Huge Legal Victory for Feminists Over Pimps in France with Luba Fein, Alyssa Ahrabare and Heba Siba

LUBA: Hello, I am Luba Fein from FiLiA, and our topic today is the global battle against the sex industry. We will focus on a significant legal achievement recently secured in France. Joining me are two accomplished young feminists from France, Alyssa Ahrabare and Hema Sibi, who will share their insights on this topic.

Alyssa and Hema, please introduce yourselves. 

Alyssa: So I'm Alyssa Ahrabare. I work for the European Network of Migrant Women. I'm the Advocate and Legal Lead, and I'm initially from France. Now I live in Brussels. I've been living here for four years. And in France, I've been involved with French feminist organisations and especially one abolitionist national organisation that has been recognised as being of general interest. We have been involved in the advocacy, first of all, to get the abolitionist law in France. We will explain this later, and then defend it. So it was first to the Supreme Court in France and now to the European Court of Human Rights. I have a legal background. I studied Law and Fundamental Liberties.

HEMA: I am Hema Sibi. I'm the advocacy coordinator of the Coalition for the Abolition of Prostitution. Our organisation mainly advocates to push for the abolitionist model at the national level, at the UN level, and at the European level. I'm also the spokesperson of a French grassroots organisation that meets more than 6, 000 persons in prostitution per year and supports 1,300 among them. This grassroots organisation and CAP International were also at the forefront of the battle to get the abolitionist legislation in France, and we were also very involved in the procedure of defending this legislation before the European court and also before the constitutional courts back in 2018. 

LUBA: Thank you. Our significant achievement is related to what we call the Nordic model or the abolitionist model. Can you explain, please, what the Nordic model is in the context of the sex industry and what other legislative models are there? 

HEMA: The abolitionist model in France, the one that we have, is one that considers that prostitution is violence. It relies on four pillars that cannot be apprehended separately.

The first one is the decriminalisation of all persons in prostitution. The second one is the provision of exit pathways to persons in prostitution, which involves a set of economic, social rights. For example in France, the law provides a Residence Permit to foreign victims. It not only provides for a monthly allocation, but also vocational training, psychosocial support, anything that actually can help women exit prostitution without having to cater to their primary needs. The third pillar of the abolitionist model is the prohibition of the purchase of sexual acts. This is important because if we consider that prostitution is a form of violence, there is no violence without actually an author and the sex buyer is the author of this violence that is perpetrated against prostituted persons. The rationale behind the prohibition of the sex purchase is also that by criminalising sex buyers they will be deterred from purchasing sexual acts and so demand will reduce. The fourth pillar of the abolitionist model is the criminalisation of pimping in all of its forms including brothel owning, procuring, recruiting someone, and profiting from their prostitution. The last of the pillars, a fifth pillar in our legislation in France, we have the establishment of prevention strategies throughout the territory on the non-commodification of the human body. The abolitionist legislation in France was pushed by feminist civil society. It was built with the feminist movement, a combination of parliamentary work and civil society work. We have a very holistic approach. 

As you mentioned, other legislations also exist in Europe and worldwide on prostitution, and we can see that one of these legislations is the regulatory approach. It is a model that considers that prostitution is a form of work, and therefore it's a model that decriminalises persons in prostitution and grants them the status of worker, but it's also a model that decriminalises pimping. Pimps in the regulatory approach become brothel owners. They become managers and they can operate with total impunity. This model has been adopted in Germany. In the Netherlands, it has led to disastrous consequences that we can mention later if you want to, to dig into that subject. 

There's also another and last model, that is the prohibitionist model, which is a model that criminalises all aspects of the prostitution system, including persons in prostitution. It considers them as criminals and puts them on the same level with sex buyers and pimps. This model, for example, is adopted in Lithuania, but also in many other countries. It is mostly grounded in moral, or a kind of religious grounds. 

