Paramour Responds to Verdict of EU Human Rights Court and Growing German Political Support For A German Sexkaufverbot: “WE DISSENT."
“Criminalization is a public health emergency and a human rights emergency.” Luca Stevenson, International Planned Parenthood Federation, at a press conference on 25.7.24
On 25 July, 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) released its ruling in the case of M.A. and Others v. France. The plaintiffs, a group of sex workers, argued that the implementation of the Nordic Model in France has led to a violation of their human rights, citing a dramatic increase in rapes, murders, and STI infection rates. The court found for the defendant, the French government.
We, sex-worker members of the historic Paramour Collective, respectfully dissent with the ECHR ruling – and, additionally, with the growing number of German politicians calling for the Nordic Model (Sexkaufverbot) in Germany – on the following grounds.
The court acknowledged that it had already previously held that “the criminalization of the purchase of sexual acts constitutes an interference with the applicants' [sex workers'] right to respect for their private life, as well as their personal autonomy and sexual freedom. We find it exceedingly heartening that ECHR understands that sex worker rights are violated by the Nordic Model in France.
However, the ruling is based on their assessment that the infringement of these human rights is outweighed by the French government’s efforts to combat human sex trafficking.
We find the following flaws with this argument:
International sex work policy remains tied to the 1949 UN Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons, which states:
“[P]rostitution and the accompanying evil of the traffic in persons for the purpose of prostitution are incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person and endanger the welfare of the individual, the family and the community.”
It would appear, therefore, that the entirety of global sex work policy is founded on a premise that is directly opposed to the factual, lived experience of sex workers all over the world who do not feel that their dignity or worth is infringed because of their job.
The premise that, merely by existing, we threaten the welfare of everyone else in a society is a deeply harmful stigma – and a premise for many anti-sex-worker hate crimes – that is rooted in historical manifestations of misogyny. In Germany, this was best exemplified in 1937, when the National Socialist government declared sex workers to be “asocial” as a class, followed by mass deportations and murders of sex workers in concentration camps. Therefore, such an antiquated and hateful policy is particularly dangerous in Germany.
The court held that the French governments use of the Nordic Model law as a means to “defen[d] public order and safety [and] prevent criminal offenses…constitute legitimate aims” that outweigh its human rights abuses. However, the allegations against the Nordic Model in France are extensive: In addition to its infringement upon human rights, Médcins du Monde found in their 2018 study that the law had caused a decrease in income and a degradation of their working conditions, deterioration of autonomy, insecurity, stigmatization, a rebalancing of power in favor of the client in negotiations, a possible increase in pimping but certainly no decline, no appreciable change in the quantity of sex workers, and a massive increase in violence and risk of assault, rape, and death. The ability of the sex worker to enforce condom use has declined from 92% before the Nordic Model to 65%, leading to an increase in HIV and syphilis.
Under these circumstances, it should not be incumbent upon sex workers themselves (who are ostensibly busy with their own survival) to prove that their rights have been violated; rather, we call upon the French government to prove that these extensive and well-documented human rights violations and dangerous working conditions are outweighed by a significant reduction in human sex trafficking. Surely, the only reasonable response to the harrowing reports of the sex workers who testified is a publication of police and public safety data, proving the success of the law in its stated aims. However, no such data are currently available. On the contrary: The only piece of data available is that when the law was instated, France saw murders of 10 sex workers in 6 months. If this was unrelated and the Nordic Model law has not increased the murder rate of sex workers, France must publish data to prove this. If data regarding murder and human sex trafficking rates have not been recorded, this is nothing short of negligence, as noted by the court itself.
While the plaintiffs “question the link between prostitution and human trafficking, arguing that there is no data to support this claim,” the court states that there are not enough data available to make a determination about this; and as the topic is “currently the subject of lively debate,” the government should be granted a wide latitude. However, there is already plentiful evidence from Sweden and other countries about increased danger to sex workers under this model. (See “Prostitution and Violence: Evidence from Sweden,” “No Model in Practice,” and “Sweden’s Abolitionist Discourse and Law”; also “The False Promise of ‘End Demand’ Laws”, in addition to “Criminalisation of clients: reproducing vulnerabilities for violence and poor health among street-based sex workers in Canada.”) There is also evidence that decriminalization of sex work decreases rates of rape (see “Do Prostitution Laws Affect Rape Rates?” ), not to mention such an overwhelming international consensus among the global health community on the importance of sex work decriminalization on the eradication of HIV/AIDS that citing the research is probably not even necessary. When there is clear and extensive data on the negative effects of a policy and no available data on a positive effect, a policy must be repealed. Anything else is moralistic posturing.
