Today - on the International Women's Day - the Government of France and the Government of Sweden are proud to announce our joint decision to develop a common strategy for combating human trafficking for sexual exploitation in Europe and globally.
The main focus of our common strategy will be the need to reduce the demand for girls and women in prostitution, in Europe and globally. Focusing on reducing demand will be an important measure for combating trafficking for sexual exploitation which is a grave human rights violation of which the majority of detected victims are women and girls.
France and Sweden have taken a clear position against normalizing prostitution as work. Our view is that prostitution should always be perceived as an exploitation of someone’s vulnerability – thus prostitution should never be considered a job. France and Sweden together with several other countries have introduced legislation where the purchase of sexual services constitutes the criminal act, not the services of a person in prostitution. The person in prostitution is instead offered assistance to exit prostitution.
This type of legislation, that focus on the sex buyer, has proven effective both to diminish demand and to diminish prostitution. The results in Sweden, where the legislation has been in place for twenty years, are very positive; demand has decreased substantially as well as prostitution, and Sweden is considered a market of low interest for trafficking for sexual exploitation.
