Talk:Nordic model approach to prostitution

Iceland - Schengen Zone
Whilst I apricate that the mention of the Schengen zone is per source, I'm not sure why this should be any more relevant than in other neo-abolitionist counties such as Sweden, Norway and France which are also in the Schengen zone. Arguably, the zone only actually works by road, security checks, including passport/identity card checks, by air and sea operators effectively negates the advantages of Schengen. --John B123 (talk) 15:24, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I think that was concerning the fact that the women don't have to register officially if they come from Schengen countries. Thus it's hard to track human trafficking and forced prostitution. Nobody basically knows where they are living at least in the first three months that they are there. And it's also easy to get them there because no checks are required... but mainly that they don't have to register and no one knows where they live and what they are doing.-- Sparrow (麻雀)     🐧   19:42, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

House of Commons Home Affairs Committee
Hi. I included the findings of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee in an attempt to keep some balance to the article. Whilst 9 countries have adopted to model (10 when Israel adopts it in 2020), others have rejected it including the UK and Finland. The UK parliamentary findings summarise the position of these countries: the Nordic Model makes no discrimination between voluntary and coerced prostitution; and that there is no overwhelming evidence that the Model achieves its objective. --John B123 (talk) 20:47, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

also known as
The term Neo abolitionist is not widely known and there is just one citation for it. But the term abolitionist is widely known and its these feminists that have been instrumental in bringing the nordic approach to many countries. why then can we not use the term on this page or even reference it. I'm told it's out of date by one contributor but there is no citation or evidence to support that that I know of. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.149.167.101 (talk) 20:58, 15 December 2019 (UTC)


 * See Prostitution law and it's many references for examples. Irrespective of that, you should not be continually reverting to what you believe is correct until consensus is obtained here as you have previously been made aware of.--John B123 (talk) 21:29, 15 December 2019 (UTC)


 * This article about the introduction of the "Nordic model" in France explains why the term neo-abolitionism is used instead of abolitionism, ie to distinguish it from the previous "Abolition of Prostitution" movements who's aim was to end state regulation of prostitution. --John B123 (talk) 21:54, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 29 December 2019

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: Moved to "Nordic model approach to prostitution". (non-admin closure) Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:42, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Per consistency with Nordic model; unless I'm missing something for why it should be capitalised in this case.--Davide King (talk) 08:39, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Support lowercasing "model", though not so much out of concern for consistency with the other topic as out of a general observation that there's no reason for it to be capitalized and it is indeed lowercase in most occurrences of the term that I've seen, except Book/Chapter Titles and Headlines that are Capitalizing Every Important Word. -sche (talk) 12:40, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * No objection to the move but, like Sche, don't see the necessity to be consistent with a similarly named article. In this context Nordic model is more normally written without capitalisation of the "m", but not exclusively. Supporters of the model sometimes use the capitalised version when advocating its adoption in other countries, presumably to give it some reverence? --John B123 (talk) 16:09, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Support. This is why we have MOS:DOCTCAPS. Also, the nom's WP:CONSISTENT argument is not out of place at all, as two above suggest. This is not a case of two unrelated things having a similar name; this article is about the Nordic model approach to prostitution, so they must in fact be consistent per policy.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:13, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
 * WP:CONSISTENT is of secondary importance compared compared to MOS:DOCTCAPS, WP:TITLEFORMAT etc. WP:CONSISTENT would also imply that the article Nordic model is correctly named as per WP:TITLE. As we now have two distinct "Nordic Model" articles on different topics, neither of which could be considered WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, the name of the article Nordic model needs to disambiguated as per WP:ATDAB. --John B123 (talk) 15:48, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
 * At the risk of straying off of the immediate topic of this RM, I will say I've seen comments on Talk:Nordic model and edits to Nordic model over time which suggest to me that some people expect to find a page about this concept there (and, in some cases, add "further reading" articles seemingly without even looking at the article to notice that it is not about this concept), so I would support disambiguating i.e. renaming that article. -sche (talk) 23:38, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

