DAVID ADAMS reports…
Australia has a “shameful” record when it comes to policies on prostitution and is breaching its obligations under international conventions, according to Gunilla Ekberg, a world expert on prostitution and the trafficking of women.
Ms Ekberg, a former adviser to the Swedish Government and now the Brussells-based co-executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women International, says Australia is “seen as one of the shameful countries when it comes to prostitution”.
She says the decriminalisation of prostitution in Australian states such as Victoria and New South Wales means it is in breach of it’s human rights obligations under international agreements such as the United Nations’ Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women which says nations have to work against trafficking in prostitution.
“Any person – no one – should be treated and violated like women are in prostitution”
– Gunilla Ekberg
In Australia this week at the invitation of the Prostitution Law Amendment Working Committee – a coalition of groups fighting against a bid to decriminalise brothels in Western Australia, Ms Ekberg advocates against decriminalisation of the industry and for the adoption of measures to combat prostitution such as those which have proved successful in Sweden – measures which she played a key role in seeing introduced in the Scandinavian nation in the late Nineties.
She has met with Western Australian Attorney-General Jim McGinty – who has introduced a bill to the Western Australian parliament which, if passed, would result in the decriminalisation and regulation or brothels and escort agencies – and state politicians from both major parties and is speaking at a public rally in Perth.
Ms Ekberg says that the “Swedish approach” is based around prevention of prostitution rather than addressing the issue “after the fact”.
She says the approach saw the introduction of a “battery of legislation” introduced in 1999, aimed at preventing such things as the operation of brothels and trafficking as well as the purchase of sexual services – a law which targets the buyers rather than the prostitutes.
“Because if you don’t have men there, you don’t have the market and then you don’t have anywhere where the pimps and traffickers and brothel owners can sell the women,” Ms Ekberg says.
The laws had an immediate effect, with 80 per cent of the buyers of sexual services in Sweden – many of whom were “occasional buyers” – are no longer active. There was also a drop in the number of women being trafficked into the country for sexual purposes – down to 400 a year compared to more than 15,000 a year in neighbouring countries – in the number of women and young men in prostitution with significant numbers of them getting in touch with ‘exit’ programs.
“Which is the whole goal. Any person – no one – should be treated and violated like women are in prostitution,” says Ms Ekberg.
She says phone tapping evidence had uncovered conversations between traffickers in Baltic countries and intermediaries in Sweden advising them not to bring women into the Scandinavian nation but to take them to nearby countries, such as Germany and the Netherlands, where the industry has been legalised and the illegal market as well as the legal market has “blown out of proportion”.
“We have the lowest number of trafficking victims in Sweden (in Europe) and that is because it’s not a market anymore.”
Ms Ekberg says neighbouring countries such as Finland and Norway – which have high rates of trafficking – are now following Sweden’s lead.
“Finland passed a similar law to the Swedish and Norway is passing one this year – they’re having a hearing on 10th October and the Government has agreed that they’re going to put forward a bill,” she says.
The UK Government has also said it will be looking closely at the Swedish model.
“A lot of people actually don’t think that it’s such a bad thing to regulate the industry. They think that that by regulating, they’re making it safer for the women involved. But what they’re not actually realising is that the act of prostitution itself is violence and abuse of women.”
– Michelle Pearse
Michelle Pearse, chief of staff of the Australian Christian Lobby in Western Australia, is chair of the Prostitution Law Amendment Working Committee whose membership also includes representatives of the Australian Family Association, the Young Christian Worker’s Movement, the Knights of the Southern Cross, Women’s Forum Australia, Festival of Light and the Edmund Rice Centre for Social Justice.
She says that the public meeting is aimed at raising awareness that decriminalising brothels will increase illegal activity and encourage the abuse and exploitation of women in the industry.
“A lot of people actually don’t think that it’s such a bad thing to regulate the industry. They think that that by regulating, they’re making it safer for the women involved. But what they’re not actually realising is that the act of prostitution itself is violence and abuse of women.”
Ms Pearse says that the introduction of legislation similar to that being proposed in Western Australia led to a tripling of the number of illegal brothels when it was introduced in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland.
“And that’s happened in every other place in the world where they’ve tried to regulate the industry.”
Ms Pearse says that by normalisation of prostitution, “you normalise the abuse of women”.
Ms Ekberg, meanwhile, says that while in places like Western Australia there is still the “fantasy” that legalisation of prostitution will clean up the industry, “those countries which have had legalisation for a longer time and who are honestly looking at what’s happening are very critical of what’s going on”.
Ms Ekberg says that while some may romanticise the prostitution industry, “there is no country in the world where organised crime networks are not involved in the prostitution industry, including here in Western Australia”.
“There are few areas where you can make so much money on so little input as it is in the prostitution industry because the commodities are always available, you can always get them from other countries.”
She says that in Germany, for example, between 70 and 80 per cent of the 400,000 women in prostitution come from other countries.
Ms Ekberg agrees that when the industry is legalised, it follows that the illicit industry will also expand. She cites figures from Holland which show that before the legalisation of the industry the number of children working in prostitution was estimated to be 5,000 – a figure which has since tripled to 15,000.
As well as legislation, the Swedish model of prevention also relies heavily on education.
“You also need to raise the consciousness…and get people to understand why we are doing this,” she says. “And also get – especially young men, young boys – to change their sexual behaviour; to take responsibility for their sexual behaviour and not abuse women.”
The education program included a campaign in highschools where they showed a film about trafficking in women and a manual covering issues such as gender equality, sexuality, pornography and prostitution.
“Every year 65,000 students had one day where they’d discuss all these things to try and change the mentality, and change the behaviour of young men and also get young women to be stronger so they can resist – especially the young women who are vulnerable, who are victims of child sexual abuse, who are really in the risk zone of being abused by buyers and pimps.”
“The normalisation – the idea that women are purchasable and saleable – is no longer central to Swedish ideas around prostitution.”
– Gunilla Ekberg
Ms Ekberg says that Sweden has not eradicated prostitution in the eight years since the new legislation was introduced but that eradacation of the industry requires a cultural shift that will take time.
“(I)f you change the political vision and you say you can actually eradicate this form of male violence then that has ripple effects into many areas…The normalisation – the idea that women are purchasable and saleable – is no longer central to Swedish ideas around prostitution.”
She says that accepting prostitution also has an effect on society at large, increasing the objectification of women. She says that in countries where prostitution is legal – such a the Netherlands, Germany or even Australian states like Victoria, there is a much higher level of sexualisation in advertisements.
“We did a whole campaign on the sexualisation of women in the public space in Sweden and I do know that advertisement agencies do different advertisements for Sweden than they d for example in Denmark, because it wouldn’t pass some of the things they do in Denmark.”
