Introduction
In 1889 a woman wrote to the Prostitution Bureau in Stockholm, Sweden, asking if she really did have to keep on visiting the bureau since she was working: “…when I return [from visiting relatives] I will myself come and can perhaps talk to the Constable if I have to visit the bureau since I work every day but if they only once see you outside they think you are only looking for men.” 1 The bureau the woman is referring to embodied the regulation system in the 1800s; in 1889 it had been in place in Stockholm for more than thirty years and was a part of everyday life for people in Stockholm. It was supposedly in place to control the spread of venereal diseases through medical examinations of women involved in prostitution. But the woman was also referring to the arbitrariness of a system that was created through force and had developed into an administration of prostitution rather than a tool for disease control; according to her letter, she had another trade and should not have to be subject to such examinations. But the system had created an identity known as a “prostitute”, which meant that such women had less space for mobility.
The main purpose of this chapter is to discuss continuity and change concerning what is termed prostitution. Trying to cover a time-span of 400 years, starting off when prostitution in the capitalist sense did not exist, and ending in a time when the purchase of what is termed “sexual services” is illegal, makes comparisons problematic. This chapter has an empirical character and it tries to cover both the social aspects of the lives of the women involved in prostitution as well as consider the economic, spatial, and cultural aspects involved. However, since Sweden, and thus Stockholm, was the first country to criminalize the purchase of sex, this institutional change will be given some space. Recently what has been termed “feminist institutionalism” has been the focus in feminist political science specifically as regards the political.
2
For
Prostitution is historically constructed, and political and economic institutional changes over time have led to both change and continuity in how prostitution is comprehended. However, the changes that have occurred during the period covered here have been immense. Stockholm in the 1600s was an impoverished small town in the Swedish Bothnian Empire which was more or less constantly at war; four hundred years later Stockholm is a medium-sized city (by European standards) in a post-welfare state which was left out of the two World Wars. In the early 1600s Sweden had a harsh Protestant society comprised of four estates in which women were subordinated to men. In the 2000s, Sweden is a supposedly gender-equal secularised democratic state, but with widening economic and societal gaps. The settings are thus essentially different, as is prostitution and how it has been perceived. 5
Legislation on Extra-Marital Relations
Until 1999 the only legislation concerning prostitution pertained to brothel-keeping and procuring. Brothel-keeping and procuring according to the 1734 criminal code were, and still are, illegal; women were fined, sent to the workhouse, or flogged if sentenced when found in a brothel.
6
However, the charge was not prostitution but fornication. In the criminal code of 1864, procuring
Still, extra-marital sexuality was harshly penalized by both the state and the church during the early modern period, in some instances by death. The death penalty was introduced through the reformation, and perhaps because of the country’s rural character the harshness regarding extra-marital sexuality seems to have lingered on longer in Sweden than on the continent. 9 Sexual intercourse between unmarried couples, i.e. fornication, was also punished by heavy fines, and if the parties could not pay they were sentenced to forced labour. Both women and men were punished. It was the immorality of the crime, the breaking of the commandments, that was penalised; hence both parties had to pay. The severity of the punishment for these crimes was lessened over time, and in practice the parties in adultery cases were often pardoned from death. 10 It was also common that the death punishment was reduced to flogging. 11 Still, when the first national codex was passed in Sweden in 1734, it was largely uninfluenced by the Enlightenment, and even by contemporary commentators it was considered to be conservative, especially concerning the family and sexuality which it codified in the early-modern tradition. 12 A number of liberal reforms introduced in the late 1700s and early 1800s concerning extra-marital sexuality mitigated the early modern legislation, and in the new criminal code of 1864, illegitimate sexual intercourse was decriminalized.
A piece of legislation that prevailed through the better part of the period and was used to monitor prostitution was the vagrancy law. Under the terms of the law, persons without employment or legal means to support themselves would receive a warning and a chance to find employment, and if they did not they would be incarcerated in the workhouse or sentenced to forced labour.
13
A new vagrancy law came into effect in 1885 and two categories of vagrants were constructed: persons who wandered between different locations
Early-Modern Stockholm: A Small Town
Stockholm was a small town for quite a long time. The town was poorly built and had wooden houses and narrow alleys. However, during Sweden’s period as a great power in the 1600s, the town changed; in 1634 the Royal Court, the government, the parliament, and the central administration were located in Stockholm which lead to an influx of merchants, civil servants, soldiers, and citizens. In 1600 there were around 9,000 inhabitants and that figure increased to 40,000 by the year 1700, largely due to immigration. 15 Only after 1750 did the population of Stockholm increase through birth. In fact, the many wars, the decline of Sweden as a great state, and pestilence and cholera resulted at times in decreases in the population. After losing the Great Northern War in 1721, Sweden’s period as a super-power was over. In the 1700s Stockholm was Sweden’s largest manufacturing town, but there were high levels of unemployment and poverty because of the stagnating economy, and the capital experienced long-term stagnation and slow population growth until 1850. The consumption of alcohol was high and so was mortality. 16 Thus, during this long period of both supremacy and stagnation Stockholm remained a small town, and there were major economic differences between the estates and those outside the estates, and women were at the bottom of that scale.
For One Daller and a Pair of Gloves: Prostitution in the 1600s
Society in the 1600s was patriarchal. The husband acted as the legal guardian of the household and his wife. The religious ideology after the reformation upgraded matrimony, and extra-marital sexuality was condemned both by the
The Stockholm City Memorials, a series of protocols or memoranda kept at the magistrates’ courts, provide evidence of cases of “whoring” in the early 1600s. 17 There were also cases of “insults” in which both men and women had been called “whores” or accused of “whoring”. In one case, the maid of a man named Christopher Keise was accused of having “earned 16 r.daller through whoring.” 18 If the accusation was true, prostitution seems to have been very well paid; 16 r.daller would equal more than €400 in 2007. 19
In the Stockholm City Memorials for 1618 there are references to what seems to have been a fairly well-established brothel where a woman received 1 daller and a pair of gloves for intercourse.
