Swede call to ban paid-for sex

Date: 22/01/04

A CLAMPDOWN on the sex industry in the European Union, including a ban on paying for sex, is among the main recommendations in a study published by the European Parliament.

The report, by Swedish MEP Marianne Eriksson, urges member states to follow the example of Sweden which bans payment for intercourse.

Eriksson also calls for other measures, including:

• Removing firms in the porn business from stock exchanges;
• restricting obscene and unsolicited emails, and;
• more action to control blatant sexual imagery in television advertising.

Willie O'Dea, minister of state at the Irish department of justice, this week said that his country, current holder of the EU presidency, would consider proposals for an EU-wide ban on paying for sex, but held out little hope of agreement among the 15-nation bloc.
Eriksson's report, which was debated at a hearing in the European Parliament on Monday, will be voted on in the March plenary.
It deplores that the internet has become a platform for the display of violent images of rape, child molestation, bestiality and necrophilia. Of the €365 million European internet users spent accessing pay-sites on the internet in 2001, 70% went to porn operations, it states.
Eriksson, a member of the GUE/NGL group, said: "We are faced with a very wealthy and powerful industry, one of the richest in the world, which is quoted on several stock exchanges.
"Such a well-established industry can easily remain one step ahead of lawmakers and can profit from existing gaps in the law. I am demanding that the Commission and member states act to fill those gaps."Professor Janice Raymond, from the University of Massachusetts, told the hearing how the industry had gained mainstream acceptance.
She said: "Pornography has been re-named in an effort to make it more acceptable. Prostitution is called "sex work", lap dancing or sex clubs are called "gentlemen's entertainment", porn is called "erotica" and pimps have been renamed "third party businessmen"."Raymond, co-executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, criticized EU countries for failing to impose bans on buying sex from prostitutes and cited, as an example, the Netherlands where she said legalizing prostitution had led to a 25% increase in the local sex industry.

Article discusses a draft report by Swedish MEP Marianne Eriksson on the consequences of the sex industry in the European Union, published January 2004.

• Primary Source

http://europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/committees/femm/20040119/519398en.pdf http://europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/committees/femm/20040119/519398en.pdf

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