Alyssa: That was a perfect overview. Maybe we will go into the language issue with relation to prostitution afterwards. But what I think is interesting to mention is that what might be described as the regulations model which is today also addressed as the decriminalisation model. This is, I think, an advocacy tool for what we call the sex work or the pimp lobby, meaning they are the ones who are doing the advocating. They identify prostitution as a work like any other. They use this word decriminalisation because first of all, it's a positive word and also it creates a blurry situation where we don't really know who is going to be decriminalised. Is it going to be the individual exploited in prostitution? Of course, this is what we want and this is the abolitionist model. Or is it going to be the pimps and the brothel owners and the ones who are profiting from the sexual exploitation of others? And actually, this is it. This is the model that is called the decriminalisation model. It is used for instance in Belgium to legalise pimping, except if there is what the law calls ‘abnormal profit’, but this is not defined by the law. We don't know what ‘abnormal profit’ is actually. 

I think there is also a nuance that is important because abolitionism is often identified with prohibitionism, which we describe as a model where everyone is criminalised, including the women and girls in prostitution. Actually, in these instances, in a prohibition model we see that there is a taboo about prostitution in these countries. In fact, in reality, it's basically only the women and girls in prostitution who are being criminalised and undergoing violence by the law enforcement et cetera and the buyers of sexual acts. Like Hema said, are the drivers of demand and also the perpetrators of violence who are usually left alone as are the traffickers.

LUBA: Thank you. In France, we have the abolitionist model. When was it adopted in France, and how has it affected the sex industry in the country since then? 

Alyssa: So, the abolitionist model in France was adopted in 2016. It followed a huge mobilisation by women's rights organisations and also, of course, feminist allies within the decision-making processes. Since it was implemented, it led to very positive outcomes. First of all, there was a problem with the cost of criminalisation of pimping, of the prosecution of pimps and traffickers. There is now a fund of money confiscated from pimps that contributes to those going through legal proceedings. This money is re-distributed to organisations that give support to women in prostitution. 

There have been over 1,000 women benefiting from what we call the Exit Programme. This is what Hema described before. It's a comprehensive support that encompasses administrative issues, legal status, financial support, access to employment, access to accommodation, and so on, to provide women in prostitution with alternatives. This has been benefiting women and also girls in France since 2016. Overall, we see good outcomes, however, here in France we are also pushing for proper implementation of the law because we have seen that it has not been implemented in a consistent way throughout the territory. Basically, the way it works is that at the local level there are committees that are formed and that are dealing with the exit programmes and, depending on the region, some of them are really implementing the law properly and delivering, for instance, temporary residence permits for women in prostitution who want to exit prostitution. However, it's not the case consistently throughout the territory and that's an issue we're working on. But overall, what we see is a positive outcome, both in terms of numbers, and also in terms of the perception of prostitution within the society: it’s now generally understood as a form of violence against women.

This is also something similar that's happened in Sweden, where we have seen that years after the abolitionist model was implemented, there was global rejection of prostitution by the society and an understanding that this is a form of violence against women. This is also, in my opinion, one of the positive aspects of the abolitionist model: it not only provides support to women and girls in prostitution, but also it shapes society’s perception of it in such a way that commodification of women is no longer acceptable. 

HEMA: I think you made a very comprehensive presentation. If I could add certain elements, it would be that we can see that since the law was adopted in 2016, more than 3 million euros were confiscated from pimps and reinvested in the protection of victims. This is a huge sum and it continues to grow because proceedings against pimps are increasing. Since we adopted the law, they increased by 54% which is not negligible. With regard to sex buyers there's a real issue with the implementation of the law which is not applied homogeneously over the territory, but sex buyers have been arrested mostly in Paris and around the city. More than 88,000 sex buyers have been arrested since 2016. The sex buyers not only face a fine, but they can also face an alternative sentence, which is a sort of training, awareness raising training, that is co-animated oftentimes by survivors and so the sex buyers learn about the realities of prostitution. Some sex buyers have also been condemned to that. We can see that the law has produced very positive results starting with the more than 1,000 women exiting prostitution that Alyssa mentioned. It is not enough, but it's still 1,000 women whose lives have radically changed and today we're fighting, of course, for a better implementation of the legislation overall in the territory, but it has produced very positive results. 

