Paper for the 4^th European Feminist Research Conference:

 

Body, gender, subjectivity. Crossing borders of disciplines and institutions,

Workshop 10: Ties that Bind: the Law, Economics and the Labour Market

(Please do not quote without permission)

 

Daniela Danna, PhD student, University of Trento (daniela.danna@soc.unitn.it)

 

 

 

 

 

The position of prostitutes in E.U. countries: law and practice

 

 

 

 

 

1) Models of policies on prostitution

 

In contemporary history there have been three main legislative models dealing with the sex trade phenomenon: prohibitionism that deems prostitution immoral sanctioned both the seller and the buyer; regulamentarism which considered it a necessary evil that had to be limited and controlled by keeping a tab on prostitutes to stop them from working if they suffered from venereal diseases; abolitionism that fought for the abolition of vexatious regulations towards prostitutes, because it saw them as a manifestation of male oppression toward women, and liberalized the act of prostitution itself while seeking to prosecute pimping, the traffic in women and in the versions of abolitionism concretely implemented also the organization of indoors prostitution and its aiding and abetting.     

 

Scholars who study prostitution nowadays still utilize these categories with variants (Joardar 1984, Gazan 1992, Cazals 1995, Brussa 1998) taking into account the changed general climate towards sexuality at the end of our century – there is an ongoing debate on the possibility of considering prostitution as just another kind of work (Teodori 1986, Hubner and Roper 1988, Pheterson 1989, Jenness 1993, HWG 1994, Deutsche Hurenbewegung 1996, Kempadoo and Doezema 1998, Mathieu 1999, 2000), unimaginable a century ago when the categories were first defined (Walkowitz 1980, Macrelli 1981, Gibson 1995). Back then it was ruled that prostitution and offence to public decency were one and the same thing, nowadays this is no longer such a foregone conclusion: “it must be ruled out that in modern times in the common way of thinking the activity of prostitution could be considered contrary to public morals and public decency” reads a passage of the Bottalico sentence as passed by the Bari magistrate’s court on 28 November 1986.

 

However we still found it useful to keep them because they well represent the main options of actions the state has in dealing with the phenomenon of prostitution: prohibit it, regulate it or remain neutral in the face of it neither gaining from it (through taxation – as is the case with regulamentarism) nor repressing it unless for reasons of public order or in case of conflict with the interest of other citizens. On the contrary, nowadays the state protects people prostituting themselves from exploitation. Still, this latter position is ambiguously assumed by abolitionism because it is based on the moral refusal of prostitution being seen as degrading for women (Barry 1995). The ambiguity is in the positions expressed with regard to how far penal law should reach and is implicit in the assumption of the name “abolitionism”, inspired by the movement of abolition of slavery to which the condition of prostitutes was likened: does it ask for the suppression of regulations or of that of prostitution? At the European congress of the International Abolitionist Federation in Geneva in 1877 it was asked to maintain only the criminalization of the collective organization of prostitution and of pimping and along these lines are also the declarations of its founder Josephine Butler: ”My principle has always been to leave individuals alone, not to prosecute them with any legal action and not to banish them from any place provided they behave in a decent manner and to attack organized prostitution i.e. when a third party, drawn by the prospect of making money enters in a building where women are sold to men“ (cited by Barry 1995, page 112).

 

Declarations of intents apart, out of which it is not possible to obtain precise indications for penal law, we may examine the documents of international conventions inspired by abolitionism and signed by the states to take measures against the exploitation of prostitution and the slave trade in women. The positions they assume are quite different and indicate the presence of at least two forms of abolitionism according to the status given to the will of the woman who prostitutes herself. The first conventions (1904 and 1910)[1] aimed in fact at opposing the coercion into prostitution and the fraudulent traffic in people. Later (1933 and 1949)[2] were introduced clauses obliging states to take measures against prostitution and the slave trade in women even in cases where the alleged victims had given their consent: from the very preamble of the convention of 1949 it is clear that the will of the woman who prostitutes herself is not given any consideration: prostitution is, in fact, seen as a danger for the welfare of the family and of the community.

Even though in state laws, as we will soon see, there is no mention of any act to prosecute even with the consent of the woman, still are prosecuted actions quite distant from the case in point of exploitation such as non profit making adding and abetting or renting at current market prices a flat where it is known that a single individual will prostitute himself. The conviction of the partners of prostitutes who do not force them to prostitute themselves is one of these measures that appear exceedingly strict quite beyond the intents of the first leader of the movement. 

