This page has been set up to look at the evidence that in Nordic Model countries the prostitution of minors is more common. What is the effect of the Nordic Model on young women and teenage girls?
It seems that if a man pays for sex outside of a major city and it is not street prostitution then there is very little chance that he will be caught. I don't have a car. I'm not a kerb crawler. I don't have sex with drug addicts. Now it seems that if a man pays for sex with an amateur there is little chance that he will be caught.
Christoffer Wong wrote about the Nordic Model in Sweden and stated: "However, the practical experience from law enforcement shows that only the purchase of sexual service from professional prostitutes has in fact been prosecuted". He went on to mention surveys in Sweden involving young people. I found out more about these surveys and they are very interesting.
They were a series of surveys of young people 17-19 years old, mostly 18 year olds. The surveys were in 2004, 2009, 2015 and 2021. They were called Utsatt? Unga, sex och internet which translates as 'Exposed? Youth, Sex and the Internet'. These studies were done by Carl Göran Svedin, Gisela Priebe and one or two other people. They have been published by the Swedish child welfare foundation Stiftelsen Allmänna Barnhuset.
Although the 2021 figure of 1.4% is the highest in the four surveys, we can't be sure if the increase shows a consistent rise in the number of girls selling sex. 1.4% of girls said that they had received compensation for sex at some time in their life. The reason we can't be sure is that the 2021 figure is for having ever received compensation for sex, whereas the earlier surveys typically reported having ever sold sex.
Another reason is that although there was an increase between 2004 and 2009 - up from 1% to 1.2% - there seems to have been a drop between 2009 and 2015 - down from 1.2% to 0.6%. Then it goes back up to higher than it was in 2004. Curiously, this parallels the statistics that we have for men and women.
The figures for men who pay for sex and women who have been paid for sex at some time in their life showed an increase after the introduction of the Nordic Model. Then there was a dip showing in the 2011 and 2014 surveys. There was another survey in 2017 but unfortunately we don't have a reliable figure for men who pay for sex (men who have paid in the previous year). The figure for women who have been paid at some time shot up to 1.5% - the highest it has ever been. The figure for men who have paid at some time also increased from the 2014 figure.
There is something we need to understand about this. Why do we see such a pattern, in adults and in 18 year olds? Why the dip in the first half of the 2010s decade, followed by a rise? The explanation can't be that the Nordic Model started working at reducing demand ten years after it was introduced. Even if that was true, it stopped working in by the second half of the 2010s. It wasn't working in the 2000s.
The most likely explanation is that at the time of the 2008 financial crash men had less money to spend on entertainment and spent less money on paying for sex. Sweden was less affected than many countries and they have good social security. In some countries where social security is poor austerity might lead to more prostitution not less. Women need money more even though men have less to spend.
So I would say that the figures point to an increase in the amount of prostitution in Sweden after the introduction of the Nordic Model, followed by a decrease after the 2008 financial crisis, followed by an increase due to regained affluence.
Table 4 from page 26 of Prostitution in Sweden 2014 The extent and development of prostitution in Sweden by Endrit Mujaj and Amanda Netscher (Länsstyrelsen 2015).
Although Swedish police can sometimes prosecute men who pay for sex with a professional prostitute, they are unable to prosecute men who pay for sex with an amateur. This could mean that more young women are offered and accept payment for sex. For every professional prostitute who gives up selling sex there could be several non-professionals who begin to sell sex on a less frequent and intermittent basis.
Christoffer Wong wrote that only the clients of professional prostitutes are prosecuted. Well, it seems that he isn't quite right about that. In 2009 a number of men were prosecuted for sex with a number of young females.
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