Combating Sex Trafficking in Western Europe : Contrasting Dutch and Swedish Prostitution Policies

This paper explores the ways in which anti-trafficking discourses have been reframed to justify the measures adopted under prostitution policies in the Netherlands and Sweden in the name of combating sex trafficking. Sex trafficking is a global phenomenon which can raise contentious debates. Europe, as a destination area of trafficked victims, tries to take a comprehensive approach to tackle this problem at the European Union (EU) level. Despite the EU’s anti-trafficking measures, national anti-trafficking measures can contradict the EU measures. It is imperative to see how prostitution policy as one of the anti-trafficking measures will influence the nature of sex trafficking. The Netherlands was the first country in Europe to take the regulationist approach in 1999. Sweden was the first country in Europe to criminalise the purchase of sexual services in 1999. The prostitution policies of these two countries are seen as model prostitution policies in Europe. However, closely examining these two prostitution policies there are some new problems arising: increase of trafficking, marginalisation of sex workers, and more surveillance on sex industries. These are the reasons why I have chosen these two countries. Methodologically, I use the Foucault’s concept of governmentality to investigate political intention and technology used for the change in prostitution policies. The analysis of each country is divided into three levels: state-level, normative-level, and individual-level. At the state-level, I review the transitional debates before the change in prostitution policies as well as the evaluation of these policies after the change. Additionally, I review anti-trafficking legislation and victims’ protection. At the normative-level, I examine the representations of actors, such as sex workers or prostitutes, perpetrators, trafficked victims, and clients. To understand the voices and experiences of sex workers, I examine sex workers’ organisations at the individual-level. By examining each level and connecting all levels, it is possible to investigate how technologies are constructed for political ends. The technology in the Netherlands is the incorporation of sex work and anti-trafficking discourse to exclude and classify immigrants. In Sweden the technology is the incorporation of gender equality and anti-trafficking discourse to shape male and female sexuality and gender for Swedish identity construction. My concluding remark is regarding how both countries reframed anti-trafficking discourse to suit their political purposes.