 

 

2) A typology for the models

 

The legality or illegality of the exchange of sex with money is the first important dimension separating those systems where prostitution is legitimate, i.e. regulamentarism and abolitionism from those where prostitution is repressed as such, i.e. prohibitionism and, anticipating a model implemented only recently, also the criminalization of the clients since this model too aims at preventing the exchange from occurring (BRÅ 2000).

 

Another dimension constituting a distinguishing trait of the systems so far examined concerns the matter of the compulsoriness of screening for diseases.  This policy sets regulamentarism apart from all the other systems and gives us an interesting indication into what kind of consideration the prostitute is held and on the moral judgment weighting on her: it is on her, in fact, that is put the blame for the existence of the socially undesirable phenomenon of prostitution at the roots of the screening that regulamentarism makes her submit to. This attribution of blame is not quite the same thing as considering prostitution a social evil as it is in fact deemed by all three classical models and also by the one criminalizing the clients: for both regulamentarism and prohibitionism prostitution is an evil of which prostitutes are guilty while abolitionism condemns social institutions or patriarchy; the criminalization of the client, on the other hand, turns its attention on the agent of the evil inflicted on prostitutes: the client (Høigård and Finstad 1992).    

 

There is, in fact, a difference between the moral condemnation of prostitution and the condemnation of the actual people who exercise it: Christianity and feminism – both that of the first abolitionism and up to that criminalizing the client - both make this distinction (Schmackpfeffer 1989, Shrage 1994, Ambrosini and Zandrini 1996, Caritas 1997, Jeffreys 1998, Raymond 1998). 

 

To synthesize we propose a bidimensional scheme based on the presence of a moral condemnation of the prostitute and of a condemnation or rather of a legal prohibition of prostitution.  

 

 

 

This classification reverts to the three classical models and shows that the criminalization of the client was already inherent as a logical possibility in the two dimensions we analyzed even though it was implemented much later by the other alternative systems: in the past the possibility to prohibit prostitution without morally condemning the prostitute was out of the question because it was unthinkable to lay the moral blame and the concrete responsibility for prostitution on the client.     

 

We could add to the classic typology the description of the new models of policies or the proposals of policies that have in common the fact that they consider prostitution as a fact intrinsic to social structures: neo-regulamentarism, the decriminalization of free forms of prostitution and the recognition of prostitution as self employment.

 

 

3) A tridimensional scheme

 

The new models of policies discussed or adopted at the end of this century can apparently fall in an enlarged definition of the ones that historically preceded them: neo-regulamentation like regulamentarism proposes a corpus of rules, although quite different; decriminalization can be seen as a form of abolitionism and criminalization of the client as a form of prohibitionism because, theoretically at least, it eradicates prostitution though for reasons close to those of abolitionism.

Still, there is a watershed between neo-regulamentarism and decriminalization, as promoted by the associations of prostitutes, and the old categories of the bidimensional scheme consisting in the fact that while prostitution in all four the models we saw was considered morally wrong now is seen as morally neutral. This means that in the course of the last decades has emerged a third dimension, it too moral, that must be added to the scheme.

 

		Moral condemnation of prostitution
		Yes		No
		Moral condemnation of the prostitute
		Yes	No
Legal possibility    to exercise   prostitution	Yes	Regulamentarism	Abolitionism	Neo-regulamentarism and Decriminalization
	No	Prohibitionism	Criminalization of the client

 

 

To define in a way more precise and circumstantial, on the basis of the regulations of the different states the different models we must distinguish among several different planes. The first is the one of the so called selfrepresentation, the second is the one of the letter of the law and of the jurisprudential interpretation, the third concerns cases in point when many regulations must be considered obsolete, the police act in accordance to unwritten regulations or new administrative measures are introduced contrasting with the existing codes and penal laws.

 

 

4) The selfrepresentation plane

None of these countries, according to their selfrepresentation, belongs to the plane of prohibitionism because none of them represses the individual from exercising prostitution (Foregger and Serini 1988, Nocquet-Borel 1993, Leopold et al. 1994, Rudolphi et al. 1996, Bundesministerin für Frauen 1997, Conde-Pumpido Ferreiro 1997, Formidlingcentret Storkøbenhavn 1997, Crespi et al. 1999, Holmkvist et al. 1999, Outshoorn 2000). Even for Ireland and Great Britain though they have a severe rule against loitering with intent to soliciting, in England only applicable to prostitutes on police records, the individual exercise of prostitution is free (Ryan 1995, O'Malley 1996, Hill and Fletcher-Rogers 1997, Bridgeman and Millers 1998, Cotton 1999).

