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The Swedish solution to prostitution: Outlawed 5 years ago; help for women getting out
EDMONTON - Adopting Swedish laws could help solve some of the prostitution problems in the Edmonton area, a local activist says. Five years ago, the Swedish government made it illegal to purchase sex. At the same time, it decided to spare the women and children who are victims of prostitution any legal repercussions. In Canada, prostitution is not illegal. But anyone caught communicating for the purposes of prostitution can be charged. This sends a "very confused message," said Kate Quinn, with the Prostitution Awareness and Action Foundation of Edmonton. "In Sweden, they've said prostitution is a social problem," Quinn said. "They don't want men to think it's OK to buy and sell vulnerable people."
Quinn did not need to see the bodies of women found in fields around Edmonton to know they were victimized.
A 1985 Canadian Report on Prostitution and Pornography concluded females in prostitution have a mortality rate 40 times higher than the national average.
Melissa Farley, a clinical and research psychologist based in San Francisco, agrees women involved in prostitution need strong laws to help them.
Murder accounted for half the deaths of a group of prostitutes studied more recently in Colorado, Farley said, quoting a 2004 report published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
Sweden's model is a "stunningly progressive and wise law," said Farley, who is involved in the prostitution research and education project of the San Francisco Women's Centers.
"It says, 'We don't think it is OK that women are sold as tubes of toothpaste at the corner store.' "
The Swedish law also diverts social- services money to support people who want to get out of prostitution, she said. "Canada would be in a far better position than the United States to do such a thing with its nationalized health care," Farley said. Even the Swedes aren't sure if the law has been entirely successful, though.
"The number of women on the street has decreased, but there is a suspicion the activities have moved to other venues," said Claes Thorson, press counsellor for the Embassy of Sweden in the United States.
Thorson said a report released this month by Sweden's National Board of Health and Welfare concluded prostitutes are now making contacts at restaurants, hotels, solariums and dance clubs, as well as at company conferences, private parties and on ferries. They are also using the Internet to sell their services.
Thorson said Swedes value gender equality, which led them to combat prostitution and other types of violence against women. But not everyone agrees cracking down on johns will help. "You basically can't dictate in law what people are going to eat, drink, smoke and who they will have sex with," said Alan Young, a law professor at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto.
The Swedish laws are a "horribly paternalistic attitude" which assumes women cannot make their own decisions, said Young, who has represented women in the escort business.
Instead, he favours such systems as that in the Netherlands, where prostitution is permitted in specified districts and can be monitored by police.
He said it is hypocritical not to outlaw prostitution but then make it almost impossible for women who choose the profession to work safely. Maggie de Vries partly agrees with Young. Her sister Sarah's DNA was found on the Pickton farm in British Columbia. The current laws push prostitutes to work in dangerous neighbourhoods, on their own in the middle of the night, she said. "That leads to violence."
Putting more of the burden on men, as the Swedes do, would push the business further underground and make it even more dangerous, de Vries said.
Ideally, society would educate its males at an early age, giving them the message that sex should be mutual rather than domineering, said Farly, the psychologist from San Francisco. Quinn, with the foundation that helps prostitutes, also knows adopting the Swedish legislation would not end all problems with prostitution. "Every time we try to do something good and bring some light and hope, those who want to profit will find some other way to exploit people," she said. "But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try." A recent study on a program that provides prostitutes with the support needed to get out of their lifestyle shows that, after five years, $138 are saved in services for each program dollar spent.
