three attempts to introduce Nordic model

There have been three attempts this year to introduce the Nordic model into Britain. Ash Regan is a Scottish MSP. She has introduced a bill that will punish men who pay for sex. She caused much hilarity in social media when she responded to a question about prostitution being driven underground.

"If you had a lot of women in underground cellars with a locked door, how would the punters get to them?"

People thought that she didn't understand what 'underground' meant and thought that it meant literally moving to underground cellars. I don't think she actually meant that though, her point was that if a punter can find a prostitute then so can the police. Therefore the police can find prostitution and put a stop to it. I have heard this argument many times.

If that was her point, which she failed to get across, then she is wrong. A drug user can find a drug dealer but the police can't. People can buy drugs easily and the police can't put a stop to it. Also, even if the police could locate prostitutes that doesn't really help them because the prostitutes aren't doing anything illegal. All the police could do is to try to observe their clients but they still have to prove that the man has paid for sex or agreed to pay for sex.

"The data that we have shows that in Sweden [where prostitution is illegal], prostitution has reduced to a very low level," she said."

"It has not extinguished it completely but it has reduced it to a very low level. But fundamentally, sex trafficking is almost non-existent in Sweden, if not non-existent."

This is complete nonsense. Does she not know that the review of the Irish Nordic model law published this year shows that there has been no decrease in demand? There is also the 2020 interim review and the review of the Northern Ireland Nordic model law.

How can she believe that prostitution in Sweden has reduced to a very low level and that sex trafficking is non-existent or almost non-existent? The data we have does not show that.

Claims are being made that if the bill passes it will decriminalize prostitutes. That is not true. It is not illegal to be a prostitute but it is illegal for two or more women to work together for safety. Regan's bill will not affect that. Women will still be arrested. They talk about safety but if they want to make women safe they should stop arresting them for so-called brothel-keeping.

Prostitution is dangerous under certain conditions but in Soho no sex worker has been murdered since 1947. That is because there are always two women in the flat, the sex worker is never alone with a man, and because they are not drug addicts. A minority of sex workers are drug addicts and their world is a violent world.

Ash Regan's bill is called the Prostitution (Offences and Support) (Scotland) Bill. She is also calling it the 'Unbuyable Bill'. Which is odd, because I have never bought anyone. Another attempt to bring the Nordic model to Britain is an amendment to a bill passing through the House of Commons called the Crime and Policing Bill. There are a few amendments proposed. The one that is of interest to me is "This new clause makes it an offence to pay for, or attempt to, pay for sex either for themselves or on behalf of others".

It seems to be Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi who proposed the amendment, but she is supported by over 50 other MPs and UK Feminista. They don't seem to care that help for women to exit prostitution and decriminalizing prostitutes were always regarded as an integral part of the Nordic model. You can't just take one part of it and forget about the others.

Also, you have to have surveys so that you can tell if a change in the law is working. One survey before the law change, and then regularly after that, asking both men and women all of the important questions.

I have no reason to believe that Ash Regan or Tonia Antoniazzi will get what they want. There is someone else who seems to be getting what they want though. Police in Bristol have been issuing 'community protection warnings' to men who they think are committing anti-social behaviour. This restricts the areas where he can go and he could face criminal action if he continues to go into them.

According to this newspaper article, they are saying they want to implement the Nordic model. There are some good things about what they are doing but they don't have the right to decide that 'anti-social' means anything that they choose it to mean. Especially when they don't have proof of what they allege.

It is for Parliament to decide if Britain adopts the Nordic model or some aspects of it. Parliament hasn't voted for the Nordic model and it seems that after the review of Irish Nordic model law published recently (see previous post) they are even less likely to accept it. We can't have police forces adopting aspects of the Nordic model haphazardly.

review of Ireland Nordic Model law

There has been a review of the 2017 law in Ireland that criminalised the purchase of sex. This review was long delayed. There was interim review in 2020 by Dr Geoffrey Shannon and a couple of unofficial reviews.

go here to see the press release

go here to download a pdf file of the review

These are the three key paragraphs from the press release:-

"Among its findings, the review highlights challenges to the effective enforcement of the legislation in its current form, with An Garda Síochána and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions noting significant barriers. These include limited power of arrest for detention and questioning, the requirement of an admission of guilt, and challenges in prosecution due to the necessary ‘proofs’.

