Talk:Prostitution in Norway

Lexicon

Someone deleted part of the section Prostitution in Norwegian. Please don't do that - knowing the correct terms are vital tools in searching the Norwegian literature. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 20:17, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

And again - please take the trouble to read the talk page --Michael Goodyear (talk) 20:06, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

If you want anything translated from Swedish, Norwegian (either Bokmål or Nynorsk), or Danish: please feel free to ask me. (I understand all better than English). But, please, please don´t put all those (unsourced) words into the article again. You don´t have any idea about how huge the problem of trafficked/foreign prostitutes is in Scandinavia, do you? Cheers, Huldra (talk) 20:15, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not accept censorship, sorry --Michael Goodyear (talk) 20:57, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Huldra's removal of the introduction which is mostly a dictionary. I have done a similar removal previously. Iselilja (talk) 21:04, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I see User:Sjö have thankfully reverted, both here and on Prostitution in Sweden‎. As I told Mgoodyear on his talk-page: that he knows this, and thinks it is important, and believe it is important: that is simply not good enough. You have to show that some WP:RS finds these words relevant. That´s the rule of the game, anno 2014. (I edit mostly in the Israel/Palestine aera: there you cannot insert anything if it lacks WP:RS.) Cheers, Huldra (talk) 21:24, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Temporarily mothballed below for the record. As I have explained elsewhere - many of the source documents referred to are in the original language, and a lexicon is an important tool in searching the literature for non native speakers. I have yet to see a rational explanation for removal, other than sourcing. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 16:54, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Prostitution in Norwegian

Prostitution is prostitusjon in Norwegian, and a prostitute is a prostituert, who sells sexual services (seksuelle tjenester). Sex work is sexarbeid and sexworker, sexarbeider. Norwegian sex workers make a clear distinction between these terms, seeing prostitution as a derogatory word (nedlatende ord). Other terms used by sex workers include gledespike (fille de joie), or hjelpepleier (health worker).

An escort is a eskortepike, escort services eskortetjenester and an escort agency eskortebyrå. A brothel is a Bordell or more colloquially horehus, and apartment prostitution leilighetsprostitusjon, or if in the worker's home bopel. Street prostitution is Gateprostitusjon. Areas known for prostitution (red light districts) are horestrøkene. High class prostitution is høyklasseprostitusjon, child prostitution barneprostitusjon and sexual tourism sex-turisme. Prostitution research is Prostitusjonsforskning.

Derogatory words for sex workers in Norwegian include skjøge, ludder and hore. Hore (whore) is derived from the Old Norse hóra with roots in Indo-European kā which means "light". A pimp is hallik, and a client is a horekunde (whore customer). Men who sell sexual services to women are gigoloer (gigolos). Victims of coerced prostitution or trafficking (trafficking-ofre) are referred to as sex-slaver.

Status

I upgraded the status as the page has undergone considerable expansion, and the topic is a major political one in Norway currently after the election, and as a key part of the 'Nordic Model', internationally --Michael Goodyear (talk) 20:18, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Biased article

It is impossible to read the article now without drawing the conclusion that it is biased, especially against the 2009 law. Some examples:

• 1: In the "2014_Evaluation"-part, one sentence partly summarise a 190(!) page long official report, then the rest, about 9/10, are criticism of the same evaluation report, often based on short newspaper articles. This, when the evaluation report has a "main findings" (on page 11) which we can quote fully (this is in the public domain):

"Main findings

The ban on purchasing sexual services has reduced demand for sex and thus contribute to reduce the extent of prostitution in Norway. The enforcement of the law, in combination with the laws against trafficking and pimping, makes Norway a less attractive country for prostitution based trafficking than what would have been the case if the law had not been adopted. Furthermore, the economic conditions for prostitution in Norway are reduced following the implementation of the law. These effects are in line with the intentions of the law and are thus not considered as unintended side effects. This report does not find any evidence of more violence against prostitutes after the ban on buying sex entered into force.