20
The customers mentioned were both married and unmarried: several merchants from Germany, a shoemaker, the man-servant of a military commander, a soldier, a Dutch emissary, and others. The married men who had had intercourse with married women at the brothel were sentenced to steep fines (200 daller, the equivalent of more than €5000 in 2007), and when only one of the parties was married the fine was halved. The women escaped from prison during the proceedings but appeared in court again five years later for whoring and theft. Two of the women, one of whom was also accused of procuring, were to lose an ear, be flogged by the pillory, and be banned from the city. The other two were to “go by the cart for a time”
Twelve years later, in 1635, the pattern was different. Of the sixteen cases in which sentencing occurred, there were no accusations of whoring. 23 Instead the cases concern adultery and fornication. Two women and three men were sentenced to death (in at least one case this was carried out), two men were pardoned, and seven women and three men were sentenced to fines. 24
Based on the small sample investigated for this chapter, flogging and being banned from the city seems to have been the most common punishment for whoring/prostitution, and the only death sentence seems to have been concerning adultery, or fornication when both parties were sentenced. 25
“Maiden Cages” and the Mitigation of Sexuality: Prostitution in the 1700s
Studies on Stockholm for the period of the 1700s mention frivolous attitudes towards sexuality and there was a softening in perceptions of extra-marital sexuality. At the turn of the 1700s, Stockholm had a population of 40,000 and around 1,200 establishments licensed to sell liquor on their premises. Many of these were run by women, with other women working as servant girls and some establishments were run as brothels. By 1813 the number had decreased to 700, and a new decree from the office of the governor stated that the number of taverns should be further reduced to 400 in order to control what was regarded as excessive alcohol consumption among the citizens.
26
So-called coffee-houses eventually earned a bad reputation and were no longer “visited
In the late 1700s a Polish Jesuit named Albertrandi visited Stockholm. He wrote in a letter in 1789 that drinking alcohol was customary among men, women, and children and that prostitution was plentiful; as he said, there was “…an unrestricted looseness, which among the women in particular, knows no boundaries; there are not even any attempts to keep this a secret.”
30
The women were said to be especially prone to wandering close to the theatres, indicating a connection between the arts and prostitution.
31
In the early 1700s, vagrancy and begging was a growing problem and the number of men and women without property increased. In 1724 a spinning workhouse was established in Stockholm “to fight vagrancy and begging”. “Loose” women who “ran with baskets in the streets and inside the houses” were to be taken to the spinning workhouse. According to the authorities, the selling of fruit was a cover for engaging in prostitution. The same held true in the 1800s when “orange girls” (young girls selling oranges) were assumed to be involved in prostitution.
32
Earlier research into the social and economic conditions of the late 1700s shows that the majority of the women sentenced for “prostitution”, i.e. fornication, were categorized as thread spinners. It is likely that the decline of the manufacturing industry in
Regulated Prostitution in the Modern Era
As in many other cities, the 1800s was an era of regulation and a fully-fledged system was launched in the second half of the century. For the Swedish population, the century began with the Napoleonic wars, but in 1809 a peace treaty was signed by which Sweden lost its territory of Finland to Russia and entered a long period without wars. The increase of venereal diseases and infected soldiers in the garrisons became the stepping stone for a regulation scheme.
Stockholm was still in demographic and economic stagnation and continued to be so until the mid-1800s. Industrialization took off rather late in Sweden, but during the last decades of the century Stockholm stood out as a booming industrial town which attracted immigrants from the rest of the country. Women mostly worked as unskilled labourers in factories or as home workers. In the 1860s the textile industry’s workforce consisted of up to 67 per cent women, and the cigar industry employed women as well, but 66 per cent of all working women in Stockholm worked as domestic servants. 34 The early introduction of a public school system guaranteed that the majority of the inhabitants could read and write on a basic level.
Extra-marital sexual relations were still punishable at the beginning of the century, but the inhabitants’ sexual habits had already made the legislation obsolete. “Stockholm-marriages” was used as a term to describe common-law marriages in the 1800s, indicating that Stockholm was a town where sexual and family norms were different from other parts of Sweden. The number of children born out of wedlock in Stockholm was considerably higher than in any other town in Sweden and also higher than in larger cities in Europe. 35
Early Attempts at Control
The prevalence of venereal diseases in the country led the Four Estates to issue a Royal Circular in 1812 stipulating that before issuing in-country travelling passes, “wandering” groups in society should be subjected to medical
The next attempt made by the authorities was the establishment of municipal brothels in 1838, although these establishments were illegal according to the existing legislation. The brothels were named the Stadt Hamburg and the London, as seen in the area shown in Map 8.1, signifying that this “sin” came from abroad. The high prices at these brothels suggest that they catered for a high-class clientele. These establishments only stayed open for a couple of months and after some protests and rioting they were shut down in their municipal capacity. 36
The actual regulation of prostitution in Stockholm started in 1847 with municipally organised medical examinations, but it was not until 1859 that a proper regulation system was established. The Stockholm system was partly fashioned after the French model; the section that stipulated women’s mobility and dress-codes was an exact replica of the French by-law, but after the incident in 1838, brothels were never included in the statutes. However, there were a significant number of unofficial brothels, so-called coffee-houses (indicated on Map 8.1 as domiciles), where regulated women lived and were subjected to medical examinations. 37
The Demographic and Economic Patterns of Regulated Women
Among the women involved in the regulated system of prostitution in 1859, 79 per cent had previously worked in domestic service.
38
This pattern holds true for the remainder of the century, although over time the number of women who had been involved in industrial and manual labour increased somewhat.
39
During the period 1885–1904, the background of some women was lower middle-class but the majority came from poorer segments of society and the majority of the women were born in Stockholm.
40
This is of course related
The women were on the whole very young when they were first taken into the system; during the period 1859–1904, the median age varies from 21.1 to 24.3 years of age. The highest median age, 24.3, dates from 1859, which can be explained by the fact that the women who were then registered in the new system had been active for a long time and were already known to the police. 42 Of all the women registered in the first year, 30 per cent had children but in 14 per cent of those cases the children were dead. Only 3 per cent of the women had children while registered in the system and very few of them were married. The figures for the period 1885–1904 show that 29 per cent of the women had had children before being registered. 43 As regards religion and ethnicity, Sweden was a fairly homogenous country during the major part of the period discussed in this chapter, and as many as 66 per cent of the regulated women had given their confirmation. 44
The Structure of Prostitution
As can be deduced from Map 8.1, the Old Town had a large number of coffee-houses and this area was also where soliciting was primarily carried out until the 1870s. With a booming economy came a restructuring of the town with new industries and shopping areas, and prostitution moved to Norrmalm, an area close to the Opera House, and to the garrison area, Östermalm, which in the late 1870s was restructured and gradually was frequented by high-class clientele. Women who were registered for the first time in 1869, all gave one of those two areas as their area of residence. Left in the Old Town, by then a dilapidated area, were women who were in trouble with the police, whereas the more “professional” women had moved to the new areas.
