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Super Bowl fans greeted with End Demand (for paid sex) billboards in Texas

21 January 2011 in sex work by laura agustin | 1 comment | print print

The Super Bowl of US football is approaching and I am pleased the media have largely not been disseminating the myth of the 40 000 itinerant trafficking victims who will soon descend. The police chief of the city of Arlington, Texas, home of the Dallas Cowboys, did try to get permission a while back to

ban convicted prostitutes from the entertainment district. The proposed exclusionary zone, which would have been the first in Texas, would have let Arlington officers arrest convicted prostitutes and their customers if they were found in the area without a permissible reason.

Since all buying and selling of sex is against the law there, this request might seem odd, but I suppose the wording would make arresting people easier. Permission was refused, but there have been all sorts of awareness-raising events about child sex slavery and now here are billboards warning men not to buy sex: Dear John, You Never Know! This Could Be You! These messages to End Demand have become a whole genre of public expression, this one belonging not only to the SHAMING variety (see Sevilla’s signs) but to the THREAT variety (see UK signs). Clients Beware.

Please do note a difference from the usual victimising of women who sell sex, though, as the story refers to prostitutes looking to cash in on big spenders from out of town. This is still the way a lot of people think about sex workers and at least grants them some agency in their own lives.

Arlington police using billboards near Cowboys Stadium to try to deter prostitution

15 January 2011, Susan Schrock, Star-Telegram

Arlington, Texas. There’s one souvenir that football fans probably don’t want from their Super Bowl Sunday experience — a police mug shot. Arlington police have posted mug shots of men convicted of or given deferred adjudication for prostitution-related crimes on electronic billboards near Cowboys Stadium to discourage would-be johns. The billboards, featuring four booking mugs and a message, are on Interstate 30 and Texas 360 at entryways to Arlington’s entertainment district. “We want people to think twice before they engage in that activity, because maybe they don’t want their face on a billboard,” Assistant Police Chief James Hawthorne said. More than 100,000 visitors are expected in the city for Super Bowl XLV on Feb. 6.

The Super Bowl has brought a blitz of human-trafficking awareness events and enforcement activities to North Texas. Law enforcement personnel, volunteers and advocates have been concerned that the high-profile event will draw prostitutes looking to cash in on big spenders from out of town. The Texas Human Trafficking Prevention Task Force is teaming up with local officials to provide resources and training before the Super Bowl, which Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott called “one of the biggest human-trafficking events in the United States.”

Arlington police have worked for years to combat prostitution around the entertainment district, which includes top tourist attractions such as the stadium and Rangers Ballpark. Recent efforts have included stings at budget motels and electronic message boards along roadways warning visitors about high-crime areas. The department had posted john mug shots online as part of its prostitution crackdown, but it had never bought billboard space, Hawthorne said. The space was bought with federal grant funds, police spokeswoman Tiara Richard said. The billboards also encourage residents and visitors to report suspicious activity.

“With prostitution, there is an element of human trafficking that exists. More than just addressing the criminal element, we also recognize the opportunity to rescue some of these victims who might be in situations where they feel trapped, helpless and unable to get out,” Hawthorne said. “We want as many eyes and ears on that issue so we can be effective in dealing with it.”

–Laura Agustín, the Naked Anthropologist

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Skarhed admits scientific method was lacking in evaluation of Swedish law against buying sex

19 January 2011 in sex work by laura agustin | 5 comments | print print

Louise Persson and I have twice complained loudly in the Swedish media about the complete absence of scientific principle and method in the government’s evaluation of its law criminalising clients of sex workers. Anna Skarhed never replied, nor did anyone else who might be expected to want to defend the report published in July. Now it turns out that in December Skarhed admitted quite openly to a reporter from the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention that she never cared about science or methodology the slightest bit.

Some have objected to the scientific validity of our investigation. Which is fine, but in my view we have been able to show that the law has had a effect in accordance to the objective: to show that we don’t want prostitution in society.

[En del har haft invändningar mot vetenskapligheten i vår utredning. Det kan man ha, men enligt min syn har vi kunnat visa att lagen haft effekt utifrån syftet: att visa att vi inte vill ha prostitution i samhället.]

It is wrong to refer to effect when you have done no research to find out if one even exists, but Skarhed’s meaning is clear: The goal of the so-called evaluation was never to evaluate anything but instead to demonstrate ideology: a typical End Demand strategy. So it is Orwellian double-speak to claim anything was actually investigated or evaluated. All they did was pretend, and spend public money on it.