LUBA: Thank you. You describe tremendous achievements of the abolitionist model, but despite all those achievements the abolitionist model is often referred to as a controversial issue. Who supports the abolitionist model in Europe and who opposes it? If you can, please refer to various actors like countries, international bodies, global organisations, local organisations.

HEMA: Thank you. I can start and you can complete because I think I'll be brief. First, the supporters of the abolitionist model in Europe are few countries, and even worldwide there are only nine. In Europe, for example, there's Sweden, which was the first country to adopt the abolitionist model in 1999. It is no coincidence, actually, that Sweden was the first country to adopt this legislation, Sweden is one of the countries in the world with the highest gender equality index. So Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Ireland, Northern Ireland and France. Worldwide we also have Canada, Israel, the state of Maine in the USA which recently adopted the equality model and which is the first state in the US to have adopted this model. In terms of the regulatory approach, or the false terminology full decriminalisation, we have Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, New Zealand, some states of Australia, Austria and other countries like Turkey also have a big tolerance for prostitution. With the prohibitionist model, this was adopted in various countries worldwide, for example, Saudi Arabia but also Latvia and Lithuania in Europe. When we think about the actors that also support the abolitionist model, what we can see is that a lot of countries are now trying to change their legislation towards the abolitionist model. For example, Germany, which was one of the first countries that adopted a regulatory approach and that legalised prostitution, today is coming back on its steps and sees that 20 years of implementation of such legislation has led to a disastrous landscape, including an increase of trafficking in human beings and an explosion of demand with one million men that buy sex per day in Germany. The government, and not just the government but parliamentarians mostly, are trying to learn more about the Nordic model approach, the abolitionist model. One of the parties in Germany, CDU CSU, is actually working on a policy towards the abolitionist model. Certain countries like Spain too are evolving and  the socialist and the right wing parties have proposed abolitionist legislations. There's a wind blowing towards that direction and in terms of institutions, what we can see is that the European Parliament also recently adopted an abolitionist resolution that dates back from September. It is a very strong, ambitious resolution that unequivocally calls prostitution a form of violence, and that calls on all states to criminalise the purchase of sexual acts and pimping while decriminalising persons in prostitution. So, there's a real wind, I would say, blowing towards the abolition of prostitution. 

Alyssa: And in terms of this momentum growing for the abolitionist position or approach we have also obviously the recent report from Reem Alsalem, who is the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and its causes and consequences at a global level. And for the first time in UN processes, prostitution has been observed from a human rights angle and from a very comprehensive approach. Reem Alsalem conducted the global consultation. She received 300 written submissions. She also conducted regional discussions herself with different stakeholders who don't share the same views to build this report that is extremely comprehensive and precise about the consequences of prostitution on the women and girls exploited in prostitution. We always say women and girls because it's the overwhelming majority, right? But this applies to, of course, men in prostitution and all children in prostitution. It describes the consequences on the children of women in prostitution and the consequences of the different policy models that Hema described at the beginning of this meeting. It's very interesting, it's very precise and it also goes into terminology and explains why using terms such as sex work or sex workers is actually harmful to vulnerable groups that are specifically targeted such as at refugee camps and applies to mostly migrant women and girls. It's a brilliant report that I encourage everyone to read. So these are important steps that are going in the same direction as the European Parliament resolution in September 2023 that Hema mentioned and this recent outcome of the European Court of Human Rights in relation with the abolitionist French law. It is very important to see that whenever institutions adopt a very open and democratic process, they go to grassroots level organisations, the ones that are actually working with women and girls in prostitution, and get the data, get the testimonies of survivors of prostitution from who exited it. The outcome usually is very favourable to the abolitionist approach. Whenever we see a position from a UN special rapporteur or any institution that goes against the abolitionist approach, usually when we look into it, we see that the consultation process was not very comprehensive and did not include grassroots level organisations that are usually less vocal, less visible because they allocate all of the little capacity and money that they have into actually supporting the women who need it. Usually, they have less influence on these processes. This is very important to mention.

