In September of 2023, a Bill known as the Swedish Model was introduced to the South Australian Parliament. This news was celebrated by Sex Work Exclusionary Radical Feminists (SWERFs), but has sent a wave of anxiety among sex workers. So what is the Swedish Model, and why is it harmful to sex workers? Let’s talk about it.
What is The Swedish Model?
The Swedish Model operates by criminalizing the clients of sex workers. Clients of sex workers risk being fined and even facing time in prison for seeking sex work services. First established in Sweden 1999, The Swedish Model is sometimes also referred to as The Nordic Model as it was implemented in Norway and Iceland in 2009. As well as the legislative component, The Swedish Model includes programs that attempt to prevent the purchasing of sex, as well as theoretically providing resources for sex workers who wish to exit the industry. The Swedish Model also punishes third parties – those operating adjacent to sex work – meaning that anyone involved in the process of a client meeting a sex worker can be fined, arrested or charged. Third parties could anyone from a brothel manager, a workers landlord, a friend who allows you to use their home to operate sex work services, as well as anyone hired as security or drivers for sex workers.
To some, this bill may sound like a positive step towards gender equality and even to lessen potential violence. In reality, The Swedish Model is deeply problematic, ill considered and poorly executed.
Why Do SWERFs Favor The Swedish Model?
SWERFs tend to favour The Swedish Model because it is predicated upon the notion that prostitution is a continuum of male violence – a deeply problematic belief as this absolves men of any accountability and instead places all the blame onto the supposed victim. In Molly Smith and Juno Mac’s book Revolting Prostitutes, they state: “The figure of the prostitute often comes to represent the trauma that is inflicted upon all women within patriarchy, the ultimate symbol of women’s pain. Of the violence that women suffer.”
In the eyes of a SWERF; clients are “purchasing the consent” of a sex worker. This belief discounts and revokes sex worker’s autonomy. Instead, this belief inherently infantilizes sex workers: positioning us as perpetual victims in need of saving and too stupid to know it. This is built upon the idea of ‘false consciousness’ that sex workers are often subjected to. False consciousness is the idea that certain groups of individuals in question have had their self awareness undermined, therefore their perspectives are dismissed and deemed untrue. A deeply misogynistic idea once and still leveled against all women. SWERFs assume that sex workers are so traumatised by their experiences in sex work – or by the abuse that they are assumed to have experienced before entering sex work – that they are unable to truly understand their situation. When asked whether the criminalization of clients makes sex workers more vulnerable, one of the campaigners compared sex work to the United States and chattel slavery. She stated: “Think of the abolition of slavery, it also made life bad for some former slaves. We need to think about the future.” This is a carceral feminist perspective that reflects that SWERFs believe they are saviours. It’s also just wildly racist.
SWERFs want to believe that they are protecting women and hope to punish men for being willing to pay for sex. As a result, instead of advocating for laws that criminalize the sex worker, they instead praise The Swedish Model because it punishes the clients of sex workers. They are far more concerned with the punishment on Men (™) than they are with the safety of women and sex workers. The Swedish Model correlates well with the SWERF mindset that sex workers are always passive victims whose consent is being purchased by predatory men. SWERFs view The Swedish Model as harm reduction for gender based violence, despite the fact that since being implemented; The Swedish Model has proved to do more harm than good.
How is The Swedish Model Harmful to Sex Workers?
Since being implemented, there has been no evidence that The Swedish Model has improved the life of sex workers and reduced the purchase of sex. In countries where The Swedish Model is implemented, there have been outcries from sex workers that this law is disempowering sex workers and forcing them into dangerous situations. Rather than empowering women, what SWERFs and The Swedish Model claim they hope to achieve, The Swedish model has increased the stigmatization and vulnerability of sex workers. This stigma is particularly dangerous for the most vulnerable of sex workers – including migrant sex workers, street based sex workers, trans sex workers and sex workers of colour.