45
At the end of the 1800s and in the early 1900s so called “party-hotels” appeared on the scene, renting out rooms by the hour to “parties of two”. The ill-reputed street Norra Smedjegatan in Norrmalm had seven hotels with a total of 130 rooms.
46
At the beginning of the 1900s so-called “girls’ places” were also very common. These were run by a madam or the proprietor of the house; only in 4 per cent of the
An official investigation was appointed in 1902 concerning the regulation system and resulted in a report which stated that male procurers or brothel owners were not as common as they were on the continent. However, the capital was an exception, and the pimping business was a permanent phenomenon in the late 1890s, most commonly in the Old Town, but few of the women worked with pimps. 48 There is no substantial evidence concerning violence or the conditions in which the women worked. The majority of the registered women in the 1800s had had venereal diseases, but there is little data concerning other conditions. However, the mortality rate among registered women during from 1871 to 1890 was twice as high as among unmarried women on the whole in Stockholm. 49 Data show that some of the women tried to protect themselves from diseases; more than 73 per cent performed some sort of check-up on the men before intercourse or insisted on contraceptives. At times they would also let themselves be examined, and some women showed marks of candle and cigarette burns which they stated came from those occasions, but more likely those were marks resulting from violence. 50
Careers in Prostitution? Creating “the Prostitute”
The regulation dating from 1859 did not mention prostitution in terms of work or discuss economic remuneration; rather, the focus was on offenses against public decency and morals. The women who were to be examined were
Until the last decades of the 1800s, payment is hardly mentioned in pamphlets and other documents on prostitution. Prostitution was portrayed as an immoral act rather than as an (immoral) economic transaction. A study conducted on 800 women at the lock hospital between 1904 and 1906 gives some indications regarding remuneration in the early 1900s. Prices ranged between 25 öre to 25 crowns per sexual contact (mostly intercourse). Older women had the lowest pay; one of them stated that sometimes she only got a couple of drinks as payment, and if she occasionally got a crown it was “grand”. 53 5–10 crowns per act of intercourse was the average payment, and according to a contemporary investigation the absolute minimum a working class woman needed for sustenance was 10 crowns a week. 54 10 crowns in 1906 would equal around €50 in 2007. 55 However, statistics show that the women on average spent about 25 per cent of the year off the streets, either in forced labour, the lock hospital, or in prison (see also differences between groups in Table 8.1.) and thus were unable to make money. Registered women also had to pay more than the average rent. 56
As many as 64 per cent of the women registered in 1859 left the regulated system after six years or less and had few or no dealings with the authorities, and they were fairly young. The remaining 36 per cent were older and stayed in the system between 14 to 18 years. Two different types of life stories may be distinguished here: one a sort of “professional” career with little contact with the police or physicians, and the other a more troubled life with several arrests and periods spent at the lock hospital (see Table 8.1).
Number of regulated women in Stockholm, 1866–1917.
Absolute numbers.Sources: Graph earlier published in Svanström, Offentliga kvinnor where the sources are accounted for.
Graph 8.1. also indicates that there was a significant decrease in registered women from 1902 until the outbreak of World War i. A public commission tasked with investigating the future of the regulation system was appointed in 1902, meaning that the vigilance of the police wavered as they awaited the outcome. The increase in registered women from 1914 until 1917 must be seen in light of World War i and military preparedness; the increased number of Home Guards and drafted servicemen in the capital city drew the attention of the police towards possible soliciting. In 1904, the number of registered women was at its peak with 904 women in the system in Stockholm.
57
Over time it became more and more difficult to leave the system of regulation, which resulted in the creation of a group of “professionalized” public women.
Questioning the System: The Abolishment of the Regulation of Prostitution
Sweden and Stockholm were not the first to abolish the regulation system; in fact, in the Nordic context, it was the last. When the system of regulation was abolished in 1918, it had outlived itself by far. A law which dictated mandatory medical examinations for both sexes (when individuals themselves suspected they were infected, or when they were reported on by others for suspicion of venereal diseases) was voted through in parliament in 1918.
On the one hand, we could say that the system of regulation created modern prostitution, a phenomenon overseen by the state and its acting institutions such as legislative, punitive, and medical institutions. The system was enforced at the municipal level when the country was still governed by the Four Estates, but more to the point it was upheld during a period of liberal breakthroughs by which individual rights for women gradually increased and the system of regulation was revised according to the commercial standards of an industrial market society. The rights of the women whose lives were controlled by the regulation system thus decreased over time. On the other hand, when change
The Aftermath of the Regulation System
Sweden did not actively take part in World War i, but Stockholm was affected in terms of food crises and the rationing of food, which led to revolutionary tendencies and food riots. The presence of the Home Guards during the war years increased police alertness regarding prostitution (see Graph 8.1.). The interwar years were a period of transformations in different ways; a population explosion occurred and the population increased by almost 100,000, and by 1930, Stockholm was a city of 502,000 inhabitants. 58 Most women worked in trade and public services. 59 Unemployment was high, around 25 per cent in the early 1920s and 10 per cent for the rest of the decade. Unemployment increased again in the 1930s, and not until after World War ii did those figures drop down to around 1–2 per cent. In 1921 women acquired the right to vote, and married women gained their legal majority—three years after the regulation system was abolished. The old shacks in various areas in Stockholm were demolished and replaced by apartment buildings, but the need for housing was great. It was during the postwar years that the Swedish economy really took off and a welfare society developed.