To follow up on your question, Luba, we mentioned the countries and the institutions. So maybe just to speak about the organisations because that was part of your question. We see that today at the European level most of the abolitionist organisations are grassroots local organisations that really work on the ground directly with the women and the people involved in prostitution. We actually have a large network of organisations called the Battle core. It's formed by over 150 abolitionist organisations across the entire European Union, and most of them are NGOs that work at grassroots level. However, on the other hand we see that the biggest human rights networks do not specialise in women's rights issues. Usually, they are the ones advocating for legalisation or regulation for their approach. Here we can see Amnesty International, Médecins du Monde, and other networks that are not specialised in women's rights but rather maybe poverty or different social issues. It is also interesting to see that whenever there is expertise in women's rights and violence against women and its root causes, there is a shift towards the abolitionist model. We can see, for instance, that the European Women's Lobby, which is the biggest feminist platform in the European Union, gathering 2,000 feminist organisations, has a strong abolitionist approach and position. So maybe that's my conclusion about this question. 

LUBA: Thank you. Now let's talk about the appeal against the abolitionist model in France at the European Court of Human Rights. Who filed the lawsuit? Who funded it? Who had interests in this case?

Alyssa: I will start and then Hema will follow up. There was a challenge against the French abolitionist law from the beginning. Like we mentioned previously, it was first challenged at the French Supreme Court, which is called Conseil Constitutional. There was a very big mobilisation in France from feminist organisations who organised what we called at the time the Me Too of prostitution to really emphasise and give a platform to the testimonies of survivors of prostitution. Potentially this impacted the positive outcome from the Conseil Constitutional. After that, because all of the national remittances were exhausted, that gave the possibility to the opponents of the law to bring the case to the European Court of Human Rights. The organisations who brought the case were Médecins du Monde, Amnesty Internationale, CRAS, which is called a trade union but it actually doesn't have the status of a union. It is an organisation acting as a trade union for “sex workers”. (I put air quotes around the term “sex workers” because that's not a term that we use, but that's the term that they use.) A collective of over 200 “sex workers” that contributed to this appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. 

Basically, the law was challenged under three different grounds. It was said by the the people who brought the case that this law is against three articles of the European Convention of Human Rights, which are Articles 3 and 8 about the right to life, the prohibition of torture and degrading treatment, and the protection of private and family life. The case lasted for four years. It was really long, which is usual with the European Court of Human Rights. There was, of course, a strong reaction from the abolitionist movement in Europe, because the outcome of the case was going to determine a lot for FIPE. If the European Court of Human Rights decided that the abolitionist model, or at least the criminalisation of the buyers of sexual acts, because that was the specific aspect of the law that was observed and challenged towards the court. If the court decided that this is against the European Convention of Human Rights this would have prevented us from continuing to push for this model to be comprehensively and consistently adopted throughout Europe. It was a huge deal basically. The abolitionist movement organised and it was several big organisations, or a collective of organisations, who submitted what is called third party interventions to the court. Basically we contacted the courts through an official process to say we have things to say and data to bring to the table and interesting important elements, so to please listen to us. The courts decided to hear some of us, so CAP International was heard as well as Abolition Interest Work Organisations in France, and we have OVILO Feminism, the organisation that I represent. We decided to create a coalition of European organisations for abolition, organisations across different countries with the objective to show the court that although there is no consensus legally in terms of prostitution, there is a consensus within the feminist movement across Europe that the abolitionist model is the way to go to protect vulnerable women and girls. This was our action towards the case. 

