Nordic model approach to prostitution

The Nordic Criminal Model approach to sex work, also marketed as the end demand, equality model, neo-abolitionism, Nordic and Swedish model, is an approach to sex work that criminalises clients, third parties and many ways sex workers operate. This approach to criminalising sex work was developed in Sweden in 1999 on the debated radical feminist position that all sex work is sexual servitude and no person can consent to engage in commercial sexual services. The main objective of the model is to abolish the sex industry by punishing the purchase of sexual services. The model was also originally developed to make working in the sex industry more difficult, as Ann Martin (Head of Sweden's Trafficking Unit) said when asked about their role in developing the model - "I think of course the law has negative consequences for women in prostitution but that's also some of the effect that we want to achieve with the law... It shouldn't be as easy as it was before to go out and sell sex."

The model was first instituted in Sweden in 1999 and then into effect in Norway in 2009 as part of the Sex Buyer Law. As of 2019, eight countries have adopted the model in full or in part.

Conversely, organizations for the rights of sex workers, such as the Global Network of Sex Work Projects, as well as global human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and committee of the United Nations do not support the Nordic Criminal Model and call for the decriminalization of sex work. They state the Nordic Criminal Model relies upon stigmatizing pretenses that all sex work is abusive, and that prohibition such as those prescribed under the Nordic Criminal Model threaten the livelihoods and safety of sex workers.