However an advocate for sex workers has raised concerns about how information on brothel workers would be used. The initiative was sponsored by youth representatives from the Pirkanmaa district, who argued that legalising brothels would make them easier to monitor, safeguard the rights of sex workers and eliminate the dangers of human trafficking.
Centre youth party chair Janne Kallunki said that the organisation supported the measure for a number of reasons. He also raised the issue of health, saying that decriminalising brothels could pave the way for compulsory health checks and tame the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases. Kallunki said that youth delegates also discussed the risks of legalising brothels, such as the danger that individuals could be forced into sex work at brothels as well as the ethics of the profession.
According to the youth party chair, professional sex workers could organise themselves into cooperatives or independently, however he could not say which entity would be able to provide facilities for such an enterprise. Satsamala MP Pertti Hakkanen called for a level-headed look at the requirements for allowing brothels to operate in Finland.
It is a good starting point to ensure a safe working environment and that everyone has equal opportunities in this regard. However she said she needed more precise information about the measure. For example, she questioned who would be responsible for maintaining such establishments β the government, municipalities or provincial administrations?
Kauppinen said that since a regulatory system is not a real solution, she would settle for the decriminalisation of sex work. She said compulsory health checks would not be required if sex workers had easy access to good services. She described the proposal for establishing brothels based on cooperatives as a new approach to organising sex work.