 

The countries that have formally adhered to the principles of abolitionism of the 1949 United Nations convention are the southern catholic ones. Italy, France and Spain in the post-war period dismantled the regulamentaristic system and adhered to the “hard” version of abolitionist policies (Pitch 1986, Fundación Solidaridad Democrática 1988, Davis and Freier 1993, Nuñez Roldan 1995), those not contemplating the possibility of exercising prostitution in an organized way without either coercion or exploitation and that consequently prosecute all forms of organization. In the course of the nineties the Spanish penal code changed towards a less strict version of the abolitionist ideology. This system, provided there is no exploitation, does not contemplate either regulations or criminalization of activities related to prostitution and can be regarded as a “lax” version of abolitionism – it honors the spirit of the conventions at the beginning of the century and constitutes a precedent for the legal history of this last two centuries, the ones we examine. In fact, Spain renouncing to prosecute panders and abettors made again legal the exercise of prostitution indoors; earlier - exception being made for single prostitutes who owed the house where they worked – this was sanctioned coherently with the abolitionist roots of the Convention.     

 

Though they did not adhere to the convention North European countries too had opted for abolitionism, actually long before the closure of brothels in the South. Great Britain and Ireland, back then a single state, were the first followed by Denmark, Holland and finally Sweden (almost 30 years before France). Germany constitutes a case history in itself and we included it in the third group of states. The regulations adopted by these states were just as strict as those dictated by the 1949 convention: in Sweden pimping was sanctioned even in cases not motivated by lucre, in Denmark less drastically only inducement not motivated by lucre was sanctioned and in Holland prior to the year 2000 were sanctioned inducement and abetting. In Great Britain, instead, aides and abettors are not prosecuted but is prosecuted the partner living off the earnings of the prostitute, all forms of indoors prostitution except that exercised by a single individual are sanctioned as is, as already mentioned, loitering with an intent to soliciting.

 

	Closure of brothels
Austria	Never
Denmark	1901
France	1946
Germany	1927
Great Britain	1885
Ireland	1885
Italy	1958
Holland	1911
Spain	1956
Sweden	1918

    

 

Let us go back to those states that by the nineties had already approved laws in open contrast with the Convention: Austria and Germany; a period of abolitionism in Austria did not exist (Toth 1997) while in Germany Nazism reopened state controlled brothels previously closed by the Weimar Republic (Gleß 1999). 

 

These two federal states delegated regulamentation to local administrations: to the Länder Austria and to municipalities Germany.  In Germany too, though in the past it underwent an abolitionist phase, there is now an old style regulamentaristic model and not a neo-regulamentaristic one; this is attributable to the will of the legislator, quite apparent from some provisions to hinder organized prostitution, officially to protect women who prostitute themselves – a typical abolitionistic argument. The only significant change from nineteenth century regulamentarism is the fact that in both countries with the exception of a few Länder of Austria the method is based on the registration of prostitutes and not on the issue of licenses for brothels.

 

What has changed over the nineties? There was a certain instability in the abolitionist field; Holland abandoned it in favor of regulamentarism. It, too as defined by local regulations in this case municipal, as did Sweden actually because of an apparent development of abolitionism. The policy of criminalization of the client is, after all based, on the same arguments of the harshest version of abolitionism even though it practically results into the loss of the important principle of freedom of individual prostitution and therefore exits from the abolitionist field. The prostitute is not prosecuted but concretely the act of prostitution is prohibited because of the sanctions weighted on the client.

 

Denmark in 1999 decriminalized the exercise of prostitution as a way of earning one’s livelihood but without making it a legitimate trade therefore even with this last reform it did not depart from the abolitionist field.

 

The position of Holland qualifies as neo-regulamentarism because of the absence from its laws of those considerations or of those punitive measures towards people prostituting themselves, indication of a conception that attributes to them the moral responsibility for the existence of the phenomenon. Holland, therefore, is in reality outside the parameters of this bidimensional scheme based on the common assumption by all these models of a moral condemnation of prostitution.

 

		Moral condemnation of the prostitute
		Yes	No
Moral possibility to     exercise prostitution	Yes	Regulamentarism   Austria Germany   Holland 2000: neo-regulamentarism, with no moral condemnation of the prostitute	Abolitionism   Denmark France Great Britain Ireland Italy Pre-2000 Holland Spain (pre-1995?) Pre-1999 Sweden
	No	Prohibitionism	Criminalization of clients   Sweden 1999

           

 

5) The legal plane

 

The scheme that we will utilize to position the states on the legal plane will, too, be bidimensional though more complex than the classic one above because it is necessary to articulate more precisely the legal dimension identifying not merely a yes and a no to the question of whether it is possible to legally exercise prostitution, but also the different magnitudes that this legal space assumes in the regulations of the different countries.

