Kajsa Wahlberg remembers well the reaction when she helped lead efforts to introduce Sweden's now-famous laws criminalising the purchase of sex. People were laughing in at Sweden and saying it can't be done. A German police officer told me, 'You're crazy sweetie, you can't do that, you cannot prohibit men from buying sex, it's totally impossible. Nearly 15 years on, Sweden believes it has. Police say the number of prostitutes has dropped by two-thirds. A report by a Swedish academic says that by tackling demand, Sweden provides some of the best protection to trafficking victims.
Simon Haggstrom, an officer in the prostitution unit of Stockholm police, is on the frontline of this push to stop men from paying for sex. We will go after them. He says the number of prostitutes has dramatically decreased since the law was introduced, from 2, across Sweden in to about 1, today. Sweden is held up as a model for European reform on prostitution law.
Last week, France moved in the same direction, bringing in fines for people who pay for sex. Politicians and police officers from several countries have visited Stockholm, wanting to know what impact the law has had. But the debate is highly polarised. Many experts argue that only by regulating the sex trade and bringing it into the open, as has been done in Germany and the Netherlands, will women get the protection they need.
Linda's story illustrates the complexity of the challenge facing those tackling sexual exploitation. Linda was just 10 when she began a conversation with a year-old Swedish man online. Bullied at school and with her parents divorcing at home, she was an easy victim to his promises of love. Within a few months she considered him her boyfriend and agreed to meet a friend of his in a hotel for dinner. The man took her to her room where he violently raped her.
Her boyfriend had sold her, and so strong was his control over her that he was able to do so again and again. This was only three months after our first contact and he had already broken me down so far and so much that I would die for him.