Prostitution as Vagrancy or Psychopathology
After the abolition of the regulation system, there is scattered information about prostitution in Stockholm. The control of women involved in prostitution continued but on a less transparent level, and there were complaints about the arbitrariness of the legislation. During the interwar years, which were marred by high unemployment and numerous strikes, anti-vagrancy legislation was often invoked—both for men and women—and after the regulation system was abolished, vagrancy legislation was the sole control mechanism for prostitution. In this period it was argued that prostitution had changed and that “full-time” prostitutes did not exist anymore; instead the women were younger and held regular employment, and did prostitution on the side. 60 This was also the opinion stated in various government reports on vagrancy.
During the period 1923–1937, between 412 and 550 women were warned, detained, or arrested yearly for vagrancy and 68 per cent of the time it was for soliciting. 63 For the period 1945–1959 that figure decreased from 675 in 1945 to 250 in 1959; the high figure in 1945 was likely the result of military preparedness during World War ii which resulted in an increased number of men in the capital and police alertness. 64 We cannot assume that all of the women who were arrested for vagrancy were involved in prostitution but it makes it possible to make a rough guess. In the 1950s the legislation on vagrancy was invoked less, and in 1964 it was abolished.
The Swedish Sin
During the immediate after-war years and in the 1950s and ‘60s Sweden enjoyed a period of almost zero unemployment. During such times of prosperity it was possible for some married women to stay at home, but because the majority of the Swedish population was involved in agricultural production well into the 1930s, most married women were working alongside their husbands. The 1950s are thus seen as a period when married women from all segments
The Structure of Prostitution
At the beginning of the 1970s the number of massage parlours and nude posing studios was around 100 to 110, but ten years later it had decreased to twenty.
Reactions against a “Commercialisation of Sexuality”
In the mid-1970s a number of events coincided which changed how prostitution was perceived, both nationwide but mostly in the country’s capital. In 1976 a public commission’s report on sexual crimes suggested that the severity of the penalty for rape, incest, and sexual contacts with children, should, among other things, depend on the victims’ actions before the occasion. The report
The same year a call girl ring in Stockholm was broken up after extensive police surveillance. It led to imprisonment for the woman in charge. There were around forty women involved in the business, some of them underage. The case received much media attention, especially since there were rumours that high-ranking politicians were among the clients. 78 A series of television shows in 1976–1978 had a major impact. In one programme young girls on Malmskillnadsgatan were interviewed which led to an extensive debate in the media. Another mapped the prevalence of apartment brothels in Stockholm; it was estimated that 170 brothels existed and landlords had organized them, acting as brothel-keepers and charging the women over-priced rents. The result of the television programme was that the landlords evicted these women out of fear of being accused of pimping and intensified raids by the police. 79
In the print media a debate emerged in which three prostitutes who had established a small organization called the Sexual Political Front (Sexualpolitisk front) participated.
80
They had ten demands, and they identified three approaches to handling prostitution: legalization, criminalization, or abolition. The merits of the last alternative were pointed out: “It would help prostitutes get away from pimps and move on to education, work and a new identity.”
81
However, the Sexual Political Front saw the first approach as being more realistic: “Only when prostitutes pay tax […] can they have demands on society.”
82
Their other demands were liberalized legislation on procuring and putting a halt to clampdowns on visible prostitution. They also pointed out that the recruitment of women into prostitution could also be stopped by enabling “women’s right to work with decent pay.”
83
In Stockholm a number
The period 1918–76 can be seen as the aftermath of the regulation system of the 1800s, a time that was characterized by both a state and municipality that was clutching at straws when it came to handling prostitution, which, needless to say, affected women involved in prostitution and society’s views.
Criminalizing the Purchase of Sexual Services
The 1980s marked a turning point in how prostitution was discussed and characterized. In 1981 the commission on prostitution that had been appointed in 1976 produced its results.
85
The politically appointed commissioner proposed to the government that the organizing of public pornographic shows should be prohibited (which would in effect put the so-called sex-clubs out of business) and state economic support for preventive work against prostitution should be provided.
86
The ensuing bill produced by the government was similar in content; it was voted through in parliament and implemented in 1982.
87
Prostitution was framed as a societal issue and a result of a patriarchal and capitalist
Increased Parliamentary Activity
After the change in legislation in 1982 there was increased activity in parliament. From 1983 to 1993 more than fifty bills were presented regarding prostitution, and of those about thirty proposed criminalizing the purchase of sex. In 1992 another public commission on prostitution was appointed; it was to map out the prevalence of both homo- and heterosexual prostitution and also to look into possibilities of criminalization. When the result came back, there were disagreements within the commission on the final recommendation about whether or not to criminalize both the client and the seller of sex. According to the commissioner this was to be undertaken in the name of Swedish gender equality; since there were two parties involved, both should be criminalized.
88
The report was severely criticised, both in the media and in the remiss
89
procedure: only two of the sixty-four bodies invited to give an opinion supported the proposal. After the 1970s and ’80s when the issues of exploitation, male patriarchy, and women’s rights were on the agenda, the proposal made by the commission can be seen as a nullification in which gender equality was reduced to counting participants, regardless of society’s power structures. The report did not lead to a government bill and instead the government awaited the recommendations from the commission on violence against women. In the final bill, prostitution was taken up together with violence against women. The criminalization of the client, rather than both parties, was proposed and voted through in parliament and the legislation was introduced in 1999. Until 2010 the maximum penalty was 6 months imprisonment which in 2010 was increased to one year. The debate around the legislation was intense, and it continued among researchers and in the media and parliament, and continues to do so. Women involved in prostitution argued both for and
Voices Speaking Out about the Legislation
The change that took place in the early 1900s when the regulation system was abolished was by no means responded to with silence, nor was the legislation that replaced it. In the same way, the legislation dating from 1999 was both globally unique and celebrated, and also criticised and ridiculed. Since then the legislation has been copied in various countries, but is hotly contested. What the advocates of the legislation hoped to achieve was to support women in prostitution, using the legislation as a deterrent both for women to enter and to make it easier to leave prostitution while deterring prospective clients from buying sex. Critics argued that the legislation would only increase the number of violent clients since the “good guys” would refrain from taking part. It was also predicted that prostitution would go underground, making it more difficult to assist women in need of help.
