Negotiating Sex Work: Unintended Consequences of Policy and Activism

9. Comrades, Push the Red Button! Prohibiting the Purchase of Sexual Services in Sweden but Not in Finland

· 195 ·· CHAPTER 9 · Comrades, Push the Red Button! Prohibiting the Purchase of Sexual Services in Sweden but Not in Finland Gregg Bucken-Knapp, Johan Karlsson Schaffer, and Pia Levin For scholars of sex work, Sweden’s decision to criminalize the purchase, albeit not the sale, of sexual services in 1999 represents a legislative development that has been the subject of considerable analysis . Scholars have presented many explanations as to why Sweden, under the governing Social Democratic Party, became the first state to regard prosecuting the buyer as an effective policy for reducing prostitution. Some accounts stress the importance of feminist policymakers and elites (Ekberg 2004; Östergren 2006), others highlight the significance of Sweden ’s membership in the European Union (Gould 2001), and still others emphasize the long-term residual impact of Swedish religious traditions in conjunction with a contemporary emergence of feminist ideas (Dodillet 2009). Regardless of one’s preferred explanation, there is a deep-seated consensus that Sweden’s prostitution model merits considerable attention, not least because of the degree to which it is invoked in other states considering prostitution policy reform. However, scholars have directed comparatively less effort toward analyzing similar reform processes in neighboring Nordic countries, where prostitution policy reform has also been a subject of great public debate in recent years. Beyond similar contentious debates over prostitution policy, neighboring Nordic states share a consensus-oriented political culture, a historically dominant evangelical Lutheran state-church, high levels of genderequality,strongwomen’sorganizations,ahighorveryhighpercentage of female legislators, and an advanced social-democratic welfare state. Yet despite these similarities among Nordic states, no overarching Nordic 196 GREGG BUCKEN-KNAPP, JOHAN KARLSSON SCHAFFER, AND PIA LEVIN prostitution policy model exists. In 1999, Denmark opted to decriminalize prostitution, stopping short of fully legalizing sex work and granting it legal protection in line with all other professions. In 2006, Finland tightened its laws governing prostitution, making it illegal to purchase sexual services from a knowingly trafficked individual or a victim of pandering. In 2008, Norway criminalized the purchase of sexual services (CPSS) similar to Sweden, yet also featured an extraterritorial component prohibiting Norwegian citizens from purchasing sexual services abroad. Alongside the Swedish experience, Finland’s 2006 revision of its prostitution policies stands out as particularly intriguing. On the face of it, the Finnish reform represented an expanded use of criminalization as a policy tool, with the ban on purchasing sex from trafficked individuals joining existing legislation prohibiting buying or selling sexual services in public places. Yet what makes the Finnish case analytically tantalizing is that Finnish legislators rejected the Swedish prostitution model. Such an outcome was far from a given, particularly with the strong support for CPSS among Finnish policymakers in the early 2000s. Against this backdrop, this chapter examines the paths leading to divergent prostitution policy reform in Sweden and Finland in the 1990s and 2000s. Why did Sweden wind up with CPSS but not Finland? Drawing from literature in comparative politics that examines “ideational turns,” our argument is as follows: In the case of Sweden, feminist actors across the political spectrum who supported the ban successfully deployed gender equality ideas as well as causal stories (Stone 1989) characterizing female prostitutes as having abusive life histories in a number of crucial settings, including party congresses, parliamentary debates, official documents , and statements to the press. Pro-ban actors benefited from the degree to which gender equality ideas were more broadly embedded in Swedishpoliticalinstitutionsbytheearlyandmid-1990s,theresultof longterm efforts by Swedish feminists. No such pervasive discourse involving gender equality ideas existed in Finnish society or its political institutions. While some feminists there pushed for CPSS from the 1990s onward, they were confronted with interest groups, epistemic actors, and policymakers who successfully mobilized ideas concerning the rights of individuals to make decisions regarding their own body and sphere of economic activity without state interference. Of equal importance, the Finnish reform process took place against the backdrop of specific concerns that trafficking in human beings for sexual purposes to Finland was growing COMRADES, PUSH THE RED BUTTON! 197 rapidly and required a firm policy response. As such, the legislative outcome became centered on the need to ensure Finnish compliance with the 2000 United Nations (UN) Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (also known as the Palermo Protocol). We draw on multimethod qualitative research to document the differing ideational terrains underpinning the Swedish and Finnish reform processes. Our analysis...