Sweden’s prostitution law: Get the customer

Escort says violence is a problem
A 46-year-old escort who is a vocal opponent of the law said it had left prostitutes more vulnerable to violence. "If a sex worker seeks to establish contact with a client on the street, and police are waiting around the corner, she's going to jump into the car without making a security assessment," she said.

The mother of two, known to the public by the pseudonym Isabella Lund, said authorities never consulted sex workers on the change.

The Swedish law took effect at a time when many European countries were moving in another direction. Neighboring Denmark, for example, decriminalized prostitution in 1999 after quietly tolerating it for two decades.

Most European countries prohibit pimping and running brothels, but tolerate prostitution and penalize neither prostitutes nor clients. Brothels are legal in Holland and Germany provided they have business licenses.

Marianne Eriksson said she was ridiculed by fellow lawmakers when she first proposed the change in the European Parliament in 1997.

"To them it was the most absurd thing they ever heard. Many of them roared with laughter," recalled Eriksson, who has since left Europe's elected multinational legislature to chair the Stockholm branch of the opposition Left Party.

Today, she said, she feels the Swedish model has "a very strong response" in other European countries, even if many of them ultimately decide against adopting it.

The view of prostitution as a legacy of a societal order that subordinates women to men is universally accepted among major political parties in gender-conscious Sweden.

The urge to set things right led Claes Borgstrom, Sweden's equality ombudsman, to propose that the country boycott the 2006 soccer World Cup in Germany, because of an expected surge in prostitution during the monthlong tournament. The idea was immediately rejected by the Swedish soccer federation.

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