New law banning advertising of prostitution services easy to circumvent

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New legislation in Finland is expected to push advertisements for prostitution services to foreign web sites. The changes, which took effect on Sunday, criminalise the advertising of paid sex services, seeing it as a form of procurement.
      The changes mean that Finnish newspapers and web sites will have to stop publishing prostitutes’ advertisements. Helsingin Sanomat and a number of other newspapers voluntarily stopped publishing such advertisements a few years ago.
      Experts predict that information on prostitution services in different parts of Finland will soon be available as easily as before on web sites based in other countries.
     
The amendments that took effect on Sunday also include a new category of crime: aggravated procurement, which carries tougher punishments than ordinary procurement. Police will also be allowed to request court permission for wiretaps in cases of suspected procurement.
      The law also increases the punishment for the purchase of sex services from minors, and sees the accommodation of prostitutes as a form of procurement. The laws on child pornography now carry an age limit of 18 years, and the maximum punishment for possession of child pornography has been increased from six months to a full year.
     
Johanna Sirkiä, chairwoman of SALLI, or United Sex Professionals in Finland, fears that the measures could increase the dangers faced by prostitutes.
      She says that prostitutes might feel a need to avoid contacts with police more than before, for fear that they may be subpoenaed to testify in the trial of the proprietor of a web site suspected of procurement.
      Sirkiä sees paralells with rules that came into effect in 1999, whensuspicion of prostitution became a basis under which a foreigner could be refused entry to Finland.
      "Foreign prostitutes no longer dared contact police, and it was easier for foreign criminal organisations to pressure them to work for them." Sirkiä fears that more Finnish prostitutes could find themselves working for organised gangs of pimps.


Links:
  SALLI - United Sex Professionals of Finland

Helsingin Sanomat