Erikson, Josefina, and Oscar L. Larsson. “Beyond Client Criminalization: Analyzing Collaborative Governance Arrangements for Combatting
Prostitution and Trafficking in Sweden.” Regulation & Governance, vol. 16, no. 3, 2022, pp. 818–835., https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12259.
With Sweden being one of the first countries to criminalize clients in the sex work sector, this article studies the governance arrangements that have since been implemented to abolish prostitution and points out the problems they introduce. Erikson and Larsson make the point that national policy and legal framework are prioritized over the implementation and evaluation of prostitution policies that are in practice. It also goes into detail on the role of collaborative governance and both its benefits to solving issues in the field of sex work policy as well as its problematic claims with respect to the role of civil society. Though this article focuses on collaborative governance and how effective it is, I will only use the portions of the article that detail Swedish law on client criminalization as opposed to the liberation on behalf of women in sex work. Josefina Erikson has a PhD in political science and her research focuses on prostitution policy and feminist constitutionalism while the other author, Oscar L. Larsson, also maintains a PhD in political science and has done research articles on network governance and collaboration between public and private partners in dealing with trafficking victims. The pair make an intelligent collaboration that is informative and thoughtful regarding the Swedish government’s attempts at combatting prostitution.
- “Prostitution is now considered intrinsically linked to trafficking, and there has been a shift from government to governance in the general political debate.”
- “On the positive side, our study finds that the inclusion of civil society actors in collaborative networks has succeeded in taking into consideration the victim’s perspective and developing, for instance, programs with their actual needs in mind, such as the NSP.”
