Photo: Yahoo- European countries are split on how to deal with sex work as debate reaches EU Parliament
Dec 20. 2023. Posted by Balkan Periscope - Hellas
“Wealthy
men — who have spare money to spend on fucking — meet poor women who have to
fuck to survive. So, what bigger difference can there be?” asked MEP Maria
Noichl.
Noichl, a German lawmaker from the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group, is a self-proclaimed fighter for sex workers who didn’t voluntarily end up in the industry. She’s pushing for an EU-wide regulation, which is roiling the European Parliament, on sex work because she says, “Europe is like a magnet for sex tourism.”
Her
position is clear: Selling sex is not a job, it is gender-based violence and it
should be illegal to buy sex or be a pimp.
People
working in the sex industry — mostly women, but also men, migrants and trans
people — are not paid to “live out their sexuality here, but the women are paid
for staying still, for remaining silent and for not screaming,” she told
POLITICO
There is
disagreement, however, over her stance, with some warning that Noichl’s
proposal might worsen sex workers’ job conditions.
Luca
Stevenson, director of programmes at the European Sex Workers’ Rights Alliance
(ESWA) and a former sex worker, finds her position disrespectful.
“When you
say that prostitution is gender-based violence, [and] a form of paid rape, what
you actually say is that sex workers are not able to distinguish between rape
and sex work,” he said.
Fierce
disputes in the EU over how best to regulate the sex industry are ongoing.
Some want a
complete ban — a position usually supported by religious and far-right groups.
Others believe sex work should be legal. The Nordic model, developed in Sweden,
is a compromise: It legalizes selling sex, while buying sex is criminalized.
Noichl’s
proposal to criminalize across all EU countries the buying of sex and to reduce
the exploitation of sex workers through human traffickers is breaking up
traditional party lines in Brussels. Though her nonbinding report on the
subject was adopted in September with 234 votes, the split in Parliament is
evident in the 122 abstentions and 175 votes against it.
Reducing
demand is the ultimate goal for Noichl, “because demand creates a market.” The
underlying reasoning is that people will eventually stop buying sex out of fear
of being criminalized, which will decrease the amount of sex work.
However,
Greens lawmaker Sylwia Spurek disagrees. “Criminalization is not the answer …
we cannot simply ban it, because that excludes sex workers from public care and
protection,” she said.
Maria Noichl | European Parliament
It also
often “leads to [sex workers] working in secret and being denied the
opportunity to organize and take effective action against exploitation in the
sex industry,” said Monika Vana, another Greens MEP.
Others,
like Czech S&D lawmaker Radka Maxová, opposes the criminalization of sex
buyers but “absolutely agree[s] with the elements that cover better social
protection, migration and labor laws and support programs as the best tools to
enable women to chose career paths different then sex work if they want.”
According
to Stevenson of the ESWA, the example of France, which adopted a Nordic-style
model in 2016, also raises questions.
Reducing
the demand for sex work there meant sex workers had less power over who to
choose as their clients. This led to “an increase in HIV cases, among most
marginalized sex workers” while violent incidents became more frequent, he
said. In some Western countries, up to 70 percent of sex workers are migrants
which at times obstructs their access to social and health care services,
according to a paper from the Global Network of Sex Work Projects.
Stevenson
says the Nordic model is “extremely anti-feminist” and “ignores the capacities
of women and other people to make decisions about their own life.”
Technically,
the EU does not decide on sex work legislation, but Noichl wants member
countries to “decide to adopt European rules or — and I think this is faster —
step by step, one country after the other will adopt the Nordic model.”
Stevenson,
on the other hand, thinks lawmakers should “sit down with sex workers and work
on finding long-term [solutions] to the social issues.
“Sadly,
they are so convinced that criminalization and ending demand is the only
approach that we don’t have any meaningful decisions,” he said.
Politico