Nordic Model

In anti-prostitution feminism, the Nordic Model (previously Swedish Model) refers to a legal system in which those who prostitute others (pimps) and those who buy sex (punters) are criminalized, whereas those who are prostituted or who prostitute themselves are decriminalized. Further, the model emphasizes the importance of offering social and economic support to those who would otherwise have no other choice than to prostitute themselves, due to economic and/or mental health related problems such as addiction.

The Nordic Model is unique in that it views prostitution inherently as a crime committed against the prostituted. The idea stems from the feminist analysis of prostitution as a form of economic exploitation and coercion of women into allowing men direct access to their bodies for nothing other than the men's carnal pleasure. In many instances, the victims of prostitution can also be transsexuals, men, or even children, although the sex buyers are nearly always men.

Further, pimps are often known to hold the prostituted in slave-like conditions, in which they barely receive a share of the earned money, and are routinely abused not only by punters but also by the pimp. An even more extreme version of this is the combination of human trafficking with forced prostitution, in which women and girls are traded like slaves for the sole purpose of being forced into prostitution by the buyer. The links between the market created by punters willing to buy sex, forced prostitution, and human trafficking form an additional motivation for the Nordic Model, which is to end the demand for prostituted people. As the buying of sex is criminalized, the demand for prostitution in a region decreases, and as such pimps and human traffickers lose the motivation to risk getting caught as their earnings decrease.

The Nordic Model is routinely criticized by "pro-sex work" activists, who hold the free choice of a comparatively privileged person to willingly do prostitution above the safety and rights of those who inevitably suffer under prostitution when prostitution is tolerated by society and consequently the demand for it increases.