It also finds that the ability to successfully support and protect is hindered by a lack of culturally appropriate support services including healthcare, social welfare, gender specific housing for women, and clear exit routes.

The review also notes that the prevalence of human trafficking among those involved in the sale of sex in Ireland is not fully known, and the lack of reliable data is cited by both advocates for and opponents of section 7A."

It is saying that the police in Ireland find it difficult to prosecute men, it seems that without an admission of guilt nothing can happen to them. There have only been 15 convictions. It is saying that that exit strategies for women involved in prostitution are not there. It is saying that they have no idea whether trafficking has increased or decreased.

When it comes to demand, the key issue, the review does not say that demand has decreased. The nearest the review comes to answering this question is this paragraph:-

"Demand reduction and enforcement
The measurement of demand continues to be challenging due to the lack of official and/or independent statistics being consistently and uniformly collected. This is evident across all jurisdictions and is driven by the nature of conducting research in this area."

There may be other information about whether demand has increased but I haven't found it yet. I did find this though on this page:-

"Minister O’Callaghan added: “My key focus on this issue is to seek to reduce demand, protect those involved in the sex trade, and support those who wish to exit. “Regrettably, the Review highlights that despite the criminalisation of the purchase of sexual services, demand has not decreased. The Review points to recommendations to address this around awareness raising; these are mirrored in the Programme for Government and the Zero Tolerance Strategy. “In addition, certain recommendations will be considered in respect of law enforcement, and my officials are consulting with An Garda Síochána in this regard.” According to An Garda Síochána, the DPP had directed 161 prosecutions for the offence of ‘Payment etc. for Sexual Activity with a Prostitute’ from January 2017 up to August 2024. Over that period, our police service recorded 15 convictions under the legislation."

So it looks as if the introduction of the Nordic model in Ireland has been a failure.

go here to see Irish Legal News on the review
Demand has not decreased in the Irish Republic and in Northern Ireland the ban has had “minimal to no effect” on the market.

go here to see another legal view

go here to see Sex Workers Alliance Ireland on the review

go here to see my page on Ireland

my trip to London (2025)

I had another trip to London. So many of the walk ups I knew have closed. My favourite was 8 Greek Street. Last year I saw Sabrina there. Fortunately, I found her in the walk up in Romilly Street. I had sex with her again and she told me that the Greek Street premises have been sold. There seems to have been a lot of development around there, they have opened up the back of Greek Street so that you can walk around there.

I asked Sabrina if she would be there tomorrow and she said yes. The next day though she was the maid and it was Julia who was the sex worker. Julia is much younger and more attractive than Sabrina so I had sex with her. Julia has straight black hair and looks very Mediterranean. I think she is in her 30s and she is not slender but not fat either. Just the sort I like best.

Julia is a bit bossy which I don't mind. It's better when they tell you that you're too heavy on top of them and you need to lift yourself up a bit.

The Romilly Street walk up has two flats and is right at the eastern end of Romilly Street not far from Charing Cross Road. How many people walking along Charing Cross Road know that in a couple of minutes they could be shagging a beautiful Spanish woman for £30? There is a pub on a corner with lots of people standing outside. How many of them pop up the stairs for a quick shag, hearing all the people talking outside the window and the traffic passing by?

After I had seen Julia I wanted to see another woman. I had told Julia she must be the most beautiful woman in Soho apart from Sonia. Julia wanted to know who she is and where she works. I thought I would find Sonia, but the maid said she wasn't there that day. The woman who was there was a nice Brazilian woman, very friendly. I think the maid said she was called Vivien, but when I asked her in the room she said her name was Fifi or something.

She looks about 30, is of average attractiveness and a darker skin. Slender. The Lisle Street walk ups seem to be unaffected, with numbers 2, 3 and 4 still open. Number 3 has only one flat and number 4 has two. The flat where I saw Sonia last year is the upper flat at number 4, although the maid told me on Tuesday that she works in the lower flat.

Two days later I was back in Soho. There is only one walk up in Greens Court now. I saw Bianca in the lower flat. She is a lovely young blonde. Very friendly. Even more friendly was Brazilian Katarina at 4 Lisle Street upper flat. She was very encouraging and the best I saw that day. Almost as good was Samantha at 3 Lisle Street. Samantha is quite pretty with a smiley face. She wanted me to shag her fast and hard: this might have been because she liked it that way or maybe she knew I would come sooner. She said she is half Russian.