 

With regard to the moral dimension moving from the ideological plane to the legal one we must identify the indicators that attribute the fault to the prostitute.

 

The existence of a prohibition of non-profit making aiding and abetting is a rule that objectively does not repress pimps or other personages forcing women to prostitute themselves but rather those who disinterestedly try to help them; such prohibition can therefore be seen as a good indicator of the moral condemnation weighted on the prostitute. In fact those prosecuted are not the ones aiding and abetting the clients (except indirectly) but rather those who succor prostitutes and criminalizing those who aid and abet prostitution makes it undeniably akin to a crime.

One can also consider those judicial measures that under the appearance of repressing pimping put the woman in a position to be unable to dispose of her earnings or to live with a partner or even with her children when they come of age if they don’t have an income of their own. Another disposition from which transpires a negative moral consideration of the woman is the booking of “notorious prostitutes” in England where aides and abettors are not prosecuted if they don’t act for reasons of profit. The obligation of medical inspections for prostitutes is generally seen as a discriminatory provision.[3]

 

Should we instead, take into consideration the validity of the contract of prostitution we would see that practically all the states examined (at least with regard to doctrine because not all show recent jurisprudential applications) are in fact prohibitionists – all of them deem the agreement for the exchange of sexual satisfaction with money between prostitute and client absolutely invalid because it is contrary to public decency. Since this is a constant we cannot utilize it to differentiate the states according to the models they belong to.

 

The dimension “moral condemnation of the prostitute” on the plane of written laws can be rendered with “presence of dispositions penalizing prostitutes”. To summarize the components of this dimension that will be expressed with “yes” and “no” are: the criminalization of non profit aides and abettors, of passive partners, the booking of prostitutes and the mandatory medical inspections.[4]    

 

We must therefore refer to a summarizing table of the crimes that are contemplated in the different countries and of those committing them.

 

	Gb	Ie	Dk	S	F	I	A (a)	D	Nl	Es
Pimps and traffickers	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Recruiters	X	X	X	G	X	X	X
Aides and abettors for gain	X	X	X	X	X	X
Brothel-keepers	X	X	X	G	X	X
Landlords	X	X	X	X	X	X
Partners living off the earnings of p.	X			G	X	G
Whoever advertises		X		G	X	X		X
Aides and abettors without gain				X	X	X
Panderers				G	X	X	X	X
Clients	X	X		X
Prostitutes actively soliciting	X	X	X		X
Prostitutes passively soliciting	X	X	X
Prostitutes soliciting outside permitted areas							X	X
Prostitutes exercising indoors without medical inspections							X	X
Brothel-keepers offering good conditions of work								X

 

Note: a) with regard to Austria we referred to the penal code and to the laws of Vienna.

 

X= presence of the crime in the articles of law

G= jurisprudential rulings   

 

This scheme indicates the legal space that the different countries allot to legal prostitution.

In the figure we have roughly arranged the states from a minimum to a maximum.

To define the “moral” dimension on the basis of the four components we identified and observed that the countries where living-in partners without independent earnings are criminalized and those prohibiting aiding and abetting not for reasons of profit are almost the same; the only difference being that to the first category must be added Great Britain.

 

Aides and abettors for reasons of profit are prosecuted in all the states declaring themselves abolitionists and also in Sweden.

 

Moving from the plane of selfrepresentation of the states to that of the de jure situation we discover some incongruities between the abolitionist declaration that individual prostitution is allowed and the laws of both Great Britain and Ireland where, in fact, there is no possibility to exercise street prostitution because of the sanctioning of soliciting and the clients, too, can be prosecuted. Indoors, on the other hand, there are significant restrictions since prostitution can be exercised only by the individual prostitute in her own habitation or in that of the client. He is contacted through ads in Great Britain (with the risk of incurring in the sanctions of the 1959 Act banning obscene publications) while in Ireland this form of advertising is not even allowed.

 

In Denmark, too, police regulations sanction both active and passive soliciting effectively “blocking” street prostitution.

 

On the legal plane, therefore, these three countries follow a model that we might call semi-prohibitionism since they ban street prostitution and severely limit the spaces of indoors prostitution: Denmark though, shows a number of crimes and of convictions significantly lower than the British Isles.

