Swedish government pushes to criminalise and jail sex buyers

FOLLOWING a landmark law that revolutionised Sweden’s approach to prohibiting prostitution and the “consent law”, which expanded the definition of rape, the Swedish government is ready for the next step in the battle against what it sees as human trafficking.

The Swedish government wants to fully criminalise the purchase of sex, mandating that buyers be slapped with prison sentences rather than fines.

Currently, fines are a way out for offenders who get taken into custody and confess to having paid for sex.

In the case of imprisonment, the information in the load register is stored longer and becomes available to more authorities than in the case of a fine, leading to more serious repercussions.

In an opinion piece co-signed by Justice Minister Morgan Johansson of the governing Social Democrats, Åsa Lindhagen equated the purchase of sex with the “slave trade”, suggesting it must disappear.

The two ministers emphasised that Sweden had blazed the trail 20 years ago when it pioneered a ban on the purchase of sex services.

Citing the 2018 “consent law”, which introduced the concept of negligent rape, and the recent years’ legal measures against human trafficking, the ministers called for the next step, which is to punish sex buyers with jail sentences.

Citing a recent survey, in which 9% of Swedish men say they bought sex and 80% of these did it abroad, the ministers suggested punishing the procurement of sex services abroad as well.

In another opinion piece also published by the daily Aftonbladet, Police Inspector Jana de Geer at the human trafficking section in Stockholm ventured that consent cannot be bought, equating sex buyers with rapists. Consequently, she suggested adjusting the laws on rape to include the procurement of sex services.

“You shouldn’t be able to buy yourself free after buying another person’s body, it should lead to prison and we want to see a more severe punishment,” Left MP Linda Westerlund Snecker, who previously caused a stir by calling all men rapists, told Swedish Radio.

Sweden’s current laws on prostitution make it illegal to buy sex, but not to sell it. The criminalisation of the purchase, but not the selling of sex was a unique concept when first enacted in 1999.

Since then the Nordic model has been adopted by several other nations, including Canada and Ireland.