There are two things in the Daily Mail newspaper today that interested me. One is that Sir Martin Sorrell was accused of having sex with a prostitute in Shepherd Market in Mayfair, London. The other is MP Jess Phillips complaining about twitter trolling and demanding an end to anonymity online.
I am familiar with the Shepherd Market area of London. In 2012 I took photographs of the walk ups (brothels) there although I have never paid for sex there as it is slightly more expensive than Soho.
This is my photograph of 50A Shepherd Market which is the one that Sir Martin is supposed to have visited. The most interesting thing about the Daily Mail article is that the reporter tried to find out who owns the flat. The Land Registry says that it was owned until recently by Viscount Curzon, the 6th Earl Howe. There is an interesting interview with one of the women who works at the flat.
Jess Phillips was on Woman's Hour last week talking about the inquiry by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Prostitution and the Global Sex Trade (Behind Closed Doors). A sex worker also on the programme said that it's impossible to get rid of prostitution. Her reply was that we can reduce it. If you look on the report there are two statistics that appear to show that prostitution has been reduced in Sweden because of the new law.
Both are wrong though. I will quote the relevant paragraph from page 22 below:-
The first statistic (13% to 8%) is not to do with men who pay for sex, but men who at some time in their lives have paid for sex. So a 72 year old man would answer yes in the 1996 survey if he paid for sex when he was 18 in 1942 and a conscript in the Swedish army or navy. He would be too old to participate in the next survey in 2008. It tells us nothing about whether the amount of paid-for sex in Sweden is increasing or decreasing.
The second statistic (0.8%) is to do with people who pay for sex. Active sex buyers, who report that they have paid for sex within the 12 months previous to the survey being conducted. But when you look at the actual statistics, the number of people who pay for sex increased between 1996 and 2008 (1.3% to 1.8%). The new law criminalizing men who pay for sex was introduced in 1999. So it went up, not down.
The only way to explain this mismatch between the two sets of statistics between 1996 and 2008 is that the number of men who pay for sex did increase after the 1999 law was introduced, despite it now being illegal. Older men, who perhaps paid for sex while away from home as young men in the war, became too old to participate in the 2008 survey, or died. Sweden was neutral in the war but there was conscription.
Since 2008, the number of men who pay for sex has decreased (1.8% to 0.8%). Numbers can go up as well as down, as we have seen, and the changes have nothing to do with the 1999 law. Men aren't becoming too afraid to visit sex workers. I suspect that the Swedish figures have always been the lowest in Europe, between 1996 and 2014 the number dropped by only about a third.
This drop was probably something to do with the 2008 financial crisis. It certainly hasn't gone from 13% to 8% to 0.8%, which is what they may be trying to imply. The number of mdl who have paid at some time in their lives has decreased by a very small amount since 2008 (7.9% to 7.5%), which is consistent with older wartime men no longer participating in surveys.
The evangelical Christian politician Jim Wells used a false statistic to get the Nordic Model adopted in Northern Ireland. He said in the Northern Ireland Assembly that 127 sex workers were killed in a 15 year period after legalization in the Netherlands when in reality they were killed over a 30 year period with most killed before legalization not after. He's been in the news again after comparing abortion to the holocaust and has been castigated for his homophobic comments.
The evangelical former pastor MP Gavin Shuker is the leader of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Prostitution and the Global Sex Trade who produced the report. It seems he has learned from Mr Wells about how to get the Nordic model adopted. Gavin Shuker, Jess Phillips and her chums at the APPG want to use statistics creatively too to get the same law here. I hope they don't succeed.
I am familiar with the Shepherd Market area of London. In 2012 I took photographs of the walk ups (brothels) there although I have never paid for sex there as it is slightly more expensive than Soho.
Jess Phillips was on Woman's Hour last week talking about the inquiry by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Prostitution and the Global Sex Trade (Behind Closed Doors). A sex worker also on the programme said that it's impossible to get rid of prostitution. Her reply was that we can reduce it. If you look on the report there are two statistics that appear to show that prostitution has been reduced in Sweden because of the new law.
Both are wrong though. I will quote the relevant paragraph from page 22 below:-
Sweden became the first country to adopt this abolitionist law in 1999. Anonymous surveys conducted in 1996 and 2008 revealed that the proportion of men in Sweden who reported paying for sex dropped from 13% to 8%. The most recent study conducted on prevalence rates found that 0.8% of men in Sweden had paid for sex in the previous 12 months - the smallest proportion recorded in two decades and the lowest level in Europe.
The first statistic (13% to 8%) is not to do with men who pay for sex, but men who at some time in their lives have paid for sex. So a 72 year old man would answer yes in the 1996 survey if he paid for sex when he was 18 in 1942 and a conscript in the Swedish army or navy. He would be too old to participate in the next survey in 2008. It tells us nothing about whether the amount of paid-for sex in Sweden is increasing or decreasing.
The second statistic (0.8%) is to do with people who pay for sex. Active sex buyers, who report that they have paid for sex within the 12 months previous to the survey being conducted. But when you look at the actual statistics, the number of people who pay for sex increased between 1996 and 2008 (1.3% to 1.8%). The new law criminalizing men who pay for sex was introduced in 1999. So it went up, not down.
The only way to explain this mismatch between the two sets of statistics between 1996 and 2008 is that the number of men who pay for sex did increase after the 1999 law was introduced, despite it now being illegal. Older men, who perhaps paid for sex while away from home as young men in the war, became too old to participate in the 2008 survey, or died. Sweden was neutral in the war but there was conscription.
Since 2008, the number of men who pay for sex has decreased (1.8% to 0.8%). Numbers can go up as well as down, as we have seen, and the changes have nothing to do with the 1999 law. Men aren't becoming too afraid to visit sex workers. I suspect that the Swedish figures have always been the lowest in Europe, between 1996 and 2014 the number dropped by only about a third.
This drop was probably something to do with the 2008 financial crisis. It certainly hasn't gone from 13% to 8% to 0.8%, which is what they may be trying to imply. The number of mdl who have paid at some time in their lives has decreased by a very small amount since 2008 (7.9% to 7.5%), which is consistent with older wartime men no longer participating in surveys.
The evangelical Christian politician Jim Wells used a false statistic to get the Nordic Model adopted in Northern Ireland. He said in the Northern Ireland Assembly that 127 sex workers were killed in a 15 year period after legalization in the Netherlands when in reality they were killed over a 30 year period with most killed before legalization not after. He's been in the news again after comparing abortion to the holocaust and has been castigated for his homophobic comments.
The evangelical former pastor MP Gavin Shuker is the leader of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Prostitution and the Global Sex Trade who produced the report. It seems he has learned from Mr Wells about how to get the Nordic model adopted. Gavin Shuker, Jess Phillips and her chums at the APPG want to use statistics creatively too to get the same law here. I hope they don't succeed.