Some comments on "A critical examination of responses to prostitution in four countries: Victoria, Australia, Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden," by Julie Bindel and Liz Kelly for the Routes Out Partnership Board

By Marieke van Doorninck, Mr A. de Graaf Foundation, Dutch Institute for Prostitution Issues (2004)

In these comments I will mainly focus on the chapter about the Netherlands. There are some major inaccuracies in the report about prostitution policies in the Netherlands.

First I have a few general remarks.

The title of the report is "A Critical Examination of the Different Responses..." but in my opinion the report is only critical towards the first three responses and very positive towards the last i.e. Sweden. That is very logical considering that the country reports on the Netherlands, Victoria and Ireland are written by opponents of the national legislation while the report on Sweden is written by the official advisor of the Swedish government on prostitution policies. If the report had included the views of both opponents, supporters and independent researchers of the four different prostitution policies, a more balanced critical examination would have been possible.

The report concludes with the remark that the Swedish approach is the only one where no one who sells sex is subject to the criminal law. In the majority of countries in Europe, due to abolitionist laws, prostitution is not illegal. The selling of sexual services, and/or activities associated with it, in a public space can be an offence, but it is not in the Penal Code. In Germany and the Netherlands sex work is recognised as labour.

4. Expansion and normalisation

It is stated that the most extensive sex industries in Europe are in countries where aspects of prostitution are legalised: Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Italy.

In 1999 Denmark decriminalised prostitution as a primary source of income (to allow the giving of social assistance and subsides to active sex workers), but stopped short of recognising it as a legitimate occupation. With the law change the Danish policies are now more in line with the strictest countries like Great Britain and Ireland where the actual selling of sexual services is legal only if exercised by only one woman in an apartment, without publicity. (Dana, 2003)

In Italy there have been no recent law changes, the country still has abolitionist laws on prostitution, although the government has proposed in a new bill the legalisation of indoor prostitution under very strict rules.

5. Comparing policy regimes

Legalisation: the Netherlands and Victoria, Australia

On page 15 a comparison is made with Ankara, Turkey. It is important to notice that the (19^th Century) regulation prostitution laws that are enforced in Turkey (and also in Greece) are fundamentally different from the legalisation in the Netherlands. In the old regulation model, sex workers are not illegal but are subjected to very strict rules (i.e. registration as sex workers and mandatory health checks).

Since the legalisation of the Dutch sex industry in 2000, sex work is recognised as labour therefore sex workers have the exact same legal position, with the same rights and duties as other workers in the Netherlands. Sex workers do not have to register with the police (to be more accurate, the police are allowed to ask a sex worker at her workplace for her identity papers, but are not allowed to register!), neither are there mandatory health controls, but STI clinics in the Dutch cities do offer free anonymous testing for sex workers.

At the top of page 16 it is mentioned that nearly 70% of trafficked women were from CEEC. I wonder what the authors want to indicate with this figure. It doesn't tell anything about the number of women trafficked to the Netherlands. It could be 7 out of 10 women...

To my understanding the IOM report mentions 70% of migrant sex workers were from the CEEC.

I strongly want to protest against the use of the number of 15.000 children being prostituted in the Netherlands. This figure first appeared in the media in 2001. The organisation ChildRight quoted this number at a conference on global child sex trade, but had to acknowledge the very next day that the number was exaggerated in order get attention for this problem. In the same article that is quoted by the authors ("Child prostitution in the Netherlands," by Catin Tiggelhoven) it is written that "police sources question the estimation of 15,000 and say it doesn't fit with their figures..."

The only reliable research that was conducted on minors in prostitution was carried out in 1998 by the Dutch Social Sexological Research and Documentation Institute (NISSO). This study estimated that there were 1500 female minors in prostitution of which half were somehow forced (physically or emotionally). This figure is still being recognised as the most accurate.