So that was three nice ones. There was another one who was a disappointment. Laura is in the Greens Court walk up in the upper flat. She is not pretty and an odd shape. I asked her to lie on the bed and let me look at her pussy. She stared at me with a puzzled expression on her face. It was not conducive to me getting an erection. There was another one like her at 4 Lisle Street lower flat.

So I know who to see next time I come to London. Julia and Katarina were the best. Julia because she is so attractive and Katarina because she is so friendly. Bianca and Samantha are worth seeing. Sabrina and Vivien/Fifi are good. Laura and the other one best avoided.

The walk ups now are Romilly Street, Greens Court, the three in Lisle Street and the Thai one in Little Newport Street. There is also the other one in Greek Street. That is still open but seems to open later and works differently to other walk ups now. Romilly Street has the names of the women in the corridor but it seems the other places don't have that.

When I go to London I'm not just interested in women. I was staying in Pimlico and I found Tachbrook Street street market. It must be a posh area. I have never seen a fishmonger selling sea urchins and razor clams. I have never seen a greengrocer selling mangosteens and rambutans. Not everything was expensive, I bought a halloumi wrap for £5.

academics versus liars

I have been reading two interesting books about prostitution. The first one is by an academic, Dr Ko-lin Chin. He is a Professor at Rutgers University School of Criminal Justice. The second one is by Sarah Forsyth and Tim Tate (who has a degree in Theology).

The book by the Professor is called Going Down to the Sea. He interviewed 149 sex workers in different countries, all from mainland China. The book recounts the interviews of 18 of these women. In the epilogue he sums up the information given to him by these 149 women.

The vast majority of them were not deceived, coerced or forced into the sex trade. Only 1% were, although 15% were not free to move around or quit sex work because their travel documents are kept by their employer or debtor. There are various definitions of 'sex trafficking victim'.

He says there are different problems in different countries. It is better for them in the USA than in Asian countries. In the USA none of them were underage, in debt to sex ring operators, financially exploited, or denied freedom of movement (or forced, coerced or deceived).

The women had no contact with organised crime except within the Geylang red light district of Singapore. What Ko-lin Chin has found is consistent with what Elizabeth Pisani and Rhacel Salazar Parreñas have found in South East Asia. They are also academics who have conducted research in the field. Heidi Hoefinger is another.

The book by Sarah Forsyth and Tim Tate is Slave Girl. There are many reviews online, some people don't believe it is true. Below is part of one review.

"The fact that her description of the Red Light District in Amsterdam is actually highly inaccurate, and anyone who has been there should be able to verify the author has greatly distorted this for sensationalist purposes. I have been to the RLD as a tourist (naturally this book had me feeling ashamed at having done so, and while I question its accuracy I have no intention of going there again) and the girls in the windows appear perfectly healthy, fit, attractive and seemingly happy there. It is quite likely that the latter point is an act they have mastered in order to keep drawing punters in, but even so it is not an act that a hopeless junkie would be physically or mentally capable of pulling off convincingly. In short, there is no way that these women are simply 'living on a diet of drugs and m&ms' as Sarah claims; her description is more akin to the disease-ridden and drug-addicted prostitutes you are more likely to find walking the streets of any big city. Likewise Sarah is extremely demeaning of the punters who visit the girls and even the tourists who pass through the area, she basically says they are all evil and feelingless, knowingly raping the girls."

That's not the only inaccuracy. There are 3 RLDs in Amsterdam, not 2 as she states. The two she mentions don't adjoin each other and form 'one large drug-dealing flesh market'.

Some of it doesn't even make sense. On page 103 she wrote that she was working in a window in Amsterdam and she wanted to open the door because her co-worker was a chain-smoker. She couldn't though because the pimp had locked them in. So how did they let the punters in to the room, if they were locked in? On page 147 she wrote that each sex worker handled hundreds of punters a week.

In the afterword there is a lot of false information about Operation Pentameter and Gatwick Airport, similar to the sort of stuff Evangelical Christians tend to believe.

Tim Tate wrote a book called Children for the Devil: Ritual Abuse and Satanic Crime. This is how it is described: 'The ritualistic abuse of children in satanic ceremonies is increasingly coming to light as children in the UK, USA and Europe disclose identical experiences involving torture, cannibalism, animal sacrifice, live burial, murder and the use of drugs snakes and insects in sexual abuse'. Tate was sued in 1992, shortly after the book was published, for defamatory accusations against a police officer. Tate could not substantiate the accusations and agreed a settlement. It was pulled by its publishers and pulped.

