Challenges of prostitution policy

Based on an inductive methodological approach, this working paper presents a typology of three general prostitution policy models (or regimes), as repressive, restrictive or integrative. The intention of such a tripartite typology is that it can serve as a tool for assessing, evaluating and comparing prostitution policies, even in cases where they seem to contain contradictory or incoherent elements. Besides using the prostitution policy typology for analytical purposes, it can also serve as a tool for developing context-sensitive measures against violence, exploitation and trafficking in human beings in the sex work sector. I also propose that this typology can be applied not only to policies seeking to regulate the sex work sector, but also to other moral domains of regulation, such as drug and alcohol control, gambling, abortion or homosexuality.

Policy Press eBooks, 2017

Safer Communities, 2007

Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, 2018

In this contribution we reflect on our experiences of co-designing and coordinating two comparative projects on prostitution policies in Europe by focusing in particular on the epistemological workings underpinning their design and execution. We set out two main goals. The first is to shed light on what the epistemological and methodological issues we encountered reveal about the field of prostitution policy studies, an endeavour which can contribute to better comparative research in the field. The second goal is to relate the scope, developments, outcomes and expectations of the two projects to recent attempts to identify a 'one-size-fits-all' model of prostitution regulation, and to interrogate whether transplanting it across Europe is a desirable outcome. Building on the lessons learned from the projects, we propose an approach to prostitution policy development that is reflective of the specific contexts within which the policies are meant to be applied.

Accounts of the governance of prostitution have typically argued that prostitutes are, in one way or another, stigmatised social outcasts. There is a persistent claim that power has operated to dislocate or banish the prostitute from the community in order to silence, isolate, hide, restrict, or punish. I argue that another position may be tenable; that is, power has operated to locate prostitution within the social. Power does not operate to 'de-socialise' prostitution, but has in recent times operated increasingly to normalise it. Power does not demarcate prostitutes from the social according to some binary mechanics of difference, but works instead according to a principle of differentiation which seeks to connect, include, circulate and enable specific prostitute populations within the social. In this paper I examine how prostitution has been singled out for public attention as a socio-political problem and governed accordingly. The concept of governmentality is used to think through such issues, providing, as it does, a non-totalising and non-reductionist account of rule. It is argued that a combination of self-regulatory and punitive practices developed during modernity to manage socially problematic prostitute populations.

European Journal of Criminology

This article comparatively analyses city-based prostitution policies and practices and their effects on sex workers in countries that have adopted a partial criminalization model of intervention towards prostitution – Belgium and Italy. The two case studies selected for this research – the cities of Antwerp (Belgium) and Catania (Italy) – were chosen for their adopted local approach towards prostitution in designated red-light districts (RLDs): whereas prostitution has been collaboratively governed in Antwerp, it has simply been tolerated in Catania. By considering the factors that have led to the development of prostitution policies and practices in these two cities, and their characteristics both within and outside the two cities’ RLDs, this article compares and analyses the effects produced on sex workers across city areas. The study revealed a number of similarities between the two local cases considered: local practices towards sex work in both cities have been shaped by urban ...

The European Journal of Women's Studies, 2004

This article examines discourses invoked in the UK debates about prostitution and trafficking in women. The authors suggest that there are three striking features about these discourses: (1) the absence of the sex work discourse, (2) the dominance of the public nuisance discourse in relation to kerb-crawling and (3) the dominance of moral order discourses in relation to trafficking. At a time when the UK is about to revise its sex laws, it is important to consider the discourses that frame prostitution policies in other European countries, with a view to broadening the range of policy options. In this context, the authors compare the UK with the Netherlands, where a sex work discourse has framed debates. This comparison indicates that UK prostitution discourses could be shaped by discourses other than those of public nuisance and moral order and may open up new policy options.

Routledge Handbook Human Trafficking, 2017

The lifting of the ban on brothels On 1 October 2000 the Netherlands decriminalised the sex industry by lifting the general ban on brothels in the Criminal Code (CC). Since then the Dutch Penal Code no longer treats organising the prostitution of adult persons as a crime, provided it is done with the consent of the sex worker. It is legal to operate a sex business, when it takes place on a consensual basis and involves persons above 18 years of age. 1 There was no new national prostitution law: regulation of the sex industry was left to the municipalities through the introduction of local licensing systems. At the same time 'undesirable forms of prostitution', such as the exploitation of involuntary prostitution and of minors, became more strictly penalised. Article 273f of the Criminal Code (CC) prohibits any use of coercion, (threat of) violence, deceit or abuse of authority in regard to both conditions of recruitment and work, as well as profiting from the prostitution of another person under the aforementioned conditions. It is not relevant whether the victim worked in prostitution before, knew s/he would do so or wants to continue to do so under free conditions. The recruitment and exploitation of minors is punishable irrespective of coercion or consent, as is the recruitment or transport of sex workers across borders. In addition, clients of 16 or 17 year-old prostitutes became punishable. Clients of prostitutes younger than 16 years were already punishable, as was sexual intercourse with a minor between the age of 12 and 16. At the end of the 20th century, the Dutch sex industry had developed into an openly manifested and tolerated but still illegal industry. Although officially prohibited, since the late 1970's brothel and window owners were not prosecuted as long as no (evident) violence, abuse or minors were involved and public order was not disrupted. In practice this policy of 'regulated tolerance' 2 meant that sex club or window brothel owners could practically do as they pleased, as long as they did not cause trouble. As their (illegal) business officially did not exist, compliance with the rules that applied to other entrepreneurs was not necessary, nor did labour law restrict their power over the workers. As sex work was not considered to be work, migrant sex workers did not need a work permit. In practice their presence was tolerated as long as the police knew where they were and no (evident) coercion was involved. 3

The issue of prostitution has engendered much division amongst feminists, frequently resulting in polemical stances in a polarised debate. A similar pattern has more latterly emerged with respect to sex trafficking. An added difficulty is that statistical evidence regarding these issues is scarce and unreliable. Through a new discursive lens of policy analysis developed by Carol Bacchi (the WPR approach) this paper considers and examines the ‘demand side’ of prostitution, with particular reference to its relationship with sex trafficking. Two policy and legislative approaches are compared, the Swedish model where the client is criminalized and the Victorian model where the sex industry is legalised and regulated.