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“If we wish to be a society that elevates women, we must dispense with the lie that prostitution is in any way empowering.” — Alex Antic

Australia has the opportunity to protect women while keeping prostitution illegal, Senator for South Australia Alex Antic told his colleagues on Capital Hill this week.

“The Nordic Model has successfully reduced demand for prostitution and has made it more difficult to profit from it, as opposed to standard decriminalisation laws which only help the pimps and harm women,” Senator Antic told the Senate during his four-minute speech.

Senator Antic made the remarks in support of Liberal Party colleague, Nicola Centofanti MLC, who introduced the Summary Offences (Prostitution Law Reform) Amendment Bill 2023 to South Australia’s upper house last month.

Dr Centofanti’s bill is modelled on similar legislation in Sweden and Norway that has successfully reduced demand for prostitution in those nations, and that has come to be known as the Nordic Model.

“The evidence suggests that it would be instrumental in reducing the demand for prostitution in South Australia and could help women escape the cycle of exploitation, degradation and violence that is prostitution,” Senator Antic said in his speech.

Alex Antic Takes the Axe to Another Woke Idol

Senator Antic, who has been a courageous outlier in Canberra on topics like vaccine mandates, globalist infiltration in Canberra, political censorship, and the biological reality of sex, is equally unflinching in his denunciation of the woke idol of prostitution.

“Prostitution is exploitative, dehumanising, and associated with addiction and violence, yet many on the left view it as ‘empowering’,” he explains in the caption to his speech, published on YouTube.

Senator Antic touted as the strength of the Nordic Model its recognition that “prostituted women are overwhelmingly the victims of childhood abuse,” and are deserving of help to escape the lifestyle. He continued:

Prostitution is a scourge, yet many on the left argue for its decriminalisation. Any society that does so finds that the demand for sex buying increases along with the rates of sexual assault, human trafficking, violence, drug addiction, isolation and death, as all of these are inextricably linked to prostitution.

Prostitution is dehumanisation. It reduces the entire person to an object to be bought and sold. Prostituted women are often the victims of abuse in childhood and groomed into this lifestyle, feeling they have no other recourse.

The Harm Suffered by Women in Prostitution

The Nordic Model, which has also seen success in the nations of France and Israel, reverses the standard approach to prostitution. It decriminalises the selling of sex, safeguarding women who feel trapped, while criminalising the buying of sex and the profiting of it through pimping or managing a brothel.

In making his case for the Nordic approach, Senator Antic cited a report by Dr Ingeborg Kraus, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and an expert on psychotraumatology. “They are not the daughters of well-to-do families,” Dr Kraus wrote in his report. “No, women in prostitution are extremely vulnerable: Poverty, experiences of violence, dysfunctional families, marginalisation, vulnerability.”

Senator Antic also quoted statistics from a study that surveyed over 800 prostitutes from nine different countries. It found that 63% of the prostitutes surveyed had been sexually abused as children, 63% had been raped, 71% had been physically assaulted, and 75% had experienced past or current homelessness.

Prostitution Law Reform in South Australia

Introduced in South Australia’s Legislative Council on 30 August, Dr Centofanti’s Private Members Bill was welcomed and applauded by prostitution survivors present in the chamber, representing WEEP (Women Ending Exploitation by Prostitution) and CATWA (Coalition Against Trafficking in Women Australia).

“This crucial prostitution law reform is about protecting the most vulnerable in our society,” Dr Centofanti told the council. “For many women who find themselves desperate enough to enter the sex industry and engage in prostitution they do not do so by choice.”

She explained that “the fundamental innovation” of the Nordic Model is “that it targets demand” — and “it is the demand for sexual services that promotes the expansion of sex trade and sex trafficking”. She summarised:

Our laws should protect women, not criminalise them. Currently the only protection is afforded to the buyer — this Bill seeks to reverse this imbalance. 

At the centre of this important reform is a provision requiring the State Government of the day to support prostitution survivors as they move to leave the sex industry.

