for prostitution. Although accurate estimates of the size of the population engaged in prostitution are difficult, the evidence suggests a reduction in the numbers involved over the medium and long term. Where the sex purchase ban is enforced, the sex trade becomes less viable and this discourages sex trafficking and pimping. Read More

by NMN

The child sexual abuse hidden behind the ‘sex work’ façade

This article looks at evidence from Germany and New Zealand that legalising or decriminalising the prostitution of adults creates a façade behind which the prostitution (or paid rape) of children can thrive and weakens men’s individual and collective resistance to sexually abusing children. This suggests that opening up the commercial sex industry will always have profound child safeguarding implications – and gives the lie to assertions to the contrary. Read More

by NMN

A Very Yorkshire Brothel or A Dereliction of Duty?

This is a letter of complaint that we have sent today to the ITV complaints department about its recent ‘documentary’ series entitled, A Very Yorkshire Brothel. We are also preparing a shorter version to submit to Ofcom. If you are also concerned that a British TV channel is presenting an extremely biased picture of prostitution for amusement under the guise of being a documentary, we encourage you to also submit a complaint. You are welcome to copy and paste from our letter. Read More

by NMN

Miseducation – This is not a love song

Drawing on her own experiences in porn and prostitution, Esther asks that we break through our cultural denial and open our eyes to the brutal reality that easy access to online porn and anything goes prostitution has unleashed: The everyday sexual, bodily and psychic torture of women and girls throughout the world and the presentation of this to children as if it were normal sex and not fraught with danger, not only for the individual but for our very social fabric. Read More

by NMN

Which model is safest for women in prostitution: legalisation, full decrim, or partial decrim (Nordic Model)?

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

by NMN

20 Years On – Scotland learning from Sweden’s Sex Purchase Act

This article is based on the live tweets Bec Wonders sent out during an event in the Scottish Parliament on 5 December 2019. The event was entitled ‘Twenty Years On: What can Scotland learn from Sweden’s ground-breaking law to tackle demand for prostitution and sex trafficking?’ We are grateful to Bec for letting us publish the article because she captures the feeling and essential messages of the event brilliantly.

“I cast my eyes much higher than ‘mitigating’ violence against women and girls. Commercial sexual exploitation of women and girls must be eliminated, not mitigated or tolerated – eliminated.” says Ruth Maguire. Read More

by NMN

Rape, stigmatisation and textual victimisation

In this article, Helena Brors discusses the 2015 Swedish book, Allt som är mitt: Våldtäkt, stigmatisering och upprättelse (which translates as: Everything that’s mine: Rape, stigmatisation and amends) by two ‘sex-positive feminists,’ Alexander Chamberland and Anna Svensson, and exposes in a brilliant and illuminating way many of the logical fallacies that both ‘sex-positive’ feminists and pro-sex trade lobbyists routinely make.
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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.
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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

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

by NMN

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

by NMN

Statement on the recent jailing of women in Ireland for brothel keeping

Under a headline that accuses supporters of the Nordic Model of ‘co-signing the imprisonment of women,’ Molly Smith reports in The Independent that two migrant women were given nine-month prison sentences in the Republic of Ireland for selling sex from an apartment they shared. This article explains that the headline is both misleading and unfair, because we have always made it clear that we are opposed to women being criminalised for their own prostitution. Read More

by NMN

‘I survived but only just & sometimes I wish I hadn’t’

Here are some more #MeToo stories that survivors of the sex trade have sent us on social media or through our Share Your Story page. Thank you to every one of you who shared these powerful words.

“I was beaten, set on fire, cut, bitten, choked, robbed and raped, sometimes by men who were high up in the police or were judges, doctors, politicians.” Read More

by NMN

Flyers about Motion 108 at the Unison Delegate Conference 2019

We’ve just taken delivery of a batch of flyers we’ve had printed to give out at the Unison National Delegate Conference next week (18-21 June 2019). They briefly explain that Motion 108: ‘Decriminalisation for safety’ seeks to overturn Unison’s longstanding support for the Nordic Model and replace it with full decriminalisation of the sex trade, which implicitly decriminalises pimps, brothel keepers and punters. Read More

by NMN

Statement on Universal Credit and ‘survival sex’

There has been considerable coverage in the media recently of benefit sanctions, and delays and shortfalls in Universal Credit, driving women into what is being called ‘survival sex,’ but which is in fact prostitution. We do not accept that prostitution becomes something different depending on what caused your engagement in it. This statement briefly explains our position. Read More

by NMN

An EMDR therapist on what she’s learned working with people who’ve experienced prostitution

Dana Levy is an Israeli prostitution survivor and campaigner for the Nordic Model in Israel, where a Nordic Model-style law has recently been passed. In this article, she talks to Dr Tal Croitoru, the CEO and founder of the Israeli network, EMDR Experts, about her EMDR work with people who’ve experienced prostitution. EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a psychotherapy treatment that was originally designed to alleviate the distress associated with traumatic memories. Read More

by NMN

Is ‘sex work’ real work? ‘If work is being slapped/beaten/told you’re a worthless whore… Then yes it’s work’

Is ‘sex work’ real work? “If ‘real work’ is having a 70 year-old drunk man bargaining with your ‘price’ because you won’t continue without a condom… that man getting aggressive and asking for his money back… if work is being forced to give up 50-100% of your income to a pimp… if work is being forced to have sex with men on the run from the police for domestic abuse… if work is being filmed without your consent… if work is being slapped/beaten/told you are a worthless whore… Then yes it’s work.” Read More