First of all, thanks to everyone for the comments (, and ). Just to clarify that with my comment unless I'm missing something for why it should be capitalised in this case I meant exactly that there was no reason for why it should have been capitalised in the first place as explained by -sche. WP:CONSISTENT would also imply that the article Nordic model is correctly named as per WP:TITLE. Does that mean Nordic model isn't correct and should be moved? I don't see why. And what did you mean for disambiguating? Like create a disambiguation page Nordic model (disambiguation page) that includes both Nordic model (I don't think there's a need to disambiguate this; it's clearly the main and most known topic; the Nordic model approach to prositution is a subtopic) and Nordic model approach to prostitution?--Davide King (talk) 09:11, 6 January 2020 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Post-closure followup discussion
Can you clarify what you mean by 'we now have two distinct "Nordic Model" articles on different topics'? Nordic Model redirects to Nordic model. Like Davide King, I don't see a rationale for something like "Nordic model (disambiguation)". — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:23, 6 January 2020 (UTC) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:18, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * . There is the article Nordic model, which relates to "economic and social policies as well as typical cultural practices common to the Nordic countries", and this article, Nordic model approach to prostitution, which is a feminist-based approach to prostitution. The only commonality is the area where they were first introduced. The prostitution model is not a sub-topic of the socio-economic model as Davide King suggests, but a result of post "Nordic model" feminism in the Nordic countries, especially Sweden. Whilst I would agree that previously most people thought of the socio-economic model when the term was mentioned, in the past 15 years, as the model of prostitution has spread outside the Nordic countries, people tend to think of the term in relation to prostitution. As -sche points out above, some people go to Nordic model expecting to find an article about prostitution. From this point of view the article needs a more precise title, say Nordic model of economic and social policies. --John B123 (talk) 20:02, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
 * , that's not what I meant to say. I meant to say that the Nordic model is the more common and best known topic, so the Nordic model (economic and social policies common to the Nordic countries) would remain at Nordic model without the need to disambiguate it to something like you just proposed. Also how can you tell that now people tend to think of the term in relation to prostitution rather than to the economic and social policies common to the Nordic countries as currently exsposed at the Nodric model article? I disagree that the Nordic model needs a more precise title. Maybe we should merge?--Davide King (talk) 20:41, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
 * By the same token, how can you say the Nordic model is the more common and best known topic? Which one is the best known is actually irrelevant. Both are well enough known to make more precise titles necessary. Even Google confuses the two. If you search Nordic model, the featured snippet text is from Nordic model combined with the graphic from Nordic model approach to prostitution. The same applies to the Knowledge Graph panel on the right. If Google conflates the two, what chance do us mere mortals have? --John B123 (talk) 21:20, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
 * , I think a research on Google Scholar would be better. As I said, maybe they should be merged then.--Davide King (talk) 23:03, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I can see absolutely no justification for a merger. The prostitution model doesn't have its roots in the the socio-economic model, but in (mainly American) radical feminism of the 1980s/90s. Only the names and area of adoption are similar. --John B123 (talk) 23:35, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
 * , I still don't see what's wrong with the current naming. Is a Google search and a few users expecting to find the Nordic model approach to prostitution in the Nordic model enough to justify that change? Nordic model of economic and social policies certainly isn't the common name, but I guess an exception may be made. So your proposal is to rename Nordic model to Nordic model of economic and social policies; and create Nordic model (disambiguation)?--Davide King (talk) 23:50, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
 * , in principle yes, not not necessarily using Nordic model of economic and social policies. Whilst that is not the common name, nor is Nordic model approach to prostitution, but the common name of the latter is also Nordic model. As WP:CONSISTENT has been much relied on in the previous discussion, I chose Nordic model of economic and social policies to comply with WP:CONSISTENT. Given a free choice, I would probably rename both articles to Nordic model (economic and social policies) and Nordic model (prostitution). The need to change the title of of Nordic model to avoid ambiguity is not new, it was first raised in 2014. --John B123 (talk) 18:02, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The current naming isn't broken, for the same reason that MacGyver and MacGyver the Lizard aren't a problem. However, I don't agree with the above suggestions that there's no connection between these topics. The Nordic model approach to prostitution is a natural product of "the economic and social policies as well as typical cultural practices common to the Nordic countries", i.e. the Nordic model. Of course it would be grounded in feminism, since that is part of the modern left-wing "bundle", and you can't approach prostitution from a center-left semi-socialist cultural perspective without it being feminism-grounded. The US certainly had no monopoly on feminism, we just hear a lot of about American feminism because we're English speakers and the US population is huge and the US has been influential generally on civil rights matters (sadly, more in the wording that the practice).  So, I think this is more like X-Files and X-Files: Fight the Future – also not a titling problem.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:09, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