In 2008 there were two organizations for women involved in prostitution: The Prostitutes’ Rights/Revenge in Society pris (Prostituerades Rätt/Revansch i Samhället) and The Sex Sellers’ and Allies’ Network in Sweden sans (Sexsäljares och allierades nätverk i Sverige). 91 The 1999 legislation has been interpreted in diverse ways among women working in prostitution. How these opinions are dispersed differs depending on which report or research you rely on. Some argue that you cannot see that people involved in prostitution are less enthusiastic about the legislation than those who have left sex work, whereas others argue that there is such a pattern. 92 One the one hand, some sex workers say that the legislation deters women from prostitution (and men from buying) and that they would be personally offended if the authorities accepted prostitution. On the other hand, some women argue that the legislation gives women poor protection. One woman stated that if she experienced violence as an escort she did not report it for fear of being exposed and losing customers. 93
The Structure of Prostitution in the Second Millennium
Immediately after the legislation on prostitution was put into place, street prostitution in Stockholm decreased by 64 per cent, and while it varied over the following ten-year period that the legislation has been in place, that decrease has remained constant. The prevalence of prostitution in Stockholm has been estimated more or less regularly since the legislation was implemented in 1999. Figures from the early 1990s, however, are more difficult to obtain. In an interview in 1992, a social worker at Malmskillnadsgatan estimated that the number of working women in street prostitution was around 200 and that they had varying backgrounds and education levels (see Table 8.2). 96
No sex buyers have been sentenced to prison; so far, the sentences have only involved fines and summary punishments. The most recent investigation about the legislation showed that street prostitution in Stockholm and Sweden has not increased in recent years, while it has in neighbouring countries such as Norway and Denmark, where it has increased by close to 50 per cent. 99 According to recent research, the number of women involved in prostitution is still low, and the number of buyers has gone down compared to the time before the legislation was put into effect. 100
However, as in many other countries prostitution on the internet has increased, but its prevalence is difficult to ascertain.
101
A national survey by the National Board for Health and Welfare undertaken in 2007 determined that there were 299 web pages and 304 sellers (fifty-seven men), mostly serving clients in the Stockholm region. The use of mobile phones and the mediating of telephone numbers seem to have reduced the use of internet advertisements since 2007, but the anonymity of internet advertising may also have lowered
Trafficking and Carrying Out the Legislation
In the 1800s what was called “the white slave trade” was a topic in many European countries and larger cities. Some argue that this was a hysterical reaction with racial overtones, others claim that the slave trade was a fact and was organized by criminal networks. Sweden had organizations such as Awareness, situated in Stockholm, which scrutinized newspaper advertisements for employment offers abroad and offered rooms in a hostel in Stockholm for women who came in search of employment. 103 The Stockholm chief of police responded to inquiries from Europe regarding Stockholm. Nevertheless, the records show little evidence of trafficking at the turn of the last century. For instance, a request in 1910 from the chief of police in Czernowitz and Vienna, Austria, led to an investigation into persons advertising for girls to play in a women’s orchestra in Stockholm. The police found nothing indicating a “white slave trade”. 104
In 2000, the Swedish government ratified the un Declaration on trafficking, which was criminalized in Sweden in 2002.
105
Trafficking in todays’ Stockholm is believed to be comparatively rare; the legislation makes it less “profitable” to traffic women to Sweden since using women in street prostitution is more risky. Thus, the majority of trafficking cases have been discovered after police surveillance of apartment brothels in Stockholm (see Graph 8.2). Recent reports
Reported crimes and sentences for buying sexual services, Stockholm County 1999–2011.
Absolute numbers. The information on reported crimes can be accessed for Stockholm city, but has been downloaded for the county to make comparisons possible with sentences (which can only be downloaded on the regional level).Source: Brottsförebyggande rådet, http://statistik.bra.se/solwebb/action/index and http://www.bra.se/bra/brott--statistik/statistik/personer-lagforda-for-brott.html Brottsförebyggande rådet, table 521, 01, Stockholms län.
In practice, the crime of buying sexual services is a “surveillance crime”, i.e. more resources for the police equals more reported crimes. This is also what is signalled in Graph 8.2, in which the increase in reported crimes in 2003, for
Concluding Remarks
If we look at the last 400 years of prostitution in Stockholm, two things stand out. Firstly, prostitution in Sweden and Stockholm has been a quantitatively small phenomenon relative to the country’s and city’s population (the exception being the late nineteenth century with increasing industrialization and immigration pared with a regulation system that locked women in). Secondly, the state and the municipality have been involved in regulating extra-marital sexuality and prostitution for the better part of that period.
There seems to have been two different state institutional approaches: legislation and laissez-faire, although these approaches have varied over the centuries. The 1600s had a harsh regime that gradually gave way to a more permissive attitude towards sexuality in the late 1700s that eased the harsh legal institutions. A regulation system was put into place in the mid-1800s followed by the abolishment of the system in 1919 until the early 1980s, when a laissez-faire system was applied; in this system, women in prostitution were taken up within the scope of the vagrancy law, but the state fumbled in its attempts to find ways to control prostitution. From the 1980s onwards, there was a change in the state’s views about how to tackle prostitution and it was seen as a societal problem, not the individual problem of women. The institutional approach manifested itself in the legislation in 1999, criminalising the purchase of what was then termed sexual services—a complete ideological turnaround in how to conceptualize prostitution. From the material available for this overview it is possible to at least hypothesize about the consequences of institutional measures and the magnitude of prostitution; regulating prostitution increased the number of women involved in prostitution, whereas legislating against extra-marital relations with severe punishment in a small-sized town with harsh corporal a moral punishments based on Protestant religious beliefs seems to have kept prostitution at lower levels. Still, institutional measures are not enough to interpret how prostitution changes. It is apparent that the social and economic circumstances of the women involved matter: living conditions in the early 1600s were harsh, and the majority of the citizens lived in
Focusing on the last two hundred years we could say that the Swedish regulation system, which presented itself in Stockholm in its fullest form, came together with an equivalent development in other countries and cities. Large parts of the system were imported to Stockholm. Needless to say, the long period of regulation had a profound effect on women in general, and on women who were registered in particular. Over time, the women stayed in prostitution for longer and longer periods. In the end, it was the state itself that initiated which was then a radical step in introducing a legislation that covered all citizens—at least on paper. During a period of almost sixty years, controlling prostitution was not on the state agenda more than in passing, and only in the 1970s was there another shift. Although underrepresented in the debates, the women involved in prostitution presented their demands to the state, asking for changes in legislation and a change of terms. However, when it came to the more radical change, i.e. to criminalizing the purchase of sexual services, it was again the state itself that made the decision, although ngos such as the women’s movements and others played a significant role in promoting the legislation. Needless to say, the Swedish state has changed. The presence of women in political parties fundamentally changed how certain questions pertaining to women and women’s bodily integrity have been politicised. What effect has this development had on prostitution and the women involved in prostitution—or for all women, for that matter? The legislative changes in recent years have been received differently among women—both inside and outside prostitution—and some are critical while others welcome it. However, supporting a change in formal legislation is not the same as changing norms, as informal institutions change slower. The late 1800s and the regulation system was pivotal in the matter of crafting “the prostitute”, and that image still lingers in terms of how women involved prostitution are perceived. Still, the 1999 legislation was unique at the time, and has in a sense turned attention from prostitution as a question of women or the “seller” to a question of men and their demands for sexual services.