On the same page it is stated that "one of the most significant limitations of legalisation in the two countries examined is that it excludes street prostitution." The legalisation in the Netherlands (as well as Victoria) refers to the lifting of the ban on brothels, so to the legalisation of the sex industry not the legalisation of prostitution itself because the selling of sexual services has not been illegal in this country since Napoleon's time. In most Dutch cities, since the 1920s, street prostitution was forbidden in local bylaws. Because it was not in the Penal Code, local governments could develop street prostitution policies, as it were only their own local bylaws that needed changing.

Long before the legalisation of the sex industry solutions have been sought for the problems that were associated with street prostitution by the installation of official streetwalking zones in eight cities. The first zone was established in The Hague in 1984. The experiences in the Netherlands have shown that both public order and the safety and health of street workers as well as public health benefit from zoning. Hence the Dutch authorities have proactively attempted to develop policies to address street prostitution which more effectively improve the safety of sex workers, improve their access to services and reduce public order and nuisance issues for communities.

The authors quote from an article by the sex workers rights organisation COYOTE (a US-based sex worker rights organisation) to indicate that many women in the sex industry are against legalisation. It is important to notice there is no official definition of legalised or decriminalised prostitution. Many (or most) societies that allow prostitution do so by giving the state control over the lives and businesses of those who work as prostitutes. Although legalisation can also imply a decriminalised, autonomous system of prostitution, in reality, in most "legalised" systems the police are relegated the job of prostitution control through criminal codes. Laws regulate prostitutes businesses and lives, prescribing health checks and registration of health status (enforced by police and, often corrupt, medical agencies), telling prostitutes where they may or may not reside, prescribing full time employment for their lovers, etc.

It is very likely that the article from COYOTE is referring to such a form of legalisation for they use the term "state run brothels."

The legalisation of the Dutch sex industry did not include special laws or rules for the sex industry or sex workers. The Netherlands have decriminalised the industry in order to regulate it in the same way the state regulates other industries (the licence system is for a large part comparable to the licenses for hotels). Sex work itself is not regulated by licenses but regarded as labour and protected by labour laws.

The Dutch sex workers rights organisation De Rode Draad (The Red Thread) has advocated the lifting of the ban on brothels for many years and stills supports the legalisation of the sex industry. Of course, the fact that they fully support the recent law change doesn't mean they do not critique the government on for example the slow pace of the legalisation process and the governments focus on control and regulation of the industry instead of emancipation of the workers.

On page 20 Donna Hughes is being quoted stating that since the legalisation of brothels in 1997 there has been increased trafficking to Amsterdam from all over the world. In fact the legalisation took place in 2000.

At the end of page 20 it is suggested that as the legitimacy increases the support for exit programmes will decrease. The opposite is true in the Netherlands. In fact here is more political attention and money for exiting programs since the law change than for projects aimed at the labour emancipation of professional sex workers.

Conclusions

On page 30 it says that recent experiments with tolerance zones, including Edinburgh and Amsterdam, have failed to deliver the hoped for benefits. Due to a range of problems the official Amsterdam streetwalking zone had to close December 2003. In the Netherlands there are several official streetwalking zones that have successfully functioned over the past 20 years and continue to do so. The installation of zones in several Dutch cities has marked a decrease in public nuisance from street prostitution. The safety and health of the street prostitutes has increased since the installation of the zones. The only extreme violent attacks committed on sex workers have taken place outside the zones. In several evaluations the women themselves confirmed they felt much more secure working on the zone than in the former situation.

References

• Daniela Dana, "Trafficking and prostitution of foreigners in the context of the EU countries policy about prostitution." (Paper presented at the NEWR Workshop on trafficking, Amsterdam, April 25-26, 2003)
• Vanwesenbeeck, I, Venicz, L, Aard en omvang van (gedwongen) prostitutie onder minderjarige (allochtone) meisjes (Utrecht, 1998)
• http://www.bayswan.org/defining
• Marieke van Doorninck, "Keeping the Balance, The Dutch experience of 20 years streetwalking zones" (Paper presented at the international conference on street prostitution Safer sex and the city, University of Liverpool, September 11, 2003)