Swedish Model

The Swedish Model, also referred to as the Nordic Model, is a set of legal policies where the selling of sexual services is legal, but the purchase of said services is criminalized. It is touted by many radical feminists and anti-trafficking activists as a way of abolishing commercial sexual exploitation by deterring sex buyers and thus "ending demand" for prostitution.
The vast majority of Free Spirit Connection members oppose this model, and the sixth Triennial Assembly overwhelmingly approved a resolution condemning it. Members of the Connection's Sex Worker Rights Nexus - including Bridget Torjesen, Cynthia Marquis and André Guenveur - have articulated several reasons for opposing it:
* The model does not fully decriminalize sex workers, as it leaves in place laws prohibiting two or more sex workers from operating from a shared incall (considered "brothel-keeping") or hiring any third party to assist with security or other matters (as this constitutes "living off the avails of prostitutiuon," the legal definition of "pimping" in many jurisdictions).
* The model is based on overly simplistic assumptions about why people go into the sex trade, why people pay for sexual services, the varied forms of sex work and individual experiences of sex workers, etc.; the worst such assumption is the emphasis on pimps and/or traffickers "luring" women into the trade while ignoring the role of poverty and other social factors.
* Studies indicate that, wherever this model has been introduced, there has been no appreciable decrease in either prostitution or sex trafficking, but that violence and other abuses against sex workers does increase in said jurisdictions.
The Connection, along with human rights groups like Amnesty International and the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, supports the sex worker community in favoring full decriminalization of prostitution, as practiced in New Zealand and certain areas of Australia. The city of Stallbrook, under the leadership of their current police chief, has also instituted a set of policies and practices which amount to "de facto decriminalization" within its limits.
Category:Settings
Category:Free Spirit beliefs
Category:Sex workers
Category:Real life