 

The other states calling themselves abolitionists remained as such at the end of the decade; Italy and France both follow a model of restricted abolitionism since they punish both non-profit making aides and abettors and the partners sharing the earnings of prostitutes. With regard to France active soliciting is also a crime. Sweden prior to the 1999 change of policy adhered to the same model while in Holland aiding and abetting were prosecuted only if habitual or motivated by profit; there was no mention of either the partners “living off the ill-gotten gains” or of the soliciting prostitutes. For Spain, prior to the new penal code, among the listed conducts only “to cooperate with prostitution” was a crime – a formula close to the concept of aiding and abetting. Therefore the changes in Spain and in Holland limiting the intervention of the penal code in prostitution occurred from a starting point, where regulations were at least partially less restrictive than in Italy, France and Sweden. The model implemented in Spain can be defined both as decriminalization and pure abolitionism because it leaves prostitutes completely free prosecuting only pimps; there is, however, a problem to call it in the latter way, stemming from the fact that associations identifying themselves with the term abolitionist, mainly French ones, do not recognize as one’s own the Spanish model. In fact, they contest it because it contrasts with the 1949 Convention even though it would adhere to the earlier conventions. Its true difference with the provisions in force in Spain prior to 1995 and in Holland prior to 2000 concerns the possibility to exercise prostitution indoors previously prohibited if organized. Abolitionism has assumed several different positions with regard to the admissibility of auto-organized indoor prostitution, therefore this theme will remain controversial. 

 

The oldest regulamentaristic countries also show significant incongruities in their selfrepresentation: both in Austria and in Germany the contract of prostitution is deemed invalid because contrary to public decency. Germany in particular has a kind of regulamentarism rather contaminated by theses of abolitionism in that it prohibits third parties from establishing the conditions of the exercise of prostitution; it sanctions recruiters and panderers and even prosecutes brothel-keepers trying to make working conditions agreeable. Austria, on the other hand, punishes both recruiters and panderers and contemplates the crime of inducement to prostitution even in the absence of reasons of profit. In relation to these countries it is necessary to introduce the category of restricted regulamentarism because the space to exercise prostitution is quite restricted even more than the provisions themselves seem to suggest.

 

Holland, instead, seems to fully belong to neo-regulationism because in its articles of law there is not any implicit moral condemnation nor does there exist the crime of preventing a prostitute from leaving prostitution which is contemplated in the penal codes of all the other regulamentaristic countries.

 

To visualize these models in their reciprocal relations we drew a scheme showing on the left the more restrictive models and on the right their “laxer” correspondents.                         

 

 

 

		Presence of provisions penalizing prostitutes (a)
		Yes	No
Legal possibility to     exercise prostitution	None (b)	Criminalization of clients   Sweden   Semi-prohibitionism   Great Britain	Semi-prohibitionism   Denmark Ireland
	Not indoors (b)	Restricted abolitionism   France Italy Pre-1995 Spain Pre-1999 Sweden	Pure abolitionism   Pre-2000 Holland Pre-1993 Ireland
	On the street and indoors	Restricted regulationism   Germany Austria (c)	Neo-regulationism   Holland   Decriminalization   Spain

 

Note: a) criminalization of aides and abettors without gain, “passive” exploiters, compulsory

              medical inspection and booking under penal laws.

          b) exception being made for the woman exercising at home and, in Great Britain, also in a

               rented flat which according to some jurisprudential interpretations is legal also in Italy.

               In Sweden, on the other hand, none of the above mentioned cases in point is legal.

           c) only indoors in the western provinces

 

After examining the spaces open to the legal exercise of prostitution we would now also like to describe the legal situation of the subjects considering the case of a non-EU citizen exercising prostitution in these countries.[5]

Few countries allow non-EU citizens to stay if they can document a sufficient income originating from prostitution: Holland does but only with regard to Polish, Czech, and Slovak citizens because of the Association Treaty between these countries and the European Union: the appeal of a Czech citizen expelled from Holland was upheld by a The Hague court, the Arrondissementsrechbank on 18 July 1997: prostitution was recognized as one of the trades protected by the Treaty. However, on 15 July 1999 Holland lodged an appeal to the Court of Justice of the European Community and the final verdict is expected within two years .