No doubt the Evangelicals will think that the Devil has managed to stifle their free speech.

I don't usually come across books like Slave Girl, libraries and bookshops tend not to stock them. I might have been looking in the wrong places though. It seems that there are many books in this genre. I was surprised when the book popped up on the Nordic Model Now! site. This is what Megan King ('survivor and abolitionist') wrote.

"Within the book she describes the reality of the sex trade there, including witnessing the murder of a fellow prostituted woman, as the brothel owners created a ‘snuff porn’ video, which for those of you who are unaware of this, means it is pornography depicting real homicide. She witnessed someone being murdered in the name of pornography in front of her eyes."

According to Forsyth (or Tate) she had a gun held to her head. Funny that, none of the women in South East Asia interviewed by Professor Chin had a gun held to their head, not even in Singapore. Yet we are supposed to believe that in North West Europe this happens.

On the same Nordic Model Now! page by Megan King there is a false statistic that I want to address. "In Sweden from 1999 to 2008, there was a 76% reduction in the number of prostituted women." There is a reference for this statistic which is Not a choice, Not a job: Exposing the myths about prostitution and the global sex trade by Janice Raymond (page 73).

I can't get access to this book so I'm not sure where this statistic comes from. I think it comes from here though.

"In 1995, a national government report published estimates that there were approximately 2500 to 3000 prostituted women in Sweden, of whom 650 were in street prostitution. In 1998, street prostitution was estimated even higher, at 726. By 2008, a study estimated that approximately 300 women were prostituted on Swedish streets, while 300 women and 50 men were identified in Swedish online prostitution advertisements. Prostitution increased in Denmark and Norway during the same period, gauged using similar measurements as in Sweden."

We have two different estimates, one from 1995 (not 1999) and one from 2008. Both flawed. Not all indoor prostitution relied on the Internet in 2008. The 300 figure for indoor prostitution is way too low.

2500 decreased by 76% is 600. However, according to surveys in 1996 0.3% of Swedish women stated that they had been paid for sex. In 2008 the figure was 1.1% and in 2017 it was 1.5%. So I would say that it is a myth that there was a reduction in the number of sex workers in Sweden between 1999 and 2008.

Below is an extract from the Skarhed report of 2010. It shows that the 650 figure for the number of sex workers in Sweden in 2008 is not to be trusted. I have emboldened what I think is the most important.

"In the research report ―Prostitution in the Nordic Countries, Charlotta Holmström’s article summarizes the available knowledge about the situation in Sweden in 2008. It shows that approximately 300 women were involved in street prostitution and that about 300 women and 50 men were involved in prostitution on the Internet. However, the article points out that this does not mean that we can estimate the number of people in prostitution in Sweden to be 650. As described above, people in prostitution may be active in several arenas at once, for example both on the Internet and on the street, which would mean that the same person was counted more than once. On the other hand, Holmström felt that the estimate could be rather low, as it was dependent on how social work was organized and what surveys were conducted. Thus, rather than providing a reliable picture of the actual situation, the estimates might in fact say more about the resources and priorities of the police and social services. In summary, she states that the number of women in street prostitution in the three major cities in Sweden appears to be relatively well-defined and that knowledge about women who offer sex over the Internet is somewhat more limited, but under development, while the knowledge of men who provide sexual services and people who offer sex in other arenas than on the street and the Internet, as well as our knowledge of the incidence of prostitution outside the big-city areas, is very limited. Holmström also states that ―at the same time, authorities believe that the majority of prostitution activities occur in less visible arenas."

Clearly she is saying that the 350 figure for men and women advertising on the Internet is not the total number of indoor workers.

Belgium grants labour rights to sex workers

I had heard that Belgium has decriminalised sex work a while ago but I couldn't find out much about it. Now there is a new law there that entitles sex workers to employment contracts, health insurance, maternity leave and sick days.

My first thought was that it's a good thing but one of the attractions of sex work for many women is that usually they don't have to work fixed hours. Most sex workers don't want to work 40 hours every week. They might want to work 20 hours one week and none the next.

Sex workers who choose to work in brothels don't have that flexibility and can benefit from these new laws. How many women will choose employment contracts is another matter. They say that in Germany women can have employment contracts but few have chosen to do this. Germany certainly isn't the way forward in these matters: I have read so many bad things about what happens in Germany.

