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Prostitution as Vagrancy: Sweden 1923-1964

NCJ Number
216763
Journal
Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention Volume: 7 Issue: 2 Dated: 2006 Pages: 142-163
Author(s)
Yvonne Svanstrom
Date Published
2006
Length
22 pages
Annotation
This article analyzes the historical development of prostitution policy in Sweden during the period 1923 through 1964.
Abstract
The main argument is that the criminalization of the purchase of sexual services in Sweden was not due to the development of social democratic welfare ideas but was in fact due to the persistent efforts of the women’s movement. The women’s movement in Sweden has been consistent in its efforts to reframe the prostitution problem as a problem of male demand rather than female supply. Their persistence paid off in 1999 when Sweden passed a law that criminalized the purchase of sexual services rather than the sale of sexual services. The author analyzes this legislative development historically, tracing the development of social policy regarding prostitution in Sweden from 1923 through 1964. In particular, the article focuses on how female prostitution was perceived by the different legislative commissions in Sweden over the course of the 42-year period. During this period, the conception of women prostitutes went through several incarnations. Female prostitutes went from being regarded as normal women who were a menace to society in the 1920s to sociopaths by the late 1940s. In 1919, Sweden deregulated municipal prostitution, which meant that police no longer supervised prostitutes and women were no longer medically controlled. By 1935, Sweden had passed laws on sterilization, which played a significant role in the control of female prostitutes from 1939 through 1951. Evidence suggests that from 1935 through 1975, 93 percent of those sterilized in Sweden were women. During this period, female prostitution was mainly regarded as a vagrancy problem and a public hygiene problem. By the early 1950s, however, the women’s movement played a significant role in reframing the prostitution problem to one of male demand rather than female supply. The analysis relied mainly on official state documents from the period 1920 through 1970, including commission reports, parliamentary protocols, and government bills. Footnotes, references, appendix

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