Then several years went by, and the first response that we got from the court was an admissibility decision. Basically, before going into the facts of the case, the court looks at the admissibility criteria and decides whether or not it's able to pronounce itself on the case, because in the majority of cases it does not. In this case, it decided, okay, we will look into the case, we will provide the decision. This is something that was really instrumentalised by the organisation who brought the case to say this is a victory for us. We see now that the court is going to go in our favour because the abolitionist model is killing women in prostitution. Basically, for years these organisations have used this case as a pending case, one that was not decided yet, to hold it over the head of abolitionist organisations and pretend that the abolitionist model is against human rights, which is not the case. Last week we finally got the final decision of the court which is very interesting. First of all, it did not pronounce itself related to the grounds of Articles 2 and 3, right to life and prohibition of torture. It considered that this is not relevant, that in no way, shape, or form would the 2016 French abolitionist law be a threat to the right to life or the prohibition of torture. The court didn't even consider this. What the court considered was Article 8 in relation to the right to private life. Basically, in a nutshell, the court said yes, the 2016 abolitionist law is interfering with the private life of the women involved in prostitution, for instance. However, this interference is legitimate and proportionate to the goals that are pursued, which are public order, public health, and the rights of others, notably the women and girls exploited in prostitution. 

The decision is very detailed, very interesting. It looks greatly into the process that led to the law in France, and the fact that there were needs assessments, risk assessments, and a thorough analysis of the situation. It looked also at the situation today, and it highlights that, yes, there is a lot of violence within the prostitution systems, however, this violence exceeds law. This violence is inherent to prostitution, and it's not the criminalisation of the buyers of sexual acts that creates the violence, on the contrary. This is something extremely important. The testimonies of the different organisations are mentioned, quoted in the decision. Overall, it's a very important decision that we will use at the European level to promote this model, but also at the French level. Very interestingly, the court mentioned that the French state needs to implement the law properly for it to respect the European Convention of Human Rights. Basically, if the law is not fully implemented, like we mentioned with Hema before discrepancies over the territories, etc this can be an issue. This is actually a tool for French organisations pushing towards the governments for better implementation, basically. 

LUBA: I want to ask Hema. I have just read the verdict in the English translation. I have noticed that people who appealed and the individuals who appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, most of them weren't actually from France. They were from many other countries worldwide. So how did this happen? Why did all those people come to France and insist on being prostituted in this country? What happened there? 

HEMA: We actually do not have information at all about the 256 applicants of the case. What is quite weird is that the case was first lodged by organisations. So, at the French level, at the domestic level, it was, as Alyssa mentioned, Amnesty International, Médecins du Monde, Strasse, Acceptesté, and many other organisations that were the applicants of the case. When the case went to the European Court of Human Rights, because the court requires that individuals lodge a complaint, all of a sudden, we had like 256 individual applicants that lodged the complaint. Before this the complaint was lodged by organisations. We have no information about these people. Actually, I will not go as far as that, but perhaps we can even question whether these numbers are real. Were there 256 applicants that were individually concerned about prostitution? There is no evidence of that. But anyhow, we don't have much information about the applicants. The fact is that the judgement that the court delivered is a huge victory for the feminist movement in Europe and worldwide. I previously mentioned several very good points of the decision. One of the points that was also very interesting is that the court reminds that penalising sex buyers is something that cannot be apprehended separately. It says that it belongs to a holistic, global approach that was adopted at the end of a very long term, that it was a very well thought out parliamentary process and that the court has to respect the democratic process. That is very interesting and it also highlights that combining decriminalising persons in prostitution with the penalisation of sex buyers is a way that reverses the balance of powers between sex buyers and persons in prostitution, because the first can now report the violence of the latter to the police as evidence of violence. Those are just two points that I wanted to add to what you said in your great analysis about the applicants. I don't know if you have much information, but we don't have at our level. 