This should be front-page news! Although I know that many Swedish people object to this sort of philistine arrogance, it is not so easy to dismantle a policy once it has become embedded in bureaucracy and forms part of a national brand. However, there are indications that more people than usual are annoyed – about which, more later.

–Laura Agustín, the Naked Anthropologist

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Campaigns against kerb-crawling are part of End Demand, an anti-prostitution strategy that does not support sex workers!

1 January 2011 in sex work by laura agustin | 3 comments | print print

You would scarcely know that selling sex on your own is legal in England from reading this story about a town in the Midlands. Residents get annoyed by the sight and sound of interactions between street workers and punters, and contradictory laws make pleasing everyone impossible. But note how this particular ‘prostitution campaign’ is aimed at stopping it, at moving prostitutes on – to where? To nowhere.

How is this possible if it is legal to sell sex? Because a lot of other activities are not legal, including kerb-crawling, owning a brothel, working in a brothel and a range of promotional activities, including soliciting, loitering and putting up cards with contact information in public places. The result is that the person standing in the street looking for customers gets moved on, over and over.

Campaigns against kerb-crawling belong to the now-common End Demand strategy, which, in its most pretentious form aspires to stop everyone on the planet from ever buying sex from other people. Other techniques include attempting to shame world-be clients about their masculinity, as Spanish billboards illustrate. Kerb-crawling is a far more modest police target which only wants to stop cars from stopping to discuss sexual transactions with people in the street. Tactics include signs like these, closed-circuit television cameras, threats to post names publicly and the occasional street operation to arrest drivers, to which the media are invited so pictures will show how active the police are. Meanwhile, the sex workers are moved on. Here is the story from Luton.

Prostitution campaign is ‘successful’

24 December 2010, Luton Today

Police are hailing a four month long operation to combat prostitution in High Town as a resounding success. The number of complaints made to officers regarding sex workers and anti-social behaviour in the area have fallen dramatically say police, after an operation involving several other local authorities including Luton Borough Council, began in August. The three phased campaign was launched after mounting anger from residents.

It included an observation stage where officers talked to sex workers followed by high profile police action and publicity aimed at deterring kerb crawlers. The latest phase of the campaign, which lasted eight weeks, came to an end last week with the metal lamp post signs and billboard at Dudley Street being removed.

Regular patrols aimed at deterring and arresting kerb crawlers has seen the number of vehicles fall and far fewer people loitering on street corners. . .

. . . we think the three phase approach has really worked to deter the problem and at the last High Town meeting, residents said that they were keen to see the signs and billboard used elsewhere should it be necessary. Obviously, the sex trade has been and will continue to be, a longer term problem so the partnership is still actively responding to residents’ concerns. Where we’ve heard of sex workers loitering at new locations we’ve visited the affected residents, started observations and redeployed street cleaning services to remove litter and needles.

The Luton News exclusively revealed in September how Operation Turtle had seen police step up patrols in High Town asking sex workers to move on, issuing warning letters to kerb-crawlers and adding their details to the police Automatic Number Plate Recognition database so they could be easily identified if they reoffended. . .

Operation Turtle?

– Laura Agustín, the Naked Anthropologist

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Change the world by getting men to stop buying sex: Spain

14 October 2010 in sex work by laura agustin | 7 comments | print print

Because YOU pay, prostitution exists. This campaign, financed by Madrid’s Equal Opportunity programme some years back, takes a bottom-line, you-are-guilty approach.

Are you worth so little you have to pay?

These two come from Sevilla’s anti-demand campaign, also from a few years ago. The men’s clothes apparently show that different types of men buy sex, and the idea is to dissuade them by saying buying sex is the sign of a worthless person.

Do professional psychologists advise how to word these messages? There is no way to know whether anyone is discouraged by them, but as with so many anti-prostitution and anti-trafficking campaigns, one goal is to demonstrate the correct gender-equal values. Taking away the source of income from women depending on these clients, and further consequences, are completely ignored. Before setting up such projects to end demand, abolitionists should be forced to come up with more, wonderful, available, good-paying jobs for women.