 

In Italy, Austria, Denmark, France, Germany[6], Great Britain and Spain people in possession of a work permit can exercise prostitution. Foreigners prostituting themselves in possession of a residence permit but not of a work permit face extradition: since they have a living they cannot be considered tourists or students, on the contrary, with their income they are openly violating the provisions that regulate the concessions of these kinds of permits explicitly prohibiting them from working. In a few areas of Austria police is tolerant of those wanting to register themselves even if not in possession of a residence permit in the country and in Holland, too, they are tolerated provided that prostitution is exercised in special areas.          

 

In Ireland non-EU citizens prostituting themselves are expelled (Europap 2000, page 41). In Sweden and Denmark it is clearly written that foreigners cannot exercise prostitution, nor indulge in other illegal activities such as gambling and begging (law 1989:529 on foreigners for Sweden and law 105 of 1983 for Denmark) under penalty of expulsion.[7] 

 

A	Dk	F	D	Gb	le	I	NI	E	S
Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No

 

Possibility to exercise prostitution if in possession of a work permit

 

 

6) Prostitution open space continuum.

 

We may conceptualize the open space of the practice of prostitution like a line stretching from zero to infinity: at an extreme stands prohibitionism, on the other discrimination, albeit factual tolerance, if a lawfully approved space lacks. In the middle, tending toward either pole, as a consequence of the type of law factually in force, the different versions of legalization and abolitionism.

Given that the police intervene in all countries against street prostitution, we shall draw five categories reflecting factual tolerance of prostitution in different situations: indoor, outdoor without any restriction and outdoor in specially allowed areas.

During this one-dimension continuum, legalist countries exceed abolitionists in “permissiveness”.

North European countries calling themselves abolitionists result instead in being the most restrictive. In Great Britain, even those working in allowed areas are sentenced to fines, generally on a periodical basis.

Abolitionist countries, legalists and neo-legalists have in common the attitude of permitting prostitution indoor and outdoor in allowed areas. Grouping Denmark, Germany, Austria and The Netherlands into a single category holds a caveat in itself: in Denmark, there have been police actions endeavoring to eliminate prostitution, rather than creating tolerance areas. Performing of health care checks in Austria and Germany does not seems to distinguish them from two other cases in which those checks are not present, given that the percentage of checked women is very low: the percentage of illegally staying prostitutes makes law norms ineffective.

We discover that the prevailing model is not abolitionism, rather that of a division of outdoor areas and the (more or less) controlled practice of indoor prostitution.

The movements along this line happened followed a most repressive trend with regard to the tightest control extreme (Ireland and Sweden), while, on the tolerance extreme, law changings actually preceded policies rather than following them.

Clients criminalization spread on the repressive side: Great Britain introduced it in the 80’s, Ireland and Sweden followed with a new law, and Italy, at a local level, endeavored to implement measures resembling those against kerb crawlers.

 

Actual   possibility to   practice   prostitution	None	Ireland Sweden
	Outdoor in allowed areas	Great Britain Sweden before 1999
	Outdoors	France Italy Ireland before-1993
	Indoors and in allowed areas	Austria Denmark Germany The Netherlands before 2000 The Netherlands
	On street and indoors	Spain before1995 Spain

 

Note:    a) with the exception of women practicing prostitution at their domicile and, in Great Britain, also in rented houses, a lawful situation in Italy, as well, according to part of case-law. None of these situations are lawful, in Sweden.

 

 

These considerations lead us to dwell on the freedom degree of prostitution practice in the legalist and abolitionist model. Setting up tolerance areas in prostitution regulation, which theoretically puts together abolitionism and legalization, proves to be a limitedly applied measure in abolitionist states. This dimension better corresponds to a measurement by degrees, so as to more clearly classify abolitionism in an intermediate position between ultimate prohibition and legality subject to restrictions (which, as we could see in the case of Austria and Germany, approximates to the restrictive spaces of abolitionism). However, this visualization quite favorably shows how the distinction between legalization and abolitionism, although theoretically very sharp and politically represented by two belligerent fronts facing for at least one century in recent history, blurs if measured with the parameter of the concrete result of law application. It leads us to detect which and how many tolerance spaces for the exercise of prostitution are to be found in practice. We may immediately add that abolitionism naturally tends to a zero tolerance area and that, even though based on completely different reasons than that of prohibitionism - i.e. better conditions for women rather than the thought of prostitution as a criminal offence because immoral – the repressive measures put into force could result, in practice, little discernible from those of prohibitionist repression. We may look, for example, at the Sweden case, where it is obvious that punishing clients indirectly damages the economic interests of prostitutes, although the impunity granted to these last, combined with the possibility of witnessing against their clients, puts a powerful weapon in their hands against them.

 

 

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