ei Inkomna skrivelser 1859–1918, Prostitutionsbyrån, Överståthållarens arkiv (öä), Stockholm City Archive [hereafter ssa].
Fiona Mackay “Conclusion: Towards a Feminist Institutionalism?” in Lena Krook et al., (eds), Gender, Politics and Institutions (Basingstoke, 2010), pp. 181–196.
Helga Hernes, Welfare State and Woman Power: Essays in State Feminism (London, 1987); Anette Borchorst and Birte Siim, “Woman-friendly Policies and State Feminism”, Theorizing Scandinavian Gender Equality, Feminist Theory, 9 (2008), pp. 207–224.
Yvonne Svanström, “Through the Prism of Prostitution: Conceptions of Women and Sexuality in Sweden at Two Fins-de-Siècle”, Nordic Journal of Women’s Studies, 13 (2005), pp. 48–58, 55–56.
For the sake of simplicity I will use the term “prostitution” throughout the chapter.
Underdånigt betänkande angående åtgärder för motarbetande af de smittosamma könssjukdomarnas spridning, 4 vols, (Stockholm, 1910) i, p. 179; Yvonne Svanström, Policing Public Women: The Regulation of Prostitution in Stockholm 1812–1880 (Stockholm, 2000), p. 120.
Underdånigt betänkande, i, p. 46.
Svensk författningssamling, Brottsbalken, Ch. 6, §12.
Jonas Frykman, Horan i bondesamhället (Stockholm, 1993), passim.
Jan Eric Almquist, Karl ix och den mosaiska rätten (Uppsala, 1942), pp. 24–25.
Rudolf Thunander, Förbjuden kärlek: Sexualbrott, kärleksmagi och kärleksbrev i 1600-talets Sverige (Stockholm, 1992), pp. 27–29.
Jan Sundin, För Gud, staten och folket: Brott och rättskipning i Sverige 1600–1840, (Stockholm, 1992), pp. 135–136. Sundin compares Sweden to the puritan colonies in North America and finds that their legislation was more liberal.
Hans Wallentin, Lösdriveri och industrialism: Om lösdriverifrågan i Sverige 1885–1940 (Östersund, 1989), pp. 4–5.
Yvonne Svanström, “Prostitution as Vagrancy: Sweden 1923–1964”, Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention, 7 (2006), pp. 142–163.
Rapporten befolkningen i Stockholm 1252–2005. Stockholm with the closest suburbs, p. 55.
Lars Nilsson and Margareta Rye (eds), Staden på vattnet 1 (Stockholm, 2002).
For this chapter, the period 1614–1635 is what has been possible to research, and obviously the court material says nothing on the prevalence of “prostitution” as a whole.
Stockholms tänkeböcker från år 1592, Utgivna av Stockholms Stadsarkiv, vol. viii, 1614–1615, 27 March 1615; Stockholms tänkeböcker, vol. x, 17 June 1618; Stockholms tänkeböcker, vol. xii, 1620–1621, 27 September 1621. Also 17 December 1623; Stockholms tänkeböcker, vol. xiii, 1622–1623, 22 August 1623, 17 October 1623.
Available at: http://www.historia.se/; last accessed 7 July 2017. Measured against consumer price index. Rodney Edvinsson, and Söderberg, Johan, 2011, “A Consumer Price Index for Sweden 1290–2008”, Review of Income and Wealth, 57 (2011), pp. 270–292.
Stockholms tänkeböcker, vol. x, 4 November 1618.
Ibid., and vol xiii, 22 September 1623. Two days later it was reported that the punishments had been carried out.
Stockholms tänkeböcker, vol. xiii, 4 October 1623.
In one case where an illegitimate child had been born the woman stated that the man had promised her marriage and given her blue woollen socks for the harsh winter. This is the only mention of gifts or remuneration. Stockholms tänkeböcker, vol. xxiii, 30 January 1635.
Stockholms tänkeböcker, vol. xxiii, 1635, pp. 2, 6, 20, 31–32, 37, 49, 62–63, 65, 90, 97, 103, 197, 202, 216–217, 223, 225, 230, 234, 244, 246, 259, 281, 290, 306–307, 312.
Stockholms tänkeböcker, vol. xii, 1620–1621, 28 March, 13 December 1620; 1 January, 14 March, 17 March, and 13 August 1621. In three cases the sentence was transformed.
Svanström, Policing Public Women, p. 55
Claes Lundin and August Strindberg, Gamla Stockholm, (Stockholm, 1882 [1974]), p. 506.
Among those were one major and two barons. Mila Hallman, Målare och urmakare, flickor och lösdrivare. Historier från Gamla Stockholm (Stockholm, 1907), p. 123.
Hallman, Målare, pp. 126–27; Södra förstadens kämnärsrätt, A3A Protokoll och domar i kriminalmål 30 June–2 October, 1747, ssa. The madam, Lovisa von Platen, is also mentioned in the well-known composer and poet Carl Michael Bellman’s “Fredmans Testamente”, n. 149. The street mentioned is Baggensgatan, a street where a substantial number of informal brothels existed during the 1800s. Svanström, Policing Public Women, pp. 298, 373, 463–464, 466.
