What do numbers tell us?

Photo: iStockphoto

by May-Len Skilbrei

When the social institutions working with the issue of prostitution in different parts of Norway publish annual reports with overviews of how many women they have encountered in prostitution, all the main media are eager to cover this as an important piece of news. Headlines like “More prostitutes found” and “Kristiansand swarming with prostitutes” help everybody follow the details of the prostitution market development.

Only a few years ago, there was not such a great interest in exactly how many prostitutes there were; approximate numbers were enough. As the media, politicians, the police and the social services have, in the last few years, become increasingly focused on know­ing the exact figures for the extent of prostitution, it is important to ask what function numbers hold for the understanding and handling of prostitution.

One reason why numbers have gained in significance might be that the prostitution markets are undergoing changes which mean that politicians, the police, the social services and other actors feel that it is difficult to get an overview of the market, and therefore continuous mapping is needed in order not to lose control of it. Previously “everybody” knew where prostitution took place and which groups could be found where. New groups in prostitution have gone against this predictability by operating outside of the traditional prostitution arenas and by working in other ways.

Work should be measured

Another reason why it has become so impor­tant to present numbers might be that the public debate on prostitution to a large extent centres on how prostitution should be handled. The constantly updated figures that are produced appear as objective measures of the impact of society’s work to counteract the phenomenon.

The prostitution markets in the Nordic countries have altered very much over the last ten years. In this period, extensive changes have been made in the legislation in all of the countries, the proportion of foreign women has increased as has organised prostitution, and shifts between the various areas of the market have taken place. It might be difficult to say anything on the current extent of prostitution and changes in it over time.

In Denmark, Tema Prostitution calculated that in 2007 there were 5,567 women in prostitution who had either advertised or encountered social measures aimed at street prostitution.

The most recent survey of the extent of prostitution in Finland was conducted in 2005. The data consists of interviews with experts in the field of prostitution, and based on these interviews Kontula concludes that about 8,000 persons sell sex in Finland.

It is impossible to know precisely how much prostitution is happening in all the Nordic countries. It is particularly difficult to find out how much prostitution there is in Iceland, since no attempts have been made to estimate the extent at all.

In 2007, the Norwegian national competence centre Pro Sentret counted 2,654 persons in prostitution in Norway. This number is based on the women encountered in street prostitution by social workers in the lar­ger cities and on the number of advertisements.

In Sweden, the National Board of Health and Welfare recently conducted a survey of knowledge on prostitution in the country. According to interviews with experts working on prostitution, there were 299 women in street prostitution in Stockholm, Malmö and Gothenburg in 2006, and a survey of advertisements on the internet found 247 women and 51 men, and three who did not give their gender.

Confusing messages

Comparing the estimates of each individual country with each other is problematic. There are three important arguments against believing too blindly in the message conveyed by the numbers.

Firstly, the way in which prostitution is defined influences what is included in the estimates. Often men who sell sex are omitted from the overviews, as if their activities are not prostitution. The police and social services work directly with the visible prostitution, where the exchange of money for sex happens most explicitly, and therefore this area is counted. There is seldom any problemati­sation as to where the borders of the prostitution phenomenon are drawn.

Illustration photo: Colourbox

Secondly, the number of women who sell sex is just one part of the whole picture; we do still not know how many prostitution transactions take place. We can, of course, also form an idea of the extent of prostitution by counting the customers. This is done today by conducting quantitative studies, where the respondents are asked to answer whether they have bought sex or not.

The problem here is that there are many who do not answer these questions; the  response rate is very low. Furthermore, the respondents answer both whether they have bought sex in their home country or abroad, so the numbers produced are too imprecise to say anything on how much prostitution is happening in one country.

Ideally, the prostitution that Nordic citizens partake of abroad should also be included in the calculation, since the decrease of prostitution in the home country does not reflect an efficient prostitution policy if, at the same time, the amount of sex-tourism increases. This aspect, however, is very difficult to include in the estimates.

Thirdly, the numbers are produced in various contexts and are therefore influenced by who is doing the counting and for what purpose. The prostitution that is already visible is also the one that social services and the police have the best overview of.

The numbers put together by social institutions are characterised by their mission to help the most marginalised groups. The figures of the police are produced in an attempt to identify criminal involvement of a third party, that is, a procurer or trafficker in humans, which is why they are not, to any greater extent, concerned with the numbers of women in Nordic prostitution generally. If the social work or the measures of the police against prostitution are increased, the number of prostitutes will go up, simply because more frequent contacts with the market means that more prostitutes are observed. If, on the other hand, there are few measures in relation to prostitution and the phenomenon is left to sail on its own, the numbers found will be lower.

Thus, the question is whether the numbers are as exact as we would want them to be. And whether they tell us what we would like to know. Particularly since we do not know whether changes in the market are caused by political decision, or by some totally different factors. As the Nordic pro­stitution markets have become increasingly international, there are grounds to ask if processes in other places are not crucial for the development of effective measures against prostitution, while local and national political decisions have less of an impact than is currently assumed.

May-Len Skilbrei is Doctor in Political Sciences, researcher at Fafo in Norway and co-leader of NIKK’s research project Prostitution in the Nordic countries.

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