A great benefit to brothel workers is that they will have the right to refuse clients, choose their practices and stop an act at any moment. This is something that independent sex workers have always been able to do and is very important. If a sex worker dislikes old men she should be able to refuse them. If a sex worker doesn't want to provide oral sex without a condom she should be able to say no.

I was listening to The Global Story on BBC World Service. One issue discussed was the issue of panic buttons. The new law states that employers must provide them. A critic said "In what other job would you need a panic button?". However, in many professions women especially need to be protected.

 There are many ways that estate agents protect themselves from attack. First on this list is Screen Clients Prior To Meeting  (it also says that half carry self-defense weapons). Third on this list is Have a “Panic Button” in Your Pocket.

In the programme someone from Canada called Andrea said that she used to be a sex worker. She decided to set up her own brothel and run it on ethical lines. Having tried this, she stopped doing it because she realised that it is impossible to avoid harm. She apologised to the women.

I wanted to find out more about Andrea from Canada. She is Andrea Heinz and she has numerous writings on the Nordic Model Now! site and the FeministCurrent site. They are too numerous for me to go through but I read one of them. In it she wrote that she sold her brothel to somebody else. So she was a pimp and she sold her brothel. Nothing about apologising to the women.

The example that Andrea gave in her writing of harm is 'I saw a girl come out of a room crying because her client was in his 70s and had been “touching her like an incestual grandpa.”' This is odd because if this 'girl' disliked old men why didn't she decide not to accept this client? Why did Andrea not tell the 'girl' that she didn't have to accept any client she disliked? If she was being so ethical.

Why did Andrea not understand that in Belgium women now have the right to refuse clients? Why is Andrea telling everyone that the new Belgian laws won't protect women? She's on YouTube too, being interviewed by Christian bigot Benjamin Nolot - who doesn't believe in abortion rights or gay marriage.

In the book Paid For by Rachel Moran she says that a 'madam' she worked for told her she didn't have to do anything she didn't want to. Rachel didn't have anal sex when she was a sex worker. So I'm not inclined to believe Andrea Heinz when she writes she was 'violently sodomised' with 'my genitals and anus were left torn and bleeding'. She also wrote that she has been raped numerous times without condoms.

It could be that prostitution in Canada is different from prostitution in Ireland (especially before 1993). Maybe Canada is like America in terms of violence whereas Ireland is like Europe. If that is the case why are we asking a Canadian ex pimp what she thinks of new laws in Belgium?

There is a contradiction in this piece. She wrote that she specialized in domination because she would not need to have intercourse as often. Yet later in the same piece she wrote "The day I received my first legitimate paycheck I broke down sobbing because it was the first bit of money I’d earned in the previous seven years where I didn’t have to lay on my back and spread my legs". Not only had she previously earned money as a dominatrix, she had also earned money as a pimp.

She wrote that she earned (in seven years) over $1.2 million. That's interesting, because the abolitionists are always keen to tell us that the women see very little of the money handed over. While she was a sex worker she 'pursued post-secondary education and was on owner of a comfortable starter home (as a single woman under 30)'.

'I now had a large mortgage, tuition costs, and vehicle replacements.' This is what 'trapped' her in prostitution. Apparently being violently sodomised on a regular basis isn't enough of an incentive to forgo the house, cars etc. Or maybe she had moved on by this point to letting other females be violently sodomised for her money. Or maybe this is just some kind of sick fantasy dreamed up by an Evangelical based on what they think happens in prostitution.

I think that the Evangelicals like Benjamin Nolot (founder of Exodus Cry) and Radical Feminists like Meghan Murphy (founder of Feminist Current) would have preferred it if she hadn't mentioned the $1.2 million, or the house, college and cars. Also, 'what I earned in two weeks could have been earned in four hours through prostitution'. I'm assuming she means being a sex worker and not being a pimp, but it can be difficult to work out what she really means.

The funny thing about the Andrea Heinz story is that it isn't going to discourage women from entering prostitution. They would quite like the $1.2 million, the house, the cars and the college fees. They know that under certain circumstances they won't be violently sodomised. They can turn away clients, choose what they want and don't want to do, and stop a sex act. They can have security.

