Recently an open letter was published calling MPs in the UK to oppose the criminalization of sex work. This letter has received great attention and hundreds of signatures, including those of celebrities like FKA twigs, activists, and human rights organizations like Amnesty International and Sisters Uncut. Politicians, the media, and academia have also shown interest in this letter.
Criminalizing the purchase of sex – also known as “the Nordic Model”- is still apparent. Decrim now, a campaign for sex worker’s rights, has taken upon this matter and wishes to make a change. Therefore it has created an open letter, which aims to start a fight against the Nordic Model. That letter also mentions that the measures currently on sex work do not offer solutions but they lead to further problems like violence against women.
The bill was proposed by Diana Johnson MP, who claimed that the UK had become very attractive to traffickers and that trafficking was being enabled by online advertising platforms. The Nordic Model is NOT a solution to trafficking: https://t.co/tHGWMkhCfw
— DecrimNow (@ukdecrimnow) December 9, 2020
Moreover, it encourages the political scene to take action based on evidence that proves that those workers are harmed. The motivation behind this letter is the government’s constant effort to criminalize paying for sex in the UK, even though it is proven that such actions have negative outcomes for sex workers.
The letter adds and we quote “Evidence shows that the Nordic Model does nothing for the very groups it claims to protect,” since the violence against women, and especially against sex workers has increased to 77 percent after the relevant legislation came into ruling in 2017.
Similarly, across the globe, in the United States, another group of laws was introduced (the FOSTA/SESTA laws) in 2018. The outcome of these laws was for many sex workers to illegally and in an unsafe way, keep on working, not being able to advertise their work online. Additionally, research shows that not only it is safe for them to do as such but also it has many benefits for them like financial stability, safety, access to the community, and health outcomes, and there is no evidence that the laws curbed sex work in any way.
Among the signatories was also FKA twigs who has shown great interest in the matter in the past as well. She had launched an initiative in order to support sex workers in the hard times of COVID and she used her social media as a platform for new sex worker-led organizations.
You can add your name in the list of signatories here.
Words by Vasiliki Roussou
