Swedish example

SWEDEN: A few days ago Sweden's Sexual Equality Ombudsman Claes Borgstrom demanded that their football team pull out of the Soccer World Cup in Germany in protest at extra brothels being set up to cope with demand from visiting football fans.

During a radio interview in Sweden, he said: "I am a soccer fan myself but the point is that the World Cup in soccer is an opportunity for men to show our (Swedish people's) abhorrence of the trade in human beings. Other countries might follow our example".

Sweden is one country in Europe that has the toughest laws against prostitution and according to Swedish law, the perpetrators are those who buy sex and not the women who trade sex.

The prostitutes are being treated as the their victims. This system is very much gender sensitive and also protects women's human rights.

Swedish law related to prostitution is one fine example for identifying the perpetrators accurately and protecting human rights of vulnerable sections in the society.

This information from Sweden, is very useful when discussing the same problem existing in Sri Lanka.

As Sri Lankans we always boast about our rich cultural heritage, how respectfully it treats women and so on but we have to accept the fact that prostitution is one of the major problems in main cities in the country, especially in the commercial capital, Colombo.

People make fun out of it saying that it is the world's oldest profession. Rarely we sympathise with prostitutes. We always see them as evil women who are preying at men!

But Swedish law encourages us to look at prostitutes in a different angle. When considering the profiles of most of the Sri Lankan female sex workers it is very clear that most of them are not willingly practising prostitution.

Most of them are young girls from very poor families in rural areas. Most of them are raped and abandoned in Colombo or suburbs during their very first visit to the Colombo city before they come into prostitution.

Some of them were some one's girlfriend until they were cheated, gang raped and abandoned in a street in Colombo which is 'another world' to them.

Some female sex workers are involved in prostitution to feed their sick/disabled husbands/aged parents or children.

Some female sex workers are innocent girls abducted from distant areas in Sri Lanka. When a young naive rural girl is raped and abandoned in Colombo and her parents do not accept her into their family what are the options she left with in order to feed herself?

Who are the real victims of prostitution? Are they the women offering sex for money or men who buy it?

When considering the problems faced by these two parties we can easily figure out the real victims and perpetrators.

Women get money working as commercial sex workers. Then what are the dangers they face ? As female commercial sex workers they are always in danger when it comes STD, especially HIV, several other serious sicknesses, simply being raped without paying money, getting pregnant by accident, social discrimination, being abducted and abused, certain cancers in the reproductive organs, social discrimination of their children and a lot more.

Men get pleasure buying sex. The sexual satisfaction they get may help to extend the number of years they live if they don't get HIV!. What are the dangers men face when buying sex ?

It is true they also have the possibility of getting infected with HIV but the risk is not higher than women. Their wives will verbally punish them only if they get caught.

When considering the other negative facts, one can say that they put their wives in danger, they lose their hardly earned money needed by their families and children and they tarnish the reputation of their children.

The real perpetrators need to be punished. Not the innocent victims. The innocent victims should not be harassed by the police in the public and put in cells. Only then justice will be done to the Sri Lankan women.

The Swedish law related to prostitution and the recent statement by the Swedish Equality Ombudsman on extra brothels in Germany provide a good example for countries such as Sri Lanka and most of the SAARC countries.