The Criminalisation of Buying Sex: the Politics of Prostitution in Sweden

While there are feminists in other countries who would like to see the buying of sex made illegal, Sweden is indeed unique for having done so. Sweden’s popular form of radical feminism has shown itself to be highly effective in mobilising support and creating a broad consensus on an issue which can be very divisive. This article outlines the Swedish debate about prostitution, to find out why legislation was passed which is barely on the agenda in other countries. While the strength and purpose of the women’s movement was a key factor, others also played a part. The women’s movement was itself rooted in a popular movement tradition that is particularly effective in influencing government policy. The link between drugs and prostitution provided both a rationale and a symbolic discourse for intervention. Fears about foreign prostitutes and liberal practices abroad played a part. Sweden’s weak liberal tradition also made the advocacy of the liberal argument difficult. I N T RO D U C T I O N It is important at the outset of this article to establish that it arises from a familiarity with Swedish social policy rather than out of an expertise in women’s issues or an immersion in the literature on prostitution. It will be seen that my assessment of Sweden’s 1998 law prohibiting the buying of sex is influenced in part by an awareness of the tendency of Swedes to take a strict line on issues which other countries treat in a liberal or pragmatic manner. It is fascinating to examine how a country which until recently was described as ignoring the problem of domestic violence (Elman and Eduards, 1991)1 should have passed a law on prostitution which in other countries remains on the periphery of the political Jnl Soc. Pol., 30, 3, 437–456 Printed in the United Kingdom 437 © 2001 Cambridge University Press * Department of Social Sciences, University of Loughborough. Acknowledgements: I am extremely grateful to the Nuffield Foundation for funding the study visit to Sweden which enabled me to gather the information on which this article is based. I also want to thank colleagues at Loughborough, Barbara Bagilhole and Jean Carabine for their comments on an early draft; Stina Jeffner and Jill Radford for their responses to the paper presented at a one-day conference on Women Risk and Social Policy (London School of Economics, 4 March 2000); and lastly, to Ylva ‘Elvis’ Nilsson for her help, insights and encouragement in the early stages of the research. agenda. Among feminists elsewhere, what to do about prostitution has been a matter of dispute. Some have taken a liberal2 position defending the right of women to sell sexual services and criticising those who would portray them as victims (Pheterson, 1989 cited in Edwards, 1997, p. 75). The pragmatists, whatever their views on the morality of prostitution, agree that punitive laws are impractical and argue for this reason alone, they should be replaced by something that, above all, works. This is a view shared by many feminists in the Netherlands and some other European countries which seek to decriminalise, legalise or regulate the sex trade and make a distinction between forced and voluntary prostitution (Edwards, 1997, p. 78). Then there are feminists like Karen Green and Laurie Shrage who find prostitution morally repugnant, degrading and exploitative but prefer to see moral means used to fight it (Green, 1989, p. 535; Shrage, 1989, p. 360). Lastly, there are those who see prostitution as a form of violence against women which the criminal law should seek to prohibit (Raymond, 1998; Jeffreys, 1995). These feminists regard the distinction between forced and voluntary prostitution as one on which the sex industry thrives. It is the impossibility of mobilising feminists and the authorities behind a prohibitionist approach in other European countries that makes what happened in Sweden even more remarkable. This article examines the Report by the Swedish Commission on Prostitution, the debate which followed its publication and the subsequent decision to prohibit the buying of sexual services. It will be suggested that while the women’s movement played a major part in the passing of the legislation, other factors played a significant role. The investigation of this issue was made possible during a research visit to Stockholm in September 1999. It was accomplished through collecting the official documentation, a library search and through interviews with representatives of women’s organisations.3 The official documentation consisted of the report of a Commission into the sex trade, the subsequent consultation process, the debate in the Riksdag and the government’s final proposal. The literature search covered primarily articles published in newspapers and non-academic journals between 1995 and 1999. Representatives of the women’s sections of all the major political parties consented to be interviewed as did the representatives of two umbrella organisations and two organisations concerned with domestic violence. The only man interviewed was a civil servant who had sat on the Commission. Although the Swedish legislation applied to male and female prostitutes, the origin of the issue and the public debate surrounding it were 438 Arthur Gould