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Business strategies brought to campaign to ‘End Demand’ for commercial sex

7 October 2010 in trafficking by laura agustin | 23 comments | print print

Pornography is characterised as a training manual for men to buy sex in the campaign described here. Sound odd? Developments confirm that industry was a good term to describe the burgeoning phenomenon I used in the title of my book (Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry), and I now see it as logical that business strategies should be brought to the cause. This campaign aims to eliminate demand for commercial sex (elsewhere in the report called the demand for trafficking, which they should scrap as it makes no sense). Organisations subscribing include ngos, public services like police, FBI and hospitals, business corporations, foundations, journalists, nuns et cetera. Are government employees permitted to use their titles in such privately-funded campaigns?

From the Executive Summary of the National Planning Meeting to Eliminate Demand for Commercial Sex, Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 8–May 10, 2010, Sponsored by the Embrey Family Foundation and Hunt Alternatives Fund:

Most public and private resources dedicated to human trafficking in the past decade have been crisis oriented, understandably geared toward rescuing and rehabilitating victims and, to some extent, prosecuting the perpetrators. However, policymakers, academics, and activists increasingly recognize that the endless supply of victims won’t abate unless we combat the demand for trafficking. A growing number of countries and cities worldwide have designed policies and programs to end this demand. We are not starting from scratch.

Inspired by the work of others worldwide, and in collaboration with a team of top-level advisers, Hunt Alternatives Fund is launching a multi-year, multi-stakeholder campaign to eradicate demand for commercial sexual exploitation in the United States.

As a first step, Abt Associates Inc., a consultancy in Cambridge, MA, was contracted to review practice, policy, law, and research related to demand reduction. The Abt consultants were asked to suggest three to four frameworks for developing a national strategy.

The planning meeting was a chance to develop a common understanding of demand and create a national campaign focused on effectiveness and devoid of partisanship and ideology. Recommendations included the following (also called Landscape Assessment for the National Campaign).

1. Conduct ongoing research, especially as a tool to unlock public (thus, official) support.
2. Leverage survivors’ knowledge and experiences to put the research in a human context and to cultivate political will by making an undeniable case for addressing demand.
3. Lobby Congress to pass, strengthen, and fund laws.
4. Build coalitions to unify the movement’s work. Dr. Shively cited mental health as an example of how a movement can use procedures.

A selection of suggestions from the meeting:

  • We need to attack prostitution as “a business like any other corporation,” and we must convert profit-making practices into liabilities, as was done to the tobacco industry.
  • We should seize large marketing opportunities, such as the upcoming World Cup matches in South Africa, to “create controversy on a world level” and use it to draw attention to prostitution.
  • Hotels that are sites of exploitation should train employees to recognize the signs of sex trafficking and require that they sign a Code of Conduct sponsored by ECPAT, but many refuse to do so.
  • We need to harness the power of technology, specifically e-advertising, to raise awareness and increase public engagement.
  • We should tap “celebrity power” to use major stars’ influence to encourage public engagement.

Read the report’s Executive Summary or the whole long thing. Here’s the list of participants in the planning meeting:

• David Abramowitz, Director of Policy and Government Relations, Humanity United
• Christopher Adams, Polaris Project, Director Of Operations
• Annjanette Alejano-Steele, Laboratory to Combat Human Trafficking, Research and Training Director
• Kayrita Anderson, Harold & Kayrita Anderson Family Foundation, CEO
• Hilary Axam, DOJ Civil Rights, Acting Director Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit
• Luis cdeBaca, Ambassador at Large, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, U.S. Department of State
• Christina Bain, Program Administrator for the Initiative to Stop Human Trafficking, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Kennedy School, Harvard University
• Kevin Bales, Free the Slaves, President
• Julie Bindel, Journalist, Researcher and Feminist Campaigner
• Katherine Blakeslee, U.S. Agency for International Development Director, Office of Women in Development
• Rachel Boisselle, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Special Agent
• Theodore Bunch, A CALL TO MEN, Co-Director
• Cathy Boisvert, YWCA of Central Massachusetts Daybreak Coordinator of Special Projects
• Francine Braae, SAGE Project, Co-Executive Director
• John Chris Bray, Phoenix Police Department, Vice Enforcement Unit Sergeant
• Jimmie Briggs Jr., Man Up, Founder/Executive Director
• Elizabeth, Cafferty. Massachusetts General Hospital, Associate Director, Division of Global Health and Human Rights
• Brigitte Cazalis-Collins, Friends of Maiti Nepal, Executive Director
• Kristy Childs, Veronica’s Voice, Executive Director
• Katherine Chon, Polaris Project, President and Co-Founder
• Adam Cohen, NoPornNorthampton, Co-Founder
• Joseph Collins, Friends of Maiti Nepal
• Dawn Conway, LexisNexis, Sr. Vice President of Corporate Responsibility
• Janice Shaw Crouse, Ph.D., Concerned Women for America, Director and Senior Fellow at the Beverly LaHaye Institute
• Linda Daniels, Department of Defense, Program Manager, Trafficking in Persons Program
• Stephanie Davis, Georgia Women for a Change, Executive Director
• Gail Dines, Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies, Wheelock College in Boston
• Rachel Durchslag, Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, Executive Director
• Jesse Eaves, Children in Crisis
• Carol Edgar, Carol Edgar Communications, Media Consultant
• Gayle Embrey, Embrey Family Foundation, Executive Vice President
• Heather Faris, Air Change, Co-Executive Director
• Melissa Farley, Prostitution Research & Education, Director
• Amanda Finger, Laboratory to Combat Human Trafficking, Executive Director
• Ken Franzblau, Equality Now
• Eleanor Gaetan, Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, Senior Policy Advisor
• Donna Gavin, Boston Police Department, Family Justice Center, Human Trafficking Unit, Sergeant Detective
• Susan Goldfarb, Children’s Advocacy Center of Suffolk County, Executive Director
• Samir Goswami, Chicago Community Trust, 2010 Fellow
• Deena Graves, Traffick911, Executive Director
• Florence Graves, Brandeis University, Founding Director, Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism
• Ruchira Gupta, Apne Aap Women Worldwide, Founder/President
• Marian Hatcher, Cook County Sheriff’s Office, Administrative Assistant to the Executive Director
• Kaethe Morris Hoffer, Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, Legal Director
• Wiveca Holst, Swedish Women’s Lobby
• Michael Horowitz, Hudson Institute
• Donna Hughes, University of Rhode Island, Professor and Eleanor M. and Oscar M. Carlson Endowed Chair; Co-Founder of Citizens Against Trafficking
• Kathryn Infanger, Marion County Prosecutor’s Office, Deputy Prosecutor
• Guy Jacobson, RedLight Children, Executive Director
• Cherie Jimenez, Kim’s Project, Coordinator
• Celiné Justice, Peace is Loud, Program Director
• Jackson Katz, Anti-sexist male activist and Co-founder of the Mentors In Violence Prevention
• Nan Kennelly, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, U.S. State Department, Deputy Director
• Amanda Kimball, Children at Risk, Director of Public Policy and Government Affairs
• Beth Klein, Esq., Klein-Frank P.C., Founder & Managing Shareholder; Fellow of the Colorado Bar Foundation
• Mark Lagon, Consultant on Corporate Social Responsibility and Human Trafficking (an independent consultancy); former Ambassador at Large to Combat Trafficking in Persons at U.S. State Department
• Carole Lombard, Sisters of St. Joseph Boston, Director of Justice and Peace
• Victor Malarek, Investigative Journalist
• Mohamed Mattar, Johns Hopkins University, Director of the Protection Project
• Katherine McCullough, A Future. Not A Past./Juvenile Justice Fund, Campaign Director
• Terrie McDermott, Cook County Sheriff’s Office, Executive Director of the Department of Women’s Justice Services
• Karen McLaughlin, International Organization for Victim Assistance, Director of Public Policy
• John Miller, former Ambassador at Large to Combat Trafficking in Persons, U.S. State Department
• Martin Monto, Professor of Sociology, Portland State University,
• Bradley Myles, Polaris Project, Executive Director and CEO
• Maria-Isabel Nieto, BAVARIA S.A., Director of Government Affairs
• Audrey Porter, My Life My Choice, Assistant Director
• Norma Ramos, Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, Executive Director
• Jendi Reiter, NoPornNorthampton, Co-Founder
• Deborah Richardson, Women’s Funding Network, Chief Program Officer
• Mary Robertson, Laboratory to Combat Human Trafficking, Research Assistant; University of Colorado at Boulder, graduate student of sociology
• Beth Schapiro, Beth Schapiro and Associates, Executive Director
• Jeff Sedgwick, Keswick Associates, President; former Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice
• Jane Nady Sigmon, Ph.D., Senior Coordinator for International Programs in the U.S. State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Global Affairs
• Carol Smolenski, ECPAT-USA, Executive Director
• Melysa Sperber, Vital Voices Global Partnership, Senior Program Officer for Human Rights
• Dorothy Stafford, Middle Georgia Alliance to End Regional Trafficking, Board of Directors
• Guðrún Jónsdóttir Stígamot, Counseling and Information Center on Sexual Violence, Spokesperson
• Karen Strauss, Polaris Project
• Lisa Thompson, The Salvation Army National Headquarters, Liaison for the Abolition of Sexual Trafficking
• Samantha Vardaman, Shared Hope International, Senior Director
• Steve Vienneau, FBI Boston, Agent
• Mary Rita Weschler, The Women’s Table, Sisters of St. Joseph of Boston, Director
• Alan White, SAGE Project, Co-Executive Director
• Linda Williams, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Professor
• Brian Willis, Global Health Promise, Director
• Alicia Foley Winn, The Boston Initiative to Advance Human Rights, Executive Director
• Thirteen police officers and sheriff’s deputies whose identities are withheld
• An additional 10 people who were interviewed but requested anonymity
• Relevant discussions were held with an additional 15 people during conferences and events convened by the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of State