 * . MacGyver is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, in the case of Nordic model there is no clear primary topic. Where an article is a sub-topic of another, as per X-Files and X-Files: Fight the Future, the relationship between them is brought out in the articles. Neither of the two Nordic model articles suggest there is a link between the two except in name. Where two articles are unrelated except in name, we link them with a hat note, which is how the two Nordic model articles are linked. If I were to suggest snails were a sub-type of frogs I would need to substantiate this with references, the same applies here. --John B123 (talk) 18:36, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Nordic model (the Scandinavian socio-political system based on social welfare) is obviously the primary topic for that term. In news, the general socio-politico-cultural meaning leads by a 2:1 ratio over the prostitution usage, and in Google Scholar results by more than a 10:1 ratio (not accounting for articles that cover both; these were simple "requires" versus "must not contain" the term prostitution searches; the non-Scholar searches will also contain some false positives for modelling in the Top Model sense). Next, it is very easy to identify (though not find free full text of) sources that treat the prostitution policy as intimately bound up with the socio-political system:
 * This article even gets in-depth into the double standard of the Nordic social-welfare system providing "exit" assistance for sex-workers who are citizens, but worse than none (eviction, deportation, increased secret trafficking) for the non-native migrants who make up the modern bulk of prostitutes in Scandinavia: I can only get at the abstract.
 * Full text of chapter, but it is just the intro, and the meat of the matter (especially prostitution by mostly Eastern European immigrants and how this relates to barriers to welfare-state support for non-natives) is elsewhere in the book, though it cites the above article directly among other relevant prior work.
 * – I can't presently get at the full text of this, just that Google snippet. I would bet that it reads "system of unemployment, prostitution, criminal justice", i.e. the Nordic model in general, but we'll have to wait for full text.
 * This one is also promising:  (Abstract only.) It's essentially impossible for such a work to approach this from a societal, cultural, public-policy, and political-economy perspective of Scandinavia without it being about the Nordic model in the general sense.  This is a piece that pre-dates the adoption of the Swedish prostitution model by other Scandinavian countries, and thus may be useful also as a source for the history of the spread of the "Nordic" model of prostitution policy.
 * Also, this piece (among several others) suggests the "Nordic model" in the prostitution-regulation sense is simply a misnomer, because the details and rationales and effects of prostitution laws in the Scandinavian countries are actually quite different, and the rest of the Scandinavian countries haven't adopted something somewhat like Sweden's approach any faster that various other countries have. This may be why so many sources refer to it as the "Swedish model" not "Nordic", and that may ultimately be a better term to use in the title of our own article (albeit still with disambiguation): (Abstract only.)
 * The answer to the problem of our articles not making the connection between these topics is to get and use such sources then fix our articles; not pretend there is no connection. Someone with student, professional, or WP:LIBRARY-provided access to full-text journal searches can do this in an hour or so. As for "Swedish model" versus "Nordic model" for the prostitution topic, the former is actually dominant in academic sources by a 17&#8202;:&#8202;11.5 ratio, though the news media prefer "Nordic model" by about a 17:7 ratio  (again, without weeding out modelling and other search pollution).  Even if we were to take the news results as "better" for WP purposes, WP:COMMONNAME is not even one of the WP:CRITERIA, but just the first, default name to test against all the criteria and all other WP:P&G concerns.  I would think that COMMONNAME in this case could be overridden by WP:PRECISE along with the general WP:ENC and WP:Common sense principle that we should not use a misnomer as our article title, and we do have RS telling us that it's a misnomer. However, Swedish model (a two-item disambiguation page which we don't need, per WP:TWODABS) should actually redirect to Nordic model per WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT; "Swedish model" refers to the social-welfare system in general more than the prostitution policy in particular by about a 22.5&#8202;:&#8202;17 lead  in journals, and a ~&#8202;53:7 lead  in news media.
 * Thanks for carrying out the research, but it doesn't convince me that the prostitution model was born out of the socio-economic model. The articles, although highly informative and could be usefully included in this article, deal with the law in practice rather than it's origins. In some cases they look at the conflict with the other socio-economic laws.
 * I agree "Nordic model" isn't a good name for the prostitution model. Only 3 of the Nordic countries have adopted it, so it doesn't represent the area as a whole. 5 non-Nordic countries have adopted the model, so again the title is less relevant. Terminology changes over time. Initially it was know as the Swedish model, as for the first 10 years it was only practices in Sweden (A lot of articles were written during this period, which may be why this term comes up most in the figures you give above). After Norway and Iceland adopted the model in 2009, it started to be known as the Nordic model. With non-Nordic countries adopting the scheme "neo-abolitionism" seems to be the current term preferred by NGOs and academics. Renaming this article to Neo-abolitionism doesn't help situation, it just adds confusion with Neoabolitionism. --John B123 (talk) 23:51, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
 * This article: traces the origin of the law back to American radical feminists Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, who gave a speech to the Swedish Organization for Women's and Girls' Shelters (ROKS) in 1990 outlining a system that criminalised the purchase of sex. This inspired ROKS to lobby until the law was passed in 1998.
 * This supported by:
 * --John B123 (talk) 21:09, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * --John B123 (talk) 21:09, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * --John B123 (talk) 21:09, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * --John B123 (talk) 21:09, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

