In NORA no. 3/2015 Stormhøj et al. critically address Danish prostitution research and its role in current prostitution debates in Denmark. They argue research is involved in reproducing prostitution within a neo-liberal discourse, emphasizing “free choice” and framing prostitution as a job like any other. This, argue the authors, prevents effective policies from being enacted in order to reduce problems connected with prostitution.

In a Swedish context there is a similar and yet different problem regarding research and debate around prostitution. The participants who get access to the media debate advocate neo-liberal approaches to prostitution and try to twist the basis for the Swedish legal approach, by ignoring both the history and the basis for it, especially regarding the criminalization of the purchasing of sexual services. The media discourse is firmly centred on a narrative in which the “experts” oppose criminalization, whilst politicians are the ones advocating it but are also seeking to mask the fact that criminalization does not work. Added to this is the claim that the criminalization of the purchase of sexual services was enacted without an empirical basis. All in all a populist picture is sketched of a law serving the interests of those in power but hiding the costs for the most vulnerable—the women on the streets.