Summary: The Decriminalization Of Prostitution

Introduction The debate on whether governments should regulate prostitution has been influenced by the stances of politicians, civilians, and lawmakers who support either the legalization or the decriminalization of prostitution. Some governments advocate for the legalization of prostitution, primarily with laws designed to let governments regulate the sex industry and benefit the state from the taxes of sex industry. On the other hand, the rationale behind the Swedish model, also called as partial decriminalization, penalizes the buyers of prostitution while condoning the sellers of sexual activities. In order to understand how countries regulate prostitution laws and adapt to the model, the effects of their regulation must be

The issue of regulating prostitution was raised in Sweden during the 1970’s as the values of individual freedom and gender equality was deeply rooted into the society influencing legislation and policies. On January 1, 1999, the government of Sweden took an unprecedented approach to become the first country that prohibited the purchase of sexual services by passing the Swedish Law Prohibiting the Purchase of Sexual Services. The political influence the legislation carried primarily focused on the Swedish idea that prostitution was intrinsically harmful to individual women and children because of its violence and the additional fact that it was a significant hindrance to the government’s goal of full gender

Along with the government’s intervention of monitoring the self-employed prostitutes, as legal sex workers, they paid taxes and become subject to the Social Security Scheme which grants them access to the welfare system and health care benefits. Additionally, the law also placed them in a stronger position as buyers of sexual services were criminalized and became less violent when committing a crime since the police and social authorities were on the prostitute’s side. The government of Sweden followed through their policy by providing ample social service funds to create exit programs and rehabilitation programs for prostitutes. As a result, sixty percent of the prostitutes in Sweden took advantage of the well-funded programs and succeeded in exiting prostitution. The effects of the government’s partial decriminalization of prostitution which reduced the demand of prostitution is another major observation of the Swedish Model. According to a research report from the Nordic Gender Institute which conducted the rates of prostitution from 1996 to 2008, the number of sex buyers in Sweden declined from 13.6 % to 7.9 %. The results show that the law had influenced societal attitudes regarding the purchase of sex. Since the law criminalizes buyers, the buyers are punished under the Swedish Penal Code with a