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Buying sex abroad causes trafficking at home? Flawed reasoning about the sex industry from Scotland

27 August 2010 in trafficking by laura agustin | No comments | print print

The women in this kind of drawing are often described as prostitutes (or loose women, with the same moral value), which would make all the men potential clients. Is that a useful way to think about this sort of socialising? At the time, patriarchy was an overwhelming determining reality in the Europe pictured. But even so, I think it’s wrong to reduce such a social scene to a one-dimensional story: Men Exploit Women. In the following story, an obviously impressive person (described as ‘one of the world’s most respected legal brains’) talks about trafficking in a similarly unuseful way. My comments in italics interlaced with excerpts from the story, with the emphasis on her implausible assumptions.

Inquiry into sex trafficking in Scotland wants to hear from men who use prostitutes

Annie Brown, 30 June 2010, DailyRecord

An inquiry into sex trafficking in Scotland is asking punters who use prostitutes to talk to them – in secret. Baroness Helena Kennedy, who is heading the probe, said men who buy sex can help build a realistic picture of the extent of the trade.

How, exactly? Does Kennedy imagine they will have more than what is called anecdotal evidence? Or is this about guys who surf escort sites, so she thinks clients will be able to provide numbers of how many sites or escorts or what?

Kennedy said: “I want to hear from these men. I need to hear directly from people who have experiences of trafficking. I think if you want to have a proper sense of the problem, it is better to hear from witnesses themselves directly. It might be they are men who have used prostitutes and they have had an experience where they have been with a woman who was clearly coerced into prostitution. We need help to understand the scope of the problem but those who can do that are often the very people who, through shame or fear, don’t want to step forward. We will guarantee them absolute anonymity.”

The inquiry is into ‘sex trafficking’, so why does Kennedy want to talk with clients? As someone who understands legal language she must know that sloppy talk like this is confusing. Or does she think that clients meet people who’ve facilitated migrants travel? And why will talking to a few clients give her an idea of ‘the scope’ of the overall problem? On the contrary it will give her some anecdotes, a few new ideas about how it all works, a couple of leads.

She said: “Senior police officers do think that there has been a shift. Perhaps because men are travelling much more, certainly on stag weekends and buying sex abroad. They are experiencing sex in a more exotic way, activities that they don’t participate in with their wives and partners. It becomes something that they want here.”

This is irresponsible claptrap, castles in the air. Everyone is travelling more, yes. What does experiencing sex in a ‘more exotic way’ mean? Having it with foreigners in a foreign country? What ‘activities’ is she imagining they engage in that they never do in Scotland? And she’s totally guessing that then they ‘want it’ at home – there’s no evidence for that. I’m sure she thinks it’s common sense but it’s just imagination.

The demand for so many different nationalities is perpetuating the horrific trade in human beings. Kennedy said: “This is the underbelly of globalisation. The same things that make global markets work, make black markets work too. You get international crime now in a way that we didn’t have before. Everything is marketable and sadly that includes human beings.”

If Kennedy is doing research, why is she telling us the results beforehand? There is no huge body of evidence proving that men are ‘demanding different nationalities’. Liking the idea of having sex with different sorts of people, maybe?