The law has reduced the market for prostitution in Norway

There are no national estimates of the size of the prostitution market after 2010. There is also large uncertainty with regard to previous market estimates and other estimates of the market today, especially with regard to indoors prostitution where one person may have more than one unique advertisement online. Despite these data limitations, there is a clear declining trend in the market after the law was implemented. The market was at its lowest immediately after the introduction of the law and has later stabilised at a lower level than before 2009. The most profound changes are found in the Oslo street prostitution market. Here, systematic field observations show that the size of the market today has stabilised at a level of 40-65 percent of the market before the law"

So, instead of reporting the result from the broad evaluation (that Oslo street prostitution is down), the article cherry-picks news-paper articles (like this one) which suggest that that it is the same level as before the ban.

• 2: The article now carries statements from activist sites, like Pro Sentret, without qualifications. We should always write "according to", when we refer to articles from activists.
• 3: the article presently have some totally fringe non-notable figures. When someone even edit-wars to include an obvious joke (made in the Swedish disreputable tabloid Aftonbladet, no less: Gratis bordeller öppnas i Norge, I´m wondering what they are doing editing this article. (The non-notables jokers behind it has long since admitted "it was a "PR-jippo" )
• At the moment, the article looks as if it is written by a Pro centre activist. I´m placing an unbalanced tag on this article until these issues are addressed. Cheers, Huldra (talk) 19:16, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

I am pretty sure that Pro Sentret has not contributed to this, and it gives prominence to Kvinnenfronten's point of view. It is usually better to add the POV that you think is missing than to tag the page, but I will take a closer look. However nearly all the commentary on the evaluation has been negative (very different to Sweden), and it was not an official report unlike the 2004 one. It is seriously flawed methodologically. Thanks for adding the Gratis bordeller rebuttal - I was looking for it. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 04:09, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

On such a divisive issue as sex work, it is almost impossible to write anything without someone seeing a POV issue. For instance it could be argued that the above criticism reflects a POV because it appears to advocate an uncritical attitude toward an evaluation that has been plagued with problems since its inception. Which does not mean that this section cannot be improved. I am sure the debate will continue untill the stortingsmelding is complete. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 21:50, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

I am happy to make some changes to meet your concerns. The responses are not cherry picked. There was intense media coverage both before and after, and the section is representative of that. Media coverage either (i) simply reported (uncritically) that the law was a 'success', or (ii) reported the responses of the key players, the political parties, Kvinnenfronten, advocacy groups, sex workers, and academics. Predictably nobody changed their mind. Actually the key criticism is not the media, but comes from that of Brunovskis and Skilbrei, who are not connected with pro Sentret. In evaluating evidence one looks for confirmatory reports, and the methodology. Both are lacking and many reports contradict the evaluation which lacked the resources, terms of reference and expertise to answer the question. The key thing is that it attempted to measure the unmeasurable, and even if one accepts the findings, attributing any observed changes to the law is fraught with hazard. Reports of prevalence since 2009 have bounced around all over the place and are largely guesstimates. Similar changes have been observed in most countries that did not enact such legislation. The driving force was to get rid of Nigerian women from major Oslo streets, and it may well have achieved that - but where did they go? Evaluating demand is even more difficult. So one look at the findings, and then see why so many people have difficulty believing them. This section has to be read in conjunction with the subsection under 'Politics of Prostitution'.

Pro Sentret may be considered activist but it also does credible research. The argument for adding 'according to' can be applied to all statements equally.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 22:22, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

It would be helpful if you would identify which statements require qualification and which do not and why. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 00:30, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

No, it is not an edit war, I am merely following WP guidelines in asking for a discussion prior to controversial edits. However this was reported much more widely than Aftonbladet, as you know. if you wish to describe Aftonbladet as disreputable, you should do so on the WP page - I have linked to it so readers can follow that. Also it was not a joke, maybe satire would be a better descriptor, but it was also designed to stimulate debate on one of the many anomalies in the law (taxation is another), and it succeeded. Who are the other fringe figures you object to? I have modified the text to make this clearer.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 00:54, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

There have been 50+ edits since the POV tag was added and no further discussion here for the best part of 4 years. Can we assume the issue is resolved the tag can be removed? --John B123 (talk) 19:31, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Criticism is needed

Why is there an advocacy section but no criticism section? Xanikk999 (talk) 23:36, 31 January 2019 (UTC)