Andrea Heinz doesn't want them to have labour rights. She might say that panic buttons and security guards won't stop them from being raped anally. Yet Rachel Moran never had anal sex once. If you don't want it you can not do it. Unless someone tries to stop you having rights. Maybe someone who doesn't want you to have the right to a same-sex marriage or an abortion.

I can understand that some people will say it would be better to eliminate prostitution. That's not going to happen. If anyone says that it has happened in Sweden, they are not telling you the truth.

Archbishops morality and abuse

The Archbishop of Canterbury has resigned. He had the opportunity to protect children from abuse but he didn't take it. There may have been other abusers but John Smyth is the most prominent. He was the barrister for Mary Whitehouse (a morality campaigner in the 1970s and 1980s). They were both Christians and Smyth ran Christian summer camps for young boys and men.

In Victoria Smith's book 'Hags' she quotes Helen Joyce and Louise Perry. She believes that older women like Mary Whitehouse protected younger women and children from predators like Jimmy Savile.

Not only did Mary Whitehouse not protect young people from abusers like John Smyth and Jimmy Savile (she presented Savile with an award) her type of older woman did great harm to young women. In Ireland they were insisting that pregnant teenage girls were sent to mother and baby homes or Magdalene Laundries. Unmarried pregnant girls weren't welcome in the community because they set a bad example to the others.

It wasn't that bad in England but this type of older woman smothered the happiness of young women in many different ways. They took a dim view of sex education and contraception (although Mary Whitehouse herself taught sex education that she believed should be taught with strict moral guidelines). They were happy for young women to enter early marriage or work in a menial job as a factory worker, typist or servant.

They think that pornography must have harmful consequences and are always looking for evidence for them. They think that sex workers must be coerced, deceived, drug-addicted or dirt poor. Having sex with several different men each day seems so disgusting to them they cannot believe that any woman could choose it the way that people choose other jobs.

It's interesting that Victoria Smith doesn't think that pornography causes anal pain in young women. I can't find anything in her book that states young men are demanding anal sex from young women because of pornography. Instead she goes back to the older idea that young women are forced to shave their pubic hair because young men never see it in pornography.

She doesn't state this clearly though. On page 188 there is this: "our aversion to pubic hair". On page 160 there is this: "Female pubic hair was still legal". Anyone who has looked at pornography knows that there is lots of pubic hair there. Despite its supposed ubiquity it seems that so many people haven't even looked at porn. She might not want people to think of her alongside 'conservative housewives, moral majority pearl-clutchers and no-sex-before-marriage fundamentalists'  (page 161) but they are obviously the congregation that she is preaching to.

Louise Perry doesn't believe in sex before marriage.

It was Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols who tried to expose Jimmy Savile. The Punk movement might have favoured promiscuity but they didn't accept abusers. Unlike the Archbishop, Mary Whitehouse and her supporters. Here, that's an idea. Why don't we get John Lydon to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury?

review of Eve Was Shamed by Helena Kennedy

I am reading 'Eve Was Shamed' by Helena Kennedy QC. She is one of Britain's most distinguished lawyers and public figures. In chapter 5 (The Whore) she has some interesting things to say about sex work.

page 162 "Off-street sex workers usually operate from massage parlours or saunas or in accommodation where there are other women, or a 'maid' who keeps an eye out for oddballs and acts as a doorkeeper. Many 'maids' are women who were themselves at one time 'toms', as the police call prostitutes. Off-street sex is much less risky but unfortunately the Sexual Offences Act of 2003 criminalised the role of maid, making life for sex workers far less safe; it is also increasingly the venue for paid sex because arrangements are made on the Internet."

"The jury is still out on whether it [criminalising the purchase of sex] works or whether it simply drives the sale of sex underground with consequent higher risks for women. Unless there is better evidence from the places where this change has operated for a number of years, I remain very sceptical about the criminalisation of the male purchasers."

This is interesting because so many people believe that prostitution cannot be driven underground. In a debate in parliament the former MP Gavin Shuker said that if a punter can find a sex worker then so can the police. That's like saying that if a drug addict can find a drug dealer then so can the police.

As for evidence that the 'Swedish experiment' actually works, I have a lot of information on this blog including here.

page 163 "The laws against brothel-keeping still prevent two or three women sharing a flat for their work, which would reduce the risks of assault and provide companionship."

page 165 "I come at it as a feminist lawyer and would want to see evidence from a reliable source about the Swedish experiment and those in other jurisdictions to see if criminalising the purchase of sex actually works.