The size of Scotland is one of the reasons for holding the inquiry here. It will be easier to get a country-wide picture because there are fewer police forces, social work departments and agencies which deal with trafficking. Kennedy said that, contrary to speculation, the inquiry wasn’t rooted in Scotland because we have a disproportionate scale of trafficking. . .

She realises a truly accurate picture is virtually impossible because trafficking is a covert criminal business. She said: “This kind of human rights abuse is like a poison. Trafficking leeches into our society as a whole. We want to identify ways in which it is happening and ensure that weaker members of society aren’t abused in this way.” . .

What does it mean for ‘trafficking’ to leach (not leech!) into society? Again, the results seem preordained.

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What do sex-buying statistics mean? More anti-trafficking efforts, that’s what

3 August 2010 in trafficking by laura agustin | 3 comments | print print

Before anyone claims these statistics on arrests of traffickers and clients actually mean something, read this, published at The Other Swedish Model the other day.

Swedish sex-buying statistics: What do they mean?

We live in times where crime statistics are often used to try to prove some social theory or another. Swedish police have just announced that lots more people were caught buying sex in Sweden this year. Those who dislike Sweden’s law against buying sexual services might be tempted to say that these statistics somehow prove that the law is dysfunctional (which might suggest it should be scrapped, for instance). Alternatively, those who like the Swedish law might say that these statistics prove that the problem of men buying sex is much huger and scarier than anyone knew before (which might lead to the conclusion that the law should be strengthened, for example). Both guesses would like to correlate two facts but do not prove any cause-effect relationship.

Does the increase mean more people are buying or selling sex? No. It means the government has injected a large amount of money into trying to find customers, pimps, networks, websites and traffickers involved in sex markets. The same happens with any social phenomenon when there’s an influx of money to investigate: investigators find more, which is often interpreted as uncovering a new, more sinister reality.

Swedish police themselves reject any such interpretation. Note, too, that the Skånian statistics are ascribed to surveillance of the Internet that police hadn’t carried out before. Note these numbers describe cases reported, nothing else. We don’t know how many cases had to be thrown out, were completely unfounded, etc etc.

Big increase in prostitution reports

27 Jul 10, The Local

During the first half of 2009 a total of 148 people were reported for paying prostitutes for sex. The number for the same period this year was 770. A large part of the rise – 430 cases – was due to the discovery of a major prostitution ring in Jämtland county, north-western Sweden. But even when these cases are discounted, the figures had more than doubled.

But police said the dramatic increase was probably not due to a sudden rise in the number of men visiting prostitutes. Rather, they credit increased measures to tackle prostitution and human trafficking. An extra 40 million kronor has been allocated this year to pay for training and strengthening of the police’s operations against the sex trade. “The figures are absolutely a result of the fact that the police have been given the means to dive deep into this,” said Chief Inspector Kajsa Wahlberg, who advises the government on human trafficking issues.

The national pattern was reflected in Sweden’s major cities. In Skåne, which includes Malmö, some 20 cases of paying for sex were reported during the whole of 2009. So far this year, 50 cases have been reported. There, the extra money has been used to increase internet monitoring of the sex trade, which has resulted both in more reports of people paying for sex and in a fall in street prostitution.

Västra Götaland, which includes Gothenburg, also saw a big increase in reports: “I wouldn’t say that everything is hunky-dory. But it’s a big increase and it’s clear that we can be pleased with the good results,” said Mats Palmgren, deputy head of the police in greater Gothenburg.

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Smoke gets in your eyes: Evaluation of Swedish anti-prostitution law offers ideology, not methodology

15 July 2010 in sex work by laura agustin | 5 comments | print print

Louise Persson and I have published a piece in Svenska Dagbladet, one of Sweden’s major national newspapers. The topic was the government’s report evaluating the law against buying sex, sexköpslagen, issued recently and unsettlingly uncommented and uncritiqued in the mainstream media. There were ‘news’ stories, of course, reproducing the government’s line – publicity claiming the law has been proved successful. Given the very lively culture of debate in these same media on every other topic, the silence is noticeable. And given the unquestionable existence of a liberal/libertarian movement that hates the law and its ideas about sexuality and gender equality, one wonders what’s at work here: A genuine taboo? Gender equality such a sacred cow that everyone chooses to keep quiet about the report’s mediocrity? Sweden isn’t a police state and surveillance is low compared with the UK, for example. Critical blogging has been brisk, so what makes mainstream media commentators avoid criticising this evaluation, not on ideological grounds but because it is so badly done that it proves nothing at all?