The sad irony of The Swedish Model is that it has given more power to the clients of sex workers. Despite what it’s advocates would tell you, sex work clients are not purchasing our consent. They are purchasing a service, time and labour – just like any other job – and it should be up to the service provider to establish their boundaries and specify what they are and are not comfortable doing in the booking. Unfortunately, criminalising the purchase of sex work removes sex workers right to negotiate the terms of their transaction, forcing sex workers to accept bookings they would otherwise refuse. In being fearful of fines or arrest, clients may refuse to be screened, are less likely to pay a deposit or follow any other safety protocols sex workers would usually be able to enforce. Police use the simple act of possessing condoms as evidence of the purchasing of sex, making clients more hesitant to practice safer sex and brothels less likely to provide condoms. Sex workers are denied the opportunity to specify the service they are willing to provide, forcing them to compromise their boundaries in order to receive payment. In the worst cases; sex workers may end up being forced to accept clients who have a violent agenda.
Since being implemented, there has been no evidence that The Swedish Model has improved the life of sex workers and reduced the purchase of sex.
The Swedish police claim to only target the clients of sex workers, but this is far from the reality. In order to locate and arrest clients of sex workers, police will target and harass sex workers (or those they assume to be sex workers). According to a community report titled Twenty Years of Failing Sex Workers, police usually operate by pretending to be clients, asking for an address or hotel room, and when given enough information, they simply wait outside to catch the presumed clients. Sex workers provide accounts of being constantly monitored by police for the purpose of identifying their clients, often catching them when leaving the apartment, but it has also been documented that they have entered their workplace during raids. Sex workers have also stated that the police raids leave them feeling violated, as many of the raids take place during a booking. Sex workers are frisked, police have refused to let the sex workers get dressed, they are verbally abused, their identity is reported (this especially impacts migrant workers), and in some instances the entire process is captured on camera.
Due to this predatory surveillance from the police, sex workers do not feel safe to report harassment or assault from clients. If sex workers do attempt to report an assault to the police, the reality is they end up facing evictions, deportations, loss of child custody, constant police tracking or raids, and being outed to people in the sex worker’s immediate circle. Instead of placing the blame onto the perpetrator, the victimhood that is placed into sex workers is merely reinforced when sex workers report assaults and abuse from clients. The Swedish Model fuels the notion that sex workers are passive, traumatized, abused, vulnerable, disempowered victims. This stigma leaves sex workers being viewed as a harm to themselves, and therefore a risk to those around them. Sex workers are viewed as incapable parents, meaning they are more likely to lose child custody battles if and when they are outed.
Sex workers who report assaults against them may be encouraged to attend programs said to be designed to help women exit the sex work industry. But these programs fail to note the reasons that many people enter sex work: the most common being flexible hours and the fact that there isn’t a limit your earning potential. They offer little financial or emotional support for anyone, let alone those that wish to leave to industry. The people who seek this sort of freedom in work often come from marginalized communities, those who are denied these opportunities in other workplaces: trans people, people of colour, migrant workers, single parents, and people living with disabilities. SWERFs fail to consider the privilege they are endorsing with their anti sex work rhetoric, because they themselves do not understand why anyone would choose to enter sex work.
The idea of the helpless victim is imposed even more so with migrant sex workers. The Swedish Model can only see migrant sex workers as victims of trafficking. And while supporters of The Swedish Model claim to want to help “rescue” sex workers, both migrant sex workers and victims of trafficking are deported when they come to the attention of the authorities in Sweden. Deportation isn’t rescue, it’s violent as hell.
SWERFs fail to consider the privilege they are endorsing with their anti sex work rhetoric, because they themselves do not understand why anyone would choose to enter sex work.
While it is not a criminal act to be a sex worker, the social stigma attached to this line of work, that is then fuelled by The Swedish Model, does nothing but isolate sex workers. Impacting all aspects of sex workers lives, from access to healthcare to seeking a place to rent. Sex workers have reported feeling unsafe to disclose their occupation to their healthcare practitioners out of fear of being at the receiving end of victim blaming, unnecessary judgment and negative treatment, and being reported to social services or immigration authorities. According to Twenty Years of Failing Sex Workers, this fear is not unfounded. Police is called in cases where they suspect trafficking, and all service providers have a legal obligation to report to social services if they suspect that a child might be endangered, which they are considered by default if their parent is a sex worker. Because clients are fearful of using condoms, sex workers face higher risks of STI’s. Yet because they must also fear being reported to social services, sex workers cannot not disclose their line of work to their healthcare providers. One of the negative impacts of this can be reflected by a sex work member of Fuckförbundet, who stated “I had some sort of bacterial infection that made my genitals hurt. It wasn’t contagious but it hurt too much to work and I needed some medicine. The doctor said they could arrange an appointment with a gynaecologist in 3 weeks. I wanted to scream that I am a sex worker. I need to be able to work on Monday, in 3 days.”