We must always look carefully at how law can be misused. The government's antisocial behaviour orders are now being used to bar women from certain streets or from associating with each other, although the original public rationale for the orders was about protecting the public from gangs of boys or bad neighbours creating a nuisance. Breach of an order can attract a maximum sentence of five years which means the reintroduction of imprisonment for prostitutes which had been removed in the Criminal Justice Act 1982. So while the rhetoric is all about helping women, England and Wales are fast becoming the most punitive countries in Europe for prostitutes."

page 169 After writing briefly about sex workers expecting poor treatment in courts particularly concerning the welfare of their children and the fact that mothers can find prostitution a convenient way to make a living she goes on to write about how the law affects their family life.

"Charges of living off immoral earnings were introduced to reach the pimps who exploited women and forced them into sexual misery. However, many women complain that in fact they make their own choices about how they earn a living, and the law is frequently used against boyfriends and husbands or family members who exercise no control over them at all. The effect is to prevent these women having any semblance of a home life. Taxi drivers, particularly minicab drivers, are sometimes charged with living off immoral earnings if they provide a regular service for prostitutes and facilitate their work. The same is true for landlords and massage-parlour and sauna owners if the police take against them."

Later in the chapter she writes about the Sexual Offenses Act 2003, the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and the Police and Crime Act 2009. She doesn't mention that the Police and Crime Act 2009 was intended  to amend the definition of a brothel so that two or three individuals may work together (whatever happened to that?). She also mentions the National Referral Mechanism.

She finds persuasive a book called Illegal and Illicit: Sex Regulation and Social Control by Joanna Phoenix and Sarah Oerton. They show that the law operates to the detriment of some women who choose prostitution voluntarily.

On page 163 she writes about the case of Margaret MacDonald who was sentenced to four years imprisonment. 'These are women who would rather be sex workers than cleaners or care workers, as they earn much more money doing it, and until women's work is better paid, they want to carry on without interference.'

On page 177 she looks favourably on reforms in the Australian state of Victoria and in Holland.

There are a couple of things I am unhappy about though with her book. On page 161 she writes 'Three-quarters of those involved in prostitution in Britain entered street prostitution before their 18th birthday'. She doesn't give a reference but it seems to come from a 1995 study 'Street prostitution: Ten facts in search of a policy' by Benson and Matthews. This is clearly about street prostitution and not prostitution in general but even so I don't believe it.

On page 162 she gives more statistics including '68% met the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder' (whatever that means). Helena Kennedy should realise that the 'research' of Melissa Farley is flawed. Overall though, I think it is a good book. She makes a lot of sense.

On page 170 she writes about women getting deported after police raids and mentions other forms of trafficking such as trafficking for cheap labour or domestic servitude 'doing back-breaking agricultural jobs or cockle picking or poultry cleaning and packing, living in inhumane conditions and being paid well below the minimum wage'. This is important because these issues tend to be ignored by people who support police crackdowns on prostitution.

On page 178 she also writes 'Saving women from prostitution must also mean removing sexual and economic inequalities, providing job opportunities, training and equal pay - in other words by recognising the economic realities which drive most women to the streets'.

I wasn't aware of the cases of Vishal Chaudhary and Tatiana Shmyrova, two traffickers who exploited their victims terribly. It just goes to show that some trafficking is heinous. She doesn't seem to be aware though that some people are convicted of trafficking who have never coerced anyone. In the case of Mark Viner for example there is no suggestion that he coerced the women involved.

Instead the police say that women were raped or robbed, although it is not clear whether this happened in somewhere set up by Mark Viner: "That is the very dark world traffickers like Mark Viner are bringing women into and it's why it's so important we continue to break the cycle".  Also, the present law is part of the problem: "They do this because they know we will not call the police because they know we work in brothels which is not legal".

You might wonder why I am sticking up for a trafficker, but we need to create a system where women don't get raped or robbed. Women come to Britain on tourist visas to get money for things like university fees, get deported (not rescued), then try to get back to Britain to continue as sex workers. This is all in the television series about Viner.

The law has to be able to distinguish between someone who has not coerced anyone and who protects them from rape and robbery, and someone like Vishal Chaudhary. I'm not saying that Mark Viner should have been allowed to get away with what he did. The law needs to be able to distinguish between a pimp who makes money from sex workers, and two or three sex workers working together for safety. Trafficking and brothel keeping-keeping are not always what they seem to the public.