Dagmar Anckarsvärd, “Stockholm 1789–1790 skildrat av en polsk kanik [Johannes Baptista Albertrandi], in Samfundet St. Eriks Årsbok, (Stockholm, 1933).
The notion that women at the opera or the ballet in the 1700s at times acted as “call girls” is to some degree corroborated through archival evidence, but the extent is not known. Gunilla Roempke, Vristens makt. Dansös i mätressernas tidevarv (Stockholm, 1994).
Gunnar Rudstedt, Långholmen: Spinnhuset och fängelset under två sekler (Stockholm, 1972), p. 14.
Johan Söderberg et al., A Stagnating Metropolis: The Economy and Demography of Stockholm, 1750–1850 (Cambridge, 1991), p. 62.
Hammarström, Stockholm i svensk ekonomi, p. 11. Table i:1. Söderberg et al., A Stagnating, p. 54.
Svanström, Policing Public Women, p. 52.
Ibid., pp. 259–275, 328–329.
Ibid., passim.
Stamrulla 1 1859–1866, DVa1, Prostitutionsbyrån, öä, ssa.
Johan E. Johansson, Reglementeringen i Stockholm, (Stockholm, 1913), p. 47.
Johan E. Johansson, “Statistisk utredning angående reglementeringen i Stockholm 1859–1905” in Underdånigt, vol. iii, pp. 75–76.
Johansson, “Statistisk”, p. 69.
Johansson, Reglementeringen, p. 41; Stamrullor 1859, DVa1, Prostitutionsbyrån, öä, ssa.
Johansson, “Statistisk”, p. 68.
Johansson, Reglementeringen, p. 41. Stamrullor 1859, DVa1, Prostitutionsbyrån, öä, ssa.
Svanström, Offentliga, p. 268.
The same area, but further north, has since the 1970s been connected to street soliciting and kerb crawling, where the street Malmskillnadsgatan is singled out.
Johansson, “Statistisk”, p. 179.
Hjalmar von Sydow, “Om soutenörväsendet”, in Underdånigt, vol. iv, p. 11. von Sydow was the chief of police in Stockholm in 1898 and 1899. Letters to the Prostitution Bureau also bore witness to women living with men and accepting customers at the same house. agw Hillerstrand, Letter to the Prostitution Bureau, Stockholm den 20 April 1867, ei Inkomna skrivelser 1859–1918, Prostitutionsbyrån, öä, ssa.
Johansson, “Statistisk”, pp. 105–106.
Anders Lindgren, “Statistisk undersökning angående skörlevande”, in Underdånigt vol. iii, pp. 38–39. Nevertheless, there is good reason to be careful when using these figures, since all women in the research population except 41 (who were in Magdalene homes or at the poor house) were at the lock hospital, and the person interviewing them was the chief physician at the same hospital. His approach in the report is quite misogynist.
Svanström, Policing Public Women, p. 146.
Clas Malmroth, “Om de smittosamma könssjukdomarnas bekämpande i Sverige m. m”, in Underdånigt, vol. iv, p. 197.
Lindgren, “Statistisk undersökning”, p. 50.
Gerda Meyerson, Våra arbeterskors ställning och medlen att förbättra den (Stockholm, 1907).
Available at: http://www.historia.se/; last accessed 7 July 2017. Measured against consumer price index.
Lindgren, “Statistisk undersökning”, pp. 51–59.
Johansson, “Statistisk”, p. 7.
Rapporten befolkningen i Stockholm 1252–2005, p. 55.
Lena Eriksson, Arbete till varje pris: arbetslinjen i 1920-talets arbetslöshetspolitik, (Stockholm, 2004), p. 152.
Tidevarvet, 1930:51/52, p. 2. However, the occurrence of youths in prostitution is a common subject for debate, and also occurred in the late 1800s as well as the late 1900s.
Svanström, “Prostitution as Vagrancy, pp. 148–152.
Gustav Jonsson, “Soutenören som psykologisk och social typ”, in Festskrift tillägnad Olof Kinberg på 65-årsdagen 23/9 1938 av vänner och lärjungar (Stockholm, 1938), p. 190. Homosexuality was a criminal offence until 1944, and termed a psychological disorder until 1979.
Betänkande med förslag till lagstiftning om åtgärder mot lösdriveri samt åtgärder mot sedeslöst leverne av samhällsskadlig art, (Stockholm 1929), p. 205. An additional six women of foreign nationality had been arrested for vagrancy. In 1928 Stockholm only had around 474,000 inhabitants. Betänkande med förslag till lag om arbetsfostran m.m, (Stockholm, 1939), Bilaga D., p. 22.
Samhällsfarlig asocialitet (Stockholm, 1962), p. 212.
However, there were reports of both prostitution and procuring in the late 1930s and in the ‘40s and ‘50s: “We are around 10–12 in the gang—it is almost possible to form a union. We all walk the street, us girls, but the others also have a permanent position so they don’t get caught. The boys don’t do anything, they mostly live off us.” Gunnar Inghe and Maj-Britt Inghe, Den ofärdiga välfärden (Stockholm, 1968), p. 163.
Klara Arnberg, “Under the Counter, Under the Radar? The Business and Regulation of the Pornographic Press in Sweden 1950–1971”, Journal of American History, Enterprise & Society, 13 (2012), p. 350–377; Lena Lennerhed, Frihet att njuta: Sexualdebatten i Sverige på 1960-talet (Stockholm, 1994), p. 99.
Leif G.W. Persson, Horor, hallickar och torskar: en bok om prostitutionen i Sverige (Stockholm 1981), pp. 68–69; Arne Borg et al., Prostitution: beskrivning, analys, förslag till åtgärder (Stockholm, 1982), p. 513.
Inghe and Inghe, Den ofärdiga, p. 164.
Klara Arnberg, Motsättningarnas marknad: Den pornografiska pressens kommersiella genombrott och reglering av pornografi I Sverige 1950–1980 (Lund, 2010), p. 277.