Alyssa: It is very interesting because we noticed consistently in terms of the organisation that we mentioned before for regulations model is usually people who are presenting themselves as “sex workers”, but who don't necessarily have a lived experience of prostitution. Some of them are brothel owners, some have a few experiences of sexual exploitation online, which is also a form of sexual exploitation and we do advocate for it to be included within the French abolitionist model, but that's a whole other topic. However, it's not necessarily the same as being an undocumented migrant woman exploited in prostitution. We have this issue again with blurry terms such as “sex workers”, and probably this is something that happened in this case where, like Hema said, we don't have a lot of information about the applicants. 

LUBA: I have read the verdict and it contains compelling evidence about the harsh realities faced by those people, by the 261 or I don't know how many. I have seen the horrible pieces of evidence about violence by sex buyers, inability to filter violent sex buyers, pressure to have unprotected sex, being forced to hide from authorities, forced necessity to lower prices for prostitution. Indeed, what could make the lives of those miserable people better?

HEMA: You know, one point that is worth acknowledging is that all of these things that the applicants complain of, like an increase of violence by sex buyers, unprotected sex, sexual acts because they lose their power of negotiation now that sex buyers are penalised, et cetera, is that before the abolitionist legislation the law was actually criminalising persons in prostitution. So, we see a lot of reports in the case on behalf of the applicants that says that the law has increased violence towards them, but this violence is actually inherent to the prostitution system as the court actually acknowledges. It is violence that was there before the law, because when persons in prostitution were criminalised, they were actually literally hiding in the woods to not be arrested by the police, because we have to know that before the abolitionist legislation 2000 persons in prostitution per year were arrested on charges related to prostitution. This number after the law is zero. So, no person has been arrested for prostitution charges because the law has decriminalised persons in prostitution. There is that to really highlight, and of course, how the lives of persons in prostitution that face violence can be improved needs a very strong response from the states. 

We need to develop alternatives to prostitution. We need to develop exit pathways. Right now, as we mentioned, more than 1,200 women have benefited from it, but it's not enough. We need to allocate more exit pathways. The financial allowance, for example, in an exit pathway in France is not enough at all. It is 330 euros per month. It is not a sum that allows a person to live a dignified life in order to exit prostitution. Organisations on the ground are now battling this: increasing this allowance, increasing the implementation of the law. There is a need for a strong political bill to implement abolitionist legislation. There is a need to put prostitution and the overall feminist agenda, violence against women, on the priorities of the government. As long as these are not priorities, people will continue to be exposed to violence.

LUBA: What is the significance of this legal victory from a legal point of view and from a declarative point of view? 

Alyssa: From a legal point of view, first of all, if the court decided that the abolitionist model or at least decriminalisation of sex buyers is against the European Convention of Human Rights, France would have had to change its model and it would also have blocked other countries that are currently discussing this approach. Hema mentioned Germany and there is also a discussion in Spain. Actually, that's something that is mentioned in the decision, that right now the legal approach of France is a minority in Europe and in the world. However, there are ongoing discussions and there is an understanding that there is a possibility that more countries will join this model. If you want my opinion, this is the sense of history, the direction of history. Basically in the next 10, 20, 50 years I would expect that many more countries will adopt this model because it just makes sense. If we consider, and everyone does, those who are advocating for the legalisation of prostitution, even they say that there is violence in prostitution. Everyone feels so. It's obvious if we look at the consequences of the legalisation of prostitution in Germany, Belgium, Amsterdam, or other places in Europe or in the world where there is a lot of sex tourism, there is an increased number of women who are trafficked for sexual exploitation. Most of these women are, again, migrants and young women: 70 to 75 percent of women in prostitution in Europe are between 13 and 25 years old, 80 to 90 percent are migrant women. We have seen, for instance, after the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the explosion of Ukrainian women in prostitution in Berlin, I think it went up by 600%. 