It is illegal to provide a place to operate a sex work service, or to provide sex work from your own property, so police can and have reported sex workers to their landlords, forcing an eviction. In other instances, the landlords will be prosecuted for providing residence to a sex worker. Sex workers who are caught doing sex work on their own property lose their right to own it. In many scenarios, police will target women they assume to be sex workers based of racist and xenophobic stereotypes, disproportionately impacting migrant workers of colour. Police will report sex workers or people assumed to be sex workers to hotels, landlords and venues. According to The Real Impact of the Swedish Model on Sex Workers by NSWP, there was also a case of women being denied entry to a venue simply because they were assumed to be sex workers as they were ‘perceived to be’ Asian. A court upheld this decision.
Everything here, and everything we hear from sex workers, both undermines and disassembles the very concept of the saviour that SWERFs perceive themselves to be. That they have adopted in order to justify the mistreatment and further stigma and harm sex workers are forced to endure. How can anyone read the impacts of The Swedish Model and still claim to be advocating for the rights of women? The Swedish Model is harmful. The evidence is there.
DECRIM DECRIM DECRIM
The 2003 Prostitutes Reform Act, decriminalised sex work for citizens of Aotearoa (New Zealand), unfortunately, under section 19 migrant sex work is still criminalised. The 2003 PRA aims “to decriminalize prostitution (while not endorsing or morally sanctioning prostitution or it’s use) and to create a framework that safeguards the human rights of sex workers and protects them from exploitation, and promotes the welfare and occupational health and safety of sex workers.”
I have been a full service sex worker since 2021. I can not speak for all sex workers of Aotearoa, I only speak to my own personal experience as every sex worker’s experience is unique to them and will be influenced by their race, socio economic background, hegemonic cultures, gender expression etc. In my sex work experience, the decriminalisation of sex work has greatly benefited me and the wider culture within which I operate.
I am able to have conversations with my clients surrounding my boundaries and what it is I do and do not consent to. If a client oversteps a boundary or does something I did not consent to prior to the booking, I am within my rights to seek legal action. I have the privilege of being able to choose where I operate my services. I can work out of a brothel, from my own home, or in a rented space. I do not fear my clients the way I would if I operated under The Swedish Model. I have the privilege to deny clients who refuse to be screened. I have been able to disclose my line of work to my healthcare practitioners, and if I felt they were letting whorephobia infer with my treatment, I would feel confident enough to request another provider. I recently cut ties with a therapist who I felt was trying to sway me away from the sex work industry; believing my line of work to be the root of my trauma. Instead, I now see an arts therapist provided by Aotearoa Prostitutes Collective (formally known as NZPC).
While whorephobia is still apparent in Aotearoa, the decriminalisation of sex work has made me feel safer to be to be a face out sex worker. My work is recognised as legitimate work, therefore I have been able to “come out” as a sex worker to people I trust. People may still harbour whorephobic ideology, but this rhetoric would only be further enforced if my work or my clients were criminalized.
The 2003 PRA is not perfect, but it has proven to be a great step towards the rights and protection of sex workers. My sex work experience has not been all rainbows and sunshine, but I can confidently say that if I were operating under a Swedish Model system; things would be a lot scarier for me. As a Māori European wāhine living with disabilities, entering the sex work industry has been greatly beneficial to my life. Sex work has granted me the financial independence I struggled to maintain in civilian jobs. I feel autonomous in my sex work career, and I know that is due to operating under a decriminalized model.
Scarlett Alliance are working alongside SIN, the peer-led sex industry network run by and for sex workers in South Australia, to advocate for The Swedish model to be blocked and for the decriminalisation of sex work. You can help by signing and sharing this petition.
CITATION
20_years_of_failing_sex_workers.pdf (nswp.org)
Amnesty International policy on state obligations to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights of sex workers - Amnesty International
Issue-Paper-4[1]_0.pdf (nswp.org)
Swedish Model Advocacy Toolkit Community Guide, NSWP - November 2015.pdf
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