A proposal for state-run brothels was raised in parliament by a conservative member of parliament but was opposed. Susanne Dodillet, Är sex arbete? Svensk och tysk prostitutionspolitik sedan 1970-talet (Stockholm, 2009), pp. 52–64.
Borg, Prostitution, pp. 476–478.
Ibid., pp. 468–469, Persson, Horor, pp. 57–58, 80–82.
Persson, Horor, pp. 83–84. Because of issues relating to social security numbers the group was reduced from 339 to 309. Borg, Prostitution, pp. 471–472.
Ibid., p. 474.
Ibid., p. 465. More available at: http://www.historia.se/; last accessed 7 July 2017. Measured against consumer price index.
Persson, Horor, pp. 131, 138–139.
Ulrika Thomsson, “‘Rätten till våra kroppar’: Kvinnorörelsen och våldtäktsdebatten”, Kvinnovetenskaplig tidskrift, 4 (2000), pp. 51–64.
Hanna Olsson, “Från manlig rättighet till lagbrott: prostitutionsfrågan i Sverige under 30 år, Kvinnovetenskaplig tidskrift, 4 (2006), pp. 52–73.
Kvinnobulletinen, 4–1 (1977/78), pp. 36–37. Persson, Horor, pp. 213–215.
Kvinnobulletinen, 4–1 (1977/78), pp. 36–37. The organisation was rather small. Of the three women two were based in Stockholm and the third was in Malmö.
Kvinnobulletinen, 2 (1977), p. 4.
Ibid.
Sexualpolitisk front: “Detta är sexualpolitisk front: Förbundet presenterar sitt program”, Pockettidningen R¸7 (1977), pp. 128–129.
Jeanette Gentele (ed.), Ta strid för kärleken—kamp mot porr och prostitution: En antologi utgiven av Aktionen kamp mot porr och prostitution (Stockholm, 1979); Gunilla Fredelius (ed.) Ett onödigt ont: En antologi mot porr och prostitution (Stockholm, 1978). Protests had occurred earlier as well; in 1973 about thirty women went into one of the sex clubs and protested against the selling of sex. The women in the club threw them out, after allegedly having been told by the manager they would not get paid if they did not act against the protesters. There were different reactions within the women’s movement about whether this was an efficient way to protest, as it would seem that women within the autonomous women’s movement and women in prostitution were in disagreement. Kvinnobulletinen, 3/4 (1973), p. 34.
Persson, Horor, pp. 215–218; Dodillet, Är sex arbete?, pp. 124–127; Borg, Prostitution, p. 15; Olsson, “Från manlig rättighet”, p. 62.
Undercover research by a sociologist participating in the public commission came to the conclusion that if there was prostitution at the sex-clubs in Stockholm “it must be both discreet and of little degree.” Persson, Horor, p. 74.
Regeringens proposition 1981/82:187, pp. 1–4. Noteworthy is that the commission report, and also the separate publication from the experts, all advised against a legislation that would only criminalize the client.
Yvonne Svanström, “Criminalising the John: A Swedish Gender Model?” in Joyce Outshoorn (ed.), The Politics of Prostitution: Women’s Movements, Democratic States, and the Globalisation of Sex Commerce (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 225–244, 233–235.
The “remiss” procedure is where parts of the state apparatus and organisations outside the state with special competence give their expert opinion on reports before a legislative bill is drafted.
Svanström, “Criminalising the john”, pp. 225, 236–241.
Förbud mot köp av sexuell tjänst: en utvärdering 1999–2008: sou 2010:49 (Stockholm, 2010). The first organization is available at: http://www.nätverketpris.se; last accessed 7 July 2017. The second organization’s webpage cannot be found.
Kännedom om prostitution 2007 (Socialstyrelsen, 2007), p. 47; Förbud mot köp av sexuell, pp. 129–130.
Kännedom om prostitution 2007, p. 47
Svanström, “Handel”, p. 310
Förbud mot köp av sexuell, pp. 124–125.
Interview with Inger Lantz, City Section, Stockholm, in Kvinnobulletinen, 1992:3, p. 7.
Förbud mot köp av sexuell, p. 108. In a few cases women were from Albania and Thailand. It has also been noted that the number of women from Nigeria has increased. Människohandel för sexuella och andra ändamål, rps rapport 2011, Lägesrapport 12 (Stockholm, 2011) p. 21.
Förbud mot köp av sexuell, pp. 110–113.
Jari Kuosmanen, “Tio år med lagen: Om förhållningssätt till och erfarenheter av prostitution i Sverige”, in Charlotta Holmström and May-Len Skilbrei (eds), Prostitution i Norden: Forskningsrapport (Köpenhamn, 2008), pp. 357–382.
Förbud mot köp av sexuell, p. 157.
One seller can be behind several advertisements, or more than one person behind one advertisement. Furthermore, these advertisements can stay on the internet after the service has ended.
Kännedom om prostitution 2007, pp. 8, 27–30.
Ann Hallner, “Från vit slavhandel till trafficking: En studie om föreställningar kring människohandel och dess offer”, Historisk tidskrift, 129 (2009), pp. 429–433.
Rapport angående Gerschberg, Adele, 25 February, 1910, and Rapport angående Berger, Frans, 23 August, 1910, FXIV1 Handlingar angående vit slavhandel, 1905–23, Detektivavdelningen, Handlingar angående vit slavhandel, 1905–23, Polismästaren, Detektivavdelningen, öä, ssa.
See Svanström, “Handel med kvinnor: Debatten i Sverige och Nederländerna om prostitution och trafficking” in Christina Florin and Christina Bergqvist (eds), Framtiden i samtiden: Könsrelationer i förändring i Sverige och omvärlden (Stockholm, 2004), pp. 290–323, for a discussion on the discrepancies between the Swedish state approach concerning trafficking, where the state for a long time argued for proof of a woman actually being forced into prostitution through trafficking, versus the offence of buying sexual services where “choice” is irrelevant, all buying of prostitution being illegal. In 2010 the legislation on trafficking changed and the so-called “control prerequisite” was replaced.
Brottslighet och trygghet i Malmö, Stockholm och Göteborg: En kartläggning (Stockholm, 2012), pp. 176–177.
Svanström, “Handel”, pp. 308–309.