We can see obvious evidence of the harm caused by the legalisation of prostitution and something that we did not address a lot during this meeting, because we have so many things to say, is again the impact on society and equality between women and men. I strongly believe that in a society where women are commodified, when they are sold with fries in restaurants or when they are exhibited in windows like objects or commodities - How would you raise your children to understand that a girl or a woman is worth as much as a man or boy, if you can just buy a woman for a few euros when you have your degree or when you are having your bachelor party or whatever occasion. The abolitionist model is not only the way to go in terms of protection of the most vulnerable groups in Europe and the world. It's also the way to go if we truly want to achieve equality between men and women in our societies. This is the significance of the decision. It is basically saying that yes, this is a legitimate approach, this is a proportionate approach. The arguments that are consistently brought by the opposition, such as - it is killing women, it's against the right to life, it is torture against women. These have been completely disregarded by the court and the court has, again, very importantly highlighted the violence in prostitution, that there is no obvious correlation between the abolitionist system and the violence in prostitution. The violence pre-exists the law. The violence is inherent to prostitution and this is key. Something else that is very interesting in the decision is that it states that the abolitionist approach and the general criminalisation of buyers of the sexual act has a positive impact for prostitution of minors because the clients, the proposed clients, are criminalised regardless of the fact that the victim is minor or not. We see that in the countries where there is a distinction, some countries forbid prostitution if the woman in prostitution is a girl, if she is a minor. However, the buyers always use as an excuse the fact that they didn't know that she was a minor, they thought she was over 18, and this is something that is very hard to prove. The generalisation of criminalisation of the buyers has actually a positive impact on the ending of the sexual exploitation of minors, which is very important in a context where this phenomenon is increasing. We see more and more minor boys who are pimping their minor girlfriends and more and more girls, unfortunately, in prostitution, also because of the digitalisation of prostitution, but again, this is another topic.

I don't want to be too long. We could stay forever to speak about all of this. This decision is extremely significant from a legal, social, and feminist perspective. 

HEMA: Very quickly, because you said everything that needs to be said. I think it's very important because this judgement sets a precedent. That means that the law in Sweden that has the abolitionist model or in Ireland, it puts an end to what I believe is a very big communication operation from pro-prostitution groups. They tried to instrumentalise the court in order to push for an agenda that considers that prostitution is worried that women are commodities, but the court reminds us of the very fundamentals of human rights, so France protected human dignity. France sought to fight trafficking for sexual exploitation with this legislation. The violence was there before the law, and I think it sets a real precedent in the fact that the court believes and upholds that criminalising sex buyers is actually compatible with the European Convention of Human Rights. This protects the legislation in all of the abolitionist countries in the Council of Europe and it ends any further challenge, at least at the human rights level of this legislation. 

LUBA: What do you think would happen if we would lose this legal battle? What would happen then? 

HEMA: It would have been a disaster. Honestly, as I mentioned, the judgement sets a precedent. For us, it sets a precedent because the abolitionist organisations, survivor led organisations and grassroots organisations also won in that case. But if the court actually ruled in favour of the applicants, that means that the French law would probably have to be revised and repealed. This would also mean that the pro-prostitution groups in many other countries in the Council of Europe could challenge the legislation of their countries. For example, in Sweden, the law could be challenged and the court would actually rule in favour of challenging and banning the abolitionist model. It would have had quite an effect overall on the council of Europe. It would have been really disastrous for persons in prostitution in Europe because it would send a strong signal saying that it's okay that they are commodified, that it's okay that men buy their sexual access to them. Also, it would have sent a strong signal for women overall saying that women can be commodities in Europe, women can be bought and sold by men and that there is no issue with men having a right to control and access the bodies of women.

LUBA: Okay, so it would have been a disaster but it didn't happen because we abolitionists won and rightfully so. Now from our perspective as global abolitionist activists, what is the next goal in the global fight against the sex industry? 

