Norway to ban buying sex services

CONCERNS: Support groups for prostitutes fear the law may lead to violence toward sex workers and greater reliance on pimps, but backers say it will hurt traffickers

AFP, OSLO
Thursday, Jul 19, 2007, Page 6


Prostitues from Eastern Europe work on a street in central Oslo on March 30. Norway is preparing to criminalize the purchase of sex.
PHOTO: AFP
Norway is preparing to criminalize the purchase of sex -- though not the sale of it -- a move that is proving highly controversial among prostitute support groups, who argue that the policy will make sex workers more vulnerable.

Men who buy sex could face up to six months in jail, pay a fine or face both, under proposed legislation currently under consultation with relevant interest groups.

The law will ban paying for sexual services, but not selling them. Procuring, or pimping, and human trafficking are already illegal.

The bill, expected to be sent to parliament before the middle of next year, is certain to be adopted as all three parties in the governing coalition have said they will back it.

"We want to send a clear message to men that buying sex is unacceptable. Men who do it are taking part in an international crime involving human beings who are trafficked for sex," Norwegian Justice Minister Knut Storberget said.

"Criminalizing buying sex will make it more difficult for traffickers to organize themselves," he said, because they won't be able to find clients on the street, since the latter will be afraid of getting caught.

Prostitutes' support groups say the law will be ineffective.

"The law will end street prostitution but it won't stop women from working indoors or from going abroad" to work as prostitutes, said Liv Jessen, director of the Pro Center, an Oslo-based support group for prostitutes.

It is estimated that about 40 percent of deals between prostitutes and customers in Norway are made on the street, with the rest occurring indoors, for instance in hotels or at massage parlors.

Among prostitutes working on the street, about 80 percent come from countries such as Romania, Bulgaria and Nigeria, via trafficking. The rest are Norwegians who tend to be drug abusers.

In recent years, street prostitution in central Oslo has become more visible, prompting calls for a ban. But critics say the law will make sex workers more vulnerable.

"The girls will have to rely more on pimps than before to get clients," said Janni Wintherbauer, the leader of the Organization for the Interests of Prostitutes and a sex worker herself. "The pimps will organize everything: the flat where they live, the choice of clients and how much money they get."

"In the street, the girls can choose who they go with. If they don't like the look of a client, they can say no. In an apartment, they can't," Wintherbauer said.

She fears there will be more rapes and attacks on prostitutes.

"The client will think: `I've already broken the law, I've got nothing to lose.' And in an apartment, a girl will be alone" where no one will be able to help her, she said.

The planned law is modeled on legislation passed in 1999 in Sweden. There, men who buy sex face six months in jail or a fine, set in proportion to their income.

No one has yet gone to prison for the offense, but one person was fined, police said.

Buying sex can yield jail term, News from Norway, July 4, 2007

http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1870915.ece

Norway's center-left government has gone along with calls to criminalize the purchase of sexual services. "Norway shall not be a free zone for pimps and human traffickers," said Justice Minister Knut Storberget on Wednesday.

Storberget unveiled a new proposed law prohibiting the purchase of sex, punishable with up to six months in jail.

Prostitution has been legal in Norway, but government officials have grown increasingly worried about the scores of foreign prostitutes on local streets in recent years. They believe most are victims of human traffickers who have forced the women into prostitution and seize the vast majority of their earnings.

The new proposed law forbidding the purchase of sex is aimed at prostitutes' customers and alleged white slavery operations.

"This is also a wake-up call to Norwegian men who help keep human trafficking going," Storberget said.

He was personally against a law forbidding the purchase of sex, but was overruled by his own Labour Party at the last party congress. Since Labour's government partners, the Center and Socialist Left parties, already had supported such a law, Storberget had little choice but to go along.

The proposed law will now go to hearing and appears to have majority support in Parliament. If enacted, it will take effect from January 1st, with a six-month jail term for convicted offenders.