”Women drug addicts have given up prostitution and instead sought care since the new law on making the buying of sex a crime took effect in Sweden in 1999,” said Anders Gripenlöf, detective inspector from Stockholm, at a seminar on trafficking in human beings for sexual exploitation, which was held in Stockholm on Sunday, arranged by the Left-wing Socialist Green Group in the Nordic Council.

“Women drug addicts have not managed to organise their business on the Internet or in any other way,” stated Gripenlöf and compared Stockholm to Oslo and Helsinki where prostitution is growing fast.

Marianne Eriksson, former MEP for the Left Party, pointed out that only about 800 women in Stockholm are affected by trafficking for sexual exploitation compared to about 15,000 in Finland.

Trine Lund Jensen from the project “Stop Trafficking” in Copenhagen spoke against legalisation of prostitution which she believes would increase new recruiting. She called for more convictions for trafficking – up to now only one sentence has been passed in Denmark.

“There is no distinction between prostitution and ‘trafficking’,” said Trine Lund Jensen. Simply put, trafficking is globalised prostitution.