Prohibiting Sex Purchasing and Ending Trafficking: The Swedish Prostitution Law
![handle is hein.journals/mjil33 and id is 137 raw text is: PROHIBITING SEX PURCHASING AND ENDING
TRAFFICKING: THE SWEDISH
PROSTITUTION LAWt
Max Waltman *
IN TRO D U CT IO N ............................................................................................ 133
I. PROSTITUTION AND THE SWEDISH LAW: A HISTORIC
AND COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS ....................................................... 137
II. IMPACT OF THE SWEDISH LEGISLATION ........................................ 146
III. MISINFORMATION ABOUT SWEDEN'S LAW ................................... 151
IV. OBSTACLES TO EFFECTIVE IMPLEMENTATION ............................... 153
C O N C LU SIO N ............................................................................................... 157
INTRODUCTION
At the symposium on Successes and Failures in International Human
Trafficking Law at the University of Michigan Law School in February
2011, I addressed the topic of international sex trafficking law, particularly
the Swedish law that prohibits the purchase of sex while simultaneously
decriminalizing the prostituted person. Being asked to address trafficking, I
was surprised by the name given to my panel: Kidnapped at Home, Sold
Abroad: Sex Trafficking in the International Community. This surprise was
owing to the fact that in the most current international instrument defining
trafficking, the United Nation's so-called Palermo Protocol, nowhere is the
t This Essay is an edited version of a talk presented at the symposium entitled Suc-
cesses and Failures in International Human Trafficking Law held at the University of
Michigan Law School on February 5, 2011. All translations from Swedish are the Author's,
except where noted. Similar material by the Author is forthcoming in the journal entitled
Women's Studies International Forum, Volume 34. Part of the legal arguments and ideas re-
garding the Swedish law were previously developed with co-authors through submissions to
the Swedish government. See PETITIONERS ET AL., A RESPONSE TO Prohibition Against Pur-
chase of Sexual Service: An Evaluation 1999-2008 (SOU 2010:49) (officially received by the
government on Feb. 2, 2011) [hereinafter PETITIONERS ET AL., A RESPONSE], available at
http://www.statsvet.su.se/homepages/max-waltman.htm; PETITIONERS ET AL., SUGGESTIONS TO
THE GOVERNMENT'S REVIEW OF THE SEX PURCHASE ACT (SWEDEN) (2010) (officially received
by the govemment commissioner on Mar. 17, 2010) [hereinafter PETITIONERS ET AL., SUGGES-
TIONS], available at http://www.statsvet.su.se/homepages/max-waltman.htm. Jonas Tallberg and
the Department of Political Science, Stockholm University, provided a foundation for further
research, and the article would not have been conceived without the generous support of Cath-
arine A. MacKinnon.
* Max Waltman is a PhD Candidate at Stockholm University, Department of Political
Science, studying legal challenges to pornography and prostitution as practices violating
equality and other human fights in democratic systems, focusing on Canada, Sweden, and the
United States. A recent article of his on the topic, Rethinking Democracy: Legal Challenges to
Pornography and Sex Inequality in Canada and the United States, is published in Political
Research Quarterly vol. 63, no. 1 (2010): 218-37.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/mjil33&div=17&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Prohibiting Sex Purchasing and Ending Trafficking: The Swedish Prostitution Law
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