The court writes that it “does not lose sight of the fact that these phenomena were already present… [T]here is no unanimity on the question of whether the negative effects described by the applicants are directly caused by the measure penalizing the purchase of sexual acts, or their sale, or whether they are inherent and intrinsic to the phenomenon of prostitution as such.”
This is an appalling quotation to read. We hope we may be forgiven for hearing this quotation as saying “sex workers will die either way, therefore the quantity of death and harm isn’t important.” This speaks to the heart of why we founded the Paramour Collective: We know we can be safe at work based on personal experience; what needs to change is our working conditions. We cannot organize our own businesses or harm-reduction measures under the Nordic Model, under which it becomes illegal to do so. We encourage ECHR to join us in the 21st century, where sex work policy is a discussion of worker’s rights. Our rapes and deaths are not inevitable. It is unacceptable to claim this in a public forum. This quotation comes dangerously close to blaming sex workers for any harm that comes to them because of the nature of their work.
The court credits the French government with “a choice that constitutes the culmination of a careful examination by Parliament of all the cultural, social, political and legal aspects” of the Nordic Model law. This speaks to a “benefit of the doubt,” assuming that the French government had entirely pure motivations in the establishment of this law. We find this conclusion naïve and must note that, throughout history, sex work policy has been used as a political football to appeal to various desired demographics of the population (often religious or right-leaning ones). Moral and medical panics – such as the letter by conservative German politicians written during COVID-19 that called all sex workers “superspreaders” – have been conjured up as ways to manipulate public opinion. Sex workers are vulnerable to instrumentalization in this way because, as deeply stigmatized and marginalized people, we are coerced into secrecy and silence, and therefore, we don’t always speak up.
The court “also points out that it is not required to substitute its own assessment for that of the competent national authorities as to the choice of the most appropriate policy for regulating prostitution.” As a court that came into existence in 1948, immediately following a war caused by a (semi-)elected government implementing genocidal policies, we presume that preventing governmental overreach that infringes on the human rights of its people is precisely the purpose for which it was founded.
Which Human Rights does the Nordic Model Infringe Upon?
From the European Convention on Human Rights:
Section I, Article 2: “Right to Life. Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law.” Sex workers have the right to not be murdered in their place of work. Therefore, we have the right to not be subject to policies that increase murder rates and decrease our ability to avoid infection with life-threatening diseases, such as HIV.
Section I, Article 8: “Right to respect for private and family life. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.” Sex workers have the right to keep their sex lives and practices private from authorities. The German registration requirement directly violates this right by forcing sex workers to give their personal data to government authorities in order to be put on a list of prostitutes, which is then made available to other government institutions and the police. For some migrants, the German government also requires that permission to work as a sex worker be written on official documentation, such as visas and passports, that are available to any border agent or other law enforcement personnel – even those for whom such a declaration is tantamount to probable cause for arrest on a charge of illegal prostitution.
Protocol, Article 1: “Protection of property. Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law.” Sex workers have the right to not have their possessions or earnings stolen by clients. When clients are criminalized, sex workers must encounter them in dark and isolated places, which has been directly correlated to increased theft, including the theft of the client’s payment immediately after services have been provided (c.f. Médcins du Monde).
Protocol 12, Article 1: “General prohibition of discrimination. The enjoyment of any right set forth by law shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth, or other status.” Sex workers have the right to not be treated differently than other people because of their job. This is infringed upon by the Nordic Model in numerous ways; for example, the French law declares that sex workers, as a class, are victims, infantalizing them under the law and denying their economic and sexual self-determination. A Sexkaufverbot law in Germany would mean that the Paramour Collective would be immediately dissolved with no legal recourse for remuneration for lost time, money, and social support. Nordic Model laws reinforce stigma, thereby also validating housing, financial, and other types of discrimination against sex workers.
In conclusion, we would like to remind you – especially the German politicians who advocate for a Sexkaufverbot in Germany: The hardships being suffered by our French colleagues also exist in Germany, although to a lesser extent due to its policy of legalization – particularly for the population of sex workers that is working illegally due to the exclusive nature of the registration system. No amount of court rulings can make sex workers ignore what we have seen, time and time again, with our own eyes. Therefore, the fight against this law is nothing short of a fight for our lives. We will continue our fight to make Germany a safer place for our community.