That’s what we wrote about, the embarrassing lack of evidence to prove the law has had any impact at all on the buying and selling of sex. This is not an ideological argument; it doesn’t prove that the law is no good; it proves that the evaluation is no good. Significant because the world’s peabrained media have picked up the claim – Swedish Law Giant Success – without reading even the English summary of points that make it crystal-clear that evaluators couldn’t find any evidence of anything. That’s the story, and it’s one any researcher will appreciate!

The original is Tvivelaktig rapport om sexköp, Laura Agustín och Louise Persson, Svenska Dagbladet, 15 July 2010. Our own title was better, but it’ll be a cold day in hell when editors don’t think they can improve titles. Here’s the English translation Given a very small word limit, we could only mention key issues in a barebones fashion.

Doubtful report on sex-purchase law

Laura Agustín and Louise Persson, 15 July 2010, Svenska Dagbladet

Sex crimes go down in Sweden: The new evaluation of the law against buying sex is spreading the message round the world, but the report suffers from too many scientific errors to justify any such claim.

The report was delayed. It is hard to find evidence to explain why one can’t see sex workers where one saw them before: Have they stopped selling sex, or are they doing it somewhere else? Stigmatised and criminalised people avoid contact with police, social workers and researchers.

Street prostitution receives exaggerated attention in the inquiry, despite the fact that it represents a small, diminishing type of commercial sex that cannot be extrapolated to all. The inquiry mentions the difficulty of researching ‘prostitution on the internet’ but appears not to know that the sex industry comes in many different shapes being researched in depth elsewhere (escorts without websites, sex parties, strip clubs, massage parlours, students who sell sex, among others).

The report’s conclusion that the law has decreased prostitution is based on police reports, government-funded groups working on prostitution in three cities, a few small academic studies and comparisons with other Nordic countries. But police only encounter sex workers in the context of criminal inquiries, the funded groups mostly meet sex workers seeking help, small studies can only indicate possible trends and the Danish statistics on the number of ‘active’ street workers – used to show that Sweden’s prostitution is less – were publicly shown to be very wrong eight months ago.

The law is claimed to have a dampening effect on sex trafficking, but no proof is offered. Trafficking statistics have long been disputed outside Sweden, because of definitional confusion and refusals to accept the UN Convention on Organised Crime’s distinction between human trafficking and human smuggling linked to informal labour migration. The report claims the law diminishes ‘organised crime’ without analysing how crimes were identified and resolved or how they are related to the sex-purchase law.

All social research must explain its methodology. An evaluation like this one needs to provide details on the sample of people consulted, since even in a field as small as Sweden’s no study can pretend to speak to everyone. Methodological research norms require explaining how informants were consulted, under what conditions, what questions they were asked and how, what ethical apparatus was in place to help guarantee they gave their true opinions, how a balance of different stakeholders was achieved, how many people refused to participate, and so on. In this report, however, the methodology section is practically non-existent. We know nothing about how it the evaluation was actually carried out.

On the other hand, the report brims with irrelevant material: background on how the law came about, Sweden’s history with gender equality, why prostitution is bad, why international audiences are interested in the evaluation and how many Swedes are said to currently support the law. One single sex worker’s sad personal story takes up three pages, while the account of sex workers’ opinions is limited to the results of a survey of only 14 people of which only seven were current sex workers.

Research must try for some kind of objectivity, but the government’s remit to the evaluation team said that ‘the buying of sexual services shall continue to be criminalised’ no matter what the evaluators found. The bias was inherent.

The Swedish government understands that the law is of interest internationally as a form of crime prevention. What they don’t realise is how, when the report is translated and reviewed, the methodological errors and crude bias will cause researchers in the field to dismiss this evaluation.

The international trafficking debate has moved beyond the simplistic position presented in this report. More humility is needed from a small country with little experience of, and research about, undocumented migration and the sex industry. If one wants to present oneself as occupying a higher moral ground than other countries, one needs to do better work to understand complex questions. This evalution tells us nothing about the effects of the sex-purchase law.

We offered sources on the topic of flawed research not supporting extravagant claims in this field, but editors omitted them.

