(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
[16. June 2006] "Forced prostitution overshadows the World Cup," IPS news agency reported this week. Millions of people have gathered at German stadiums for the big holiday of football. Not everyone is there on a voluntary basis, and victims of human trafficking are now seeking shelters near the large brothels set up for the World Cup.
At the same time, a new prostitution debate has reached Norway. Here, formerly brusque opponents of criminalization of whore customers have turned, and both Inga Marte Thorkildsen (SV) and Erna Solberg (H) have signaled that they will now consider such a proposal.
Unfortunately, the Norwegian debate has not been raised as a result of a new and genuine compassion for the prostitutes. It has been raised because prostitution has become more visible. The women on the street have not been many more, but they are farther away and look different than those who were there before. In addition, they are more ongoing and a bigger problem for public authorities and tourism professionals. City Council leader Erling Lae in Oslo has gone a long way in describing the prostitutes as a renovation problem.
Prostitution is not a renovation problem. But there is a problem, created by skewed power relations between gender, sexuality and money. The majority of prostitutes feel that they have no other option but to sell their bodies. It is a moral problem, a social problem and a global problem.
We know that legalization gives more prostitutes and more prostitutes. In Norway there are 0,06 prostitutes per 1000 inhabitants, in Germany the corresponding number is 0,5. When the question is whether or not to criminalize the whore customers, it should boil down to what such a ban will do to the situation of the prostitutes. Argument-
the ashes come from the trenches, where it
It is alleged that prostitution will either be forced underground or fundamentally restricted. We do not know the truth. Therefore, we cannot yet know whether criminalization is a good tool or not.
In Sweden, before the World Cup there was a real debate about possible boycotts due to the public brothels. With us, who did not come to the World Cup, the debate about prostitution and prostitution is inflamed both in public and in private. Now that it goes in the media, it should also go private. It's perfectly okay to give your mate a moral index finger sometimes. Maybe even a middle finger.
