Mobilising public opinion

In Sweden, there has been a ban on the buying of sexual service for ten years. The law has extensive support among the Swedes – as many as 70 per cent want to keep the sex-purchase law. There are, however, considerable differences between women and men; 79 per cent of the women support the law, while 60 per cent of the men do so.

These are results from a recent survey study conducted by Jari Kuosmanen, researcher in Social Work at the University of Gothenburg, within the framework of NIKK’s prostitution project and with financial support from the Swedish Government.

Young people and persons born in Sweden have a more positive attitude to the Swedish sex-purchase law. Also among those born abroad, it is primarily the women who support the law.

But not all women share the same opinion; as many as 83 per cent of women with a high level of education want to keep the law, while the proportion who thinks so among women with a brief education is 63 per cent.

However, the Swedes do not only want a ban on buying sex. A majority would also like to forbid the selling of sexual services – women particularly take this stance.

What is the situation in the other Nordic countries that have not introduced a general ban on the buying of sex? In Denmark, where the selling of sex was decriminalized in 1999, an opinion survey conducted in 2002 by the sociologist Claus Lautrup shows that the Danes hold contradictory attitudes towards prostitution. Many accept the phenomenon, but would, nevertheless, like to limit it. There is a general tendency that men accept prostitution and are opposed to society reg­ulating it, while women tend to take the opposite stance.

However, a majority (63 per cent of the men and 82 per cent of the women) would want prostitution to be reduced or limited in scope. Half of these think that this should be done by legislation and giving help to the pro­stitutes. Interestingly enough, lawyers and policemen had a more sceptical attitude to­wards criminalisation, while social workers were more positive.

In some later surveys ordered by Danish newspapers, the support for criminalisation was weak. On the contrary, half of the respon­dents in one of the surveys wanted prostitution to be recognised as an occupation, as it is in Germany. Politicians, authorities and organisations have launched several campaigns in attempts to influence the Danish opinion in a direction more critical towards prostitution. This seems to have worked. In a survey, ordered by the newspaper Politiken at the end of 2006, the proportion who thought prostitution to be an unacceptable part of society had increased from 25 to 42 per cent. 22 per cent of the respondents supported a prohibition of prostitution.

Support for a sex-purchase law

In Norway, a law banning the buying of sex­ual services came into force in 2009. There has been an intense debate for and against the law in the last years. In Norway, too, there is a big difference between the opinions of women and of men. Several studies conducted by newspapers over the last few years show that a majority of women support a sex-purchase law, while a minority of men do so. The law has a larger degree of support among those who live in Oslo than in other parts of the country.

In 2006, prostitution attracted a lot of media attention because of its growing visibility caused by the increased proportion of foreign prostitutes. Several studies conducted that year show a tendency towards greater support for a sex-purchase law.

In Iceland, the Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies conducted an opinion survey on gender equality in 2003. In the survey, 60 per cent of the men and 69 per cent of the women answered that the buying of sex should be illegal. An even larger proportion opposed the recognition of prostitution as an occupation (67 per cent of the men and 92 per cent of the women).

A study made in 2007 showed that 70 per cent of Icelanders wanted a sex-purchase law. Here, as in many other countries, the gender difference is considerable; 83 per cent of the women want to prohibit the buying of sex, while 57 per cent of the men do so. Thus, a big change in attitudes has taken place among the women, but not among the men.

Finland was on the road towards a general ban against the buying of sex, but in the end, as the result of a political compromise, a ban which only concerns buying sex from victims of human trafficking was introduced at the end of 2006. The Finns probably hold the most permissive attitude towards prostitution in all the Nordic countries. According to the gender equality barometers of 2004 and 2008, almost 60 per cent of the men and a little over 30 per cent of the women accepted the buying of sex from a prostitute. No considerable changes have happened during the four intervening years. Compared to surveys in the 1990s, it seems instead that the Finnish attitudes towards prostitution have become more tolerant in the 2000s.

Influence public opinion

Photo: Reden International

Attitudes towards prostitution do not emerge in a vacuum. The media, politicians, authorities and interest groups try to influence public opinion in various ways, and, at the same time, they are dependent on the public attitudes in order to take the issue in the direction they want.

In Denmark, Reden has been an important actor in the debate, according to Jeanett Bjønness, doctoral student at Aarhus University in Denmark. Reden is an organisation with help points for prostitutes and it has conducted several campaigns against prostitution and trafficking in humans. Reden regards prostitution as violence against women and is therefore an active advocate for the criminalisation of prostitution customers. In one of its campaigns, the organisation used an image of ten naked women who had been packed as meat for sale in the cold counter.

The will to criminalise the buying of sex is a historical turning point in Norway, in the opinion of Synnøve Jahnsen at the University of Bergen. She has analysed the Norwegian media debate on prostitution. Earlier, pro­stitution was, to a large degree, regarded as a social problem to be countered through social measures. But, in a short period of time, several political parties have changed their attitude. The reason for this has been the descriptions in the media of the increasingly foreign and more visible street prostitution.

The papers describe the growing visible prostitution with large headlines: “Prostitution frolics freely” and “The largest Nordic whore street” about the most famous street in Oslo, Karl Johans gate.

Letters to the editor depict Oslo as being turned into a slum by homeless people, beggars and prostitutes. Trade and industry think that visible prostitution is “bad for business”.

Pro Sentret, a national competence centre on prostitution, opposes a sex-purchase law and, in a contribution to the debate, points out that the claim that prostitution would have increased explosively is wrong. It is more a question of prostitution having changed form and become more visible in the public space.

Broad debate

The criminalisation debate has been broad and comprised many different aspects. Synnøve Jahnsen distinguishes three different main positions in the debate:
•    A ban sends a moral signal to men that society does not accept the buying of sex.
•    Norwegian legislation takes the fight against human trafficking seriously and does not want to appear as a liberal free zone for pimps.
•    Maintenance of the view that prostitution should be tackled by social-political means and not through criminal-political measures.

This article has been published in NIKK magasin 1 2009 © NIKK