Alyssa: We're honestly on a good path. We mentioned at the beginning of this meeting the different victories that we have had in different democratic processes at EU level, UN level, and now we have a confirmation that legal challenges against the abolitionist model are baseless basically, so now the focus is at national level and dependant on the different contexts push for this model. In some contexts, it's more likely than others to achieve this victory in the next few years. For instance, we mentioned Germany because they have suffered so much from the horrible legalisation and they're coming back from it. There are other countries where there are strong feminist movements and this issue is rising. Then there are countries where the time is really up. Most of them are prohibitionist countries by default because this is the original system from decades ago. In these countries where the debate is not very present, they are influenced by important advancements such as the report from UN special rapporteur on violence against women. This creates a movement in these countries. So recently, the European Network of Migrant Women participated in a conference in Lebanon. It was the first Arabic conference about the abolition of prostitution and gathered women, social workers, activists, decision makers from Syria, North Africa, Iraq, Lebanon, and so on. Basically, it was to discuss these different models and issues that are very present in the prohibitionist countries where it's always been targeted. Feminist organisations in these countries see that very well and they also see the root of the sexual exploitation system that often goes back from and is deeply intertwined with a colonialist system and the colonisation in the country. So, there is an awareness that is rising in these countries about the issues. I see this as something very encouraging in the countries that have legalised prostitution there. They go back because they see the disastrous outcome in the countries that didn't have debates. They are raising awareness about it and in the countries where there is a strong feminist movement, discussions are already happening about it. So I do think in the 10 years to come, we will see very positive advancements for the abolitionist movement globally. 

LUBA: Well, Alyssa, do you think after the conference in Lebanon, do you think there is a chance to have the Nordic model somewhere in the Middle East or Northern Africa, except for Israel where it already exists? Might Lebanon be the next country or some other Middle Eastern country? I don't know if it will be the next country. 

Alyssa: I don’t know if it will be the next country, I don't have a crystal ball. But I do think that is, of course, a possibility, because nowhere in the world there is such victimisation of undocumented women, vulnerable women, than in countries where there is no social system, there is no protection, and on top of this there is no abolitionist model. Women are being violated. Their human rights are being violated to such an extent that I do not see an outcome where there is not a strong mobilisation that enables their protection in the world. I don't know about the timeline because, of course, there is strong opposition. We're speaking from a very positive perspective because that's also our role as advocates, but of course, the people who are defending the regulation of prostitution are the ones who have a lot of money because they are profiting from this very lucrative exploitation system and, of course there are barriers to abolitionist models everywhere. However, I do think that it's the one that makes sense. It's the one that is on the right side of history, and that's the one that will supersede in the end. Hema, do you want to add anything to this? 

HEMA: Oh, I think you said it all and you summed it up perfectly. I definitely agree that one of the big challenges in the next decade will be to invest all of our efforts in national advocacy to win abolitionist legislation at the domestic level. I hope we will see a change of legislation in countries that have adopted a regulatory approach, that we’ll see a real change towards the abolition of prostitution in Germany, but also in Australia. You know that in one of the states in South Australia, for example, there was a vote to put the abolition of prostitution in one of the chambers. This vote was lost by one vote, but this means that a basis has been set there, that people are being sensitised. South Australia has had a regulatory or full decriminalisation model for two decades now so it would be a real change in legislation and we can only hope for that, but I have to say that there was a huge abolitionist effort. Momentum this year, ever since the national resolution on prostitution in the EU followed by the UN special rapporteur report on violence, and then followed with this beautiful conclusion of the European court of human rights delivering a judgement in favour of France on behalf of its abolitionist legislation. So, we can also hope that we have many more years like that. 

LUBA: So far, the last jurisdiction that adopted the abolitionist model was Maine in the US last year and I am eager to see who will be the next. So thank you very much Alyssa and ENOM and Hema and CAP and all the feminist sex trade survivors and the human rights organisations who fought for this legal victory. 

HEMA: Thank you for the invitation. 

ALYSSA: Thank you so much for seeing us.  

LUBA: Thank you very much. 

HEMA: Thank you, Luba. Have a good night. 

LUBA: Bye Bye