Socialstyrelsen. 2007. Kännedom om Prostitution. Another Swedish government report from just a few years ago that concludes little can be known about prostitution in Sweden:

Folketingets Socialudvalg, 20 november 2009. Socialministerens endelige svar påspørgsmål nr. 37 (SOU Alm. del). Question in Danish parliament about incorrect figures claimed for street prostitution.

IOM-SIDA. 2006. Trafficking in Human Beings and the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Swedish-funded research finding trafficking claims unsubstantiated.

BBC News Magazine. Is the number of trafficked call girls a myth? 9 January 2009.

United States Government Accountability Office. July 2006. Human Trafficking: Better Data, Strategy, and Reporting Needed to Enhance U.S. Antitrafficking Efforts Abroad.

Les Carpenter. 2010. Debunking World Cup’s biggest myth. Yahoo News, 10 June.

Svenska utdrag från Tvivelaktig rapport om sexköp

Laura Agustín och Louise Persson, Svenska Dagbladet, 15 July 2010

Den nysläppta utvärderingen av sexköpslagen sprider budskapet att sexbrotten minskar, men utredningen är behäftad med alltför allvarliga vetenskapliga fel för att man ska kunna hävda att lagen är framgångsrik.

Rapporten om sexköpslagen försenades. Det var svårt att hitta bevis som demonstrerar anledningarna bakom varför man inte ser sexarbetare där man sett dem förut: har de slutat sälja, eller har de flyttat någon annanstans? Stigmatiserade och kriminaliserade aktörer undviker kontakt med polis, socialarbetare och forskare.

. . . En grundprincip för forskning är att sträva efter objektivitet, men regeringens direktiv var: ”En utgångspunkt för vårt arbete har varit att köp av sexuell tjänst fortfarande ska vara kriminaliserat.” Det skapar läge för en partisk inlaga. . .

Vill man presentera sig med en högre moralisk nivå på den internationella arenan, krävs bättre underlag och förståelse för komplexa frågor. Den här utvärderingen säger oss ingenting om lagens effekter.

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Swedish evaluation of law banning purchase of sex: unsupported claims

2 July 2010 in sex work by laura agustin | 6 comments | print print

On 2 July 2010 I published excerpts from the English summary of the Swedish government’s evaluation of its law banning the buying of sex, just to make the material available. I’ve now removed those excerpts to avoid any impression that I accept the evaluation report at face value. On the contrary, I have published extensive criticism of the evaluation:

Big claims, little evidence: Sweden’s law against buying sex

Irresponsible use of trafficking data, or: Garbage in, garbage out

Doubtful report on sex-purchase law, Laura’s article from Svenska Dagbladet

Smoke gets in your eyes: Evaluation of Swedish anti-prostitution law offers ideology, not methodology

Swedish report based on wrong Danish numbers for street prostitution

Behind the happy face of the Swedish anti-prostitution law

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Agency and prostitution: Sex workers target rich male victims

24 June 2010 in sex work by laura agustin | No comments | print print

Agency: what is it? Simply put it describes the condition of acting, exerting power, being in action. What helps us know the extent to which people do things because they intend to? How do we know whether they are passive victims? A lot of our ideas come through other people’s descriptions. So the principal narrative about prostitutes says they aren’t in a position to elect sex work over other jobs because they are too disadvantaged by poverty, don’t understand how bad selling sex is or do it because they have been damaged by abuse or are coerced or hijacked into it. As I’ve pointed out in a story about sex-hungry babes in Angola, news sources in Africa sometimes use the opposite sort of language. Here, women who sell sex are described as definitely being in action, targeting their rich tobacco-farmer victims. My point in publishing such against-the-current commentaries is to illustrate that what the West says isn’t the only way to talk, and since I don’t believe that Europe is always ‘ahead’ of Rest of World, I don’t say that this characterisation is by definition  wrong or unprogressive. There are some tough, man-eating hussies out there . . .

Sex workers target tobacco farmers

Fungi Kwaramba, The Zimbabwean, 31 May 2010

Harare: Commercial sex workers are making a killing by targeting tobacco farmers at the Boka Tobacco Auction floors, with some travelling from as far as South Africa, says the Population Service International (PSI). Speaking at a media briefing in Harare last week, PSI Interpersonal Communications Manager, Patience Kunaka, said that prices of sex per act have gone up to US$25 a session from US$5 due to the recent targeting of rich tobacco farmers. . .

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