false stat
Hello I'm sorry but there is a false statistic on this page. "It has also been reported that 12.5 % of men used to solicit prostitutes before the implementation of the law in 1999, whereas in 2014 only 7.7 % of men purchased sexual services." This figure is not for men who purchase sex, but men who have purchased sex at some time in their lives. In 1996 the proportion of men who were active sex buyers was 1.3%, in 2008 it was 1.8%. So there was an increase. It did go down later, but only after the 2008 financial crisis.

The proportion of men who have paid at some time in their lives was 12.7% in 1996, 7.6% in 2008, 10.2% in 2011 (an increase) and 7.5% in 2014. All my figures come from Länsstyrelsen 2015. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.161.4.162 (talk) 15:24, 3 February 2020 (UTC)


 * The reference given after the statistics in the article doesn't actually include the stats. The stats you give above from Länsstyrelsen are indeed for men who have paid for sex at sometime in the past. In my opinion these are highly questionable. The figures for the four years were obtained by four different bodies using three different types of survey. Even the two that used the same type of survey may have used  different methodology. Even studying the same thing at the same time will result in different outcomes with different methodology. If you accept the figures as accurate, then there was a 5.1% drop in men who had paid for sex at some time in the past. This figure can only drop if men from the first survey have died or migrated. Assuming men who have previously paid for sex don't have a higher mortality or are more likely to migrate than the general population, then 40% of Sweden's adult male population must have died between 1996 and 2008 to make the figures work.


 * On page 24 of the report, in the same table as the men who have paid for sex, are the percentages of women who have been paid for sex (ie prostitutes), which was 0.3% in 1996, increasing to 1.1% in 2008 - an increase of nearly 4 fold. I don't ever remember that figure talked about. --John B123 (talk) 18:12, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

NPOV Tag
Hi. It's customary when you tag an article with NPOV to give your reasons on the talk page so others can understand what problems you see with the page and if necessary update the page. Regards --John B123 (talk) 18:20, 3 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Yes, my apologies for not leaving something on the talk page. I think the lack of balance in this article is obvious, however. It reads like a long advocacy article for the "Nordic model" of prostitution law. This is in fact an extremely controversial approach, one that is widely opposed by civil libertarians and sex worker rights advocates, and has been rejected in a number of countries. There are a number of studies that argue the approach actually increases danger to sex workers. None of this is mentioned in the article (though there's some brief mention in the header on Amnesty International's opposition to this approach). Instead, the article is pretty much neo-abolitionist propaganda. If both sides aren't given and with equal weighting, than this article has serious POV issues. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 15:08, 4 February 2020 (UTC)


 * I did think that myself, but thought my view may be tainted as I'm an opponent of the model. The article is actually less polarised than it was originally with the addition of Amnesty International's view, the adverse effect in Iceland etc. --John B123 (talk) 16:45, 4 February 2020 (UTC)


 * As John already said, it from the start included criticism of the model and of how it has been implemented. On top of that it was modified by John to include more critical views. So I don't think that a NPOV tag is appropriate.-- Sparrow (麻雀)     🐧   20:51, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

equality of what?
I came here hoping for an explanation of the name "Equality Model". What is equated to what? —Tamfang (talk) 19:04, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

EU parliament report that backs the nordic model
so, apparently, yesterday the EU parliament decided, to adopt a report (against an open letter from human rights watch and some other human right organizations https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/09/12/open-letter-european-coalition-sex-workers-rights-and-inclusion-members-european), that in it's original text, called on the member states to implement the nordic model, but that apparently got softend to vaguely gesturing in the direction ( https://www.euractiv.com/section/economy-jobs/news/divided-eu-parliament-backs-decriminalisation-of-sex-work-punishment-of-clients/ ). Might be worth including. 1234567891011a (talk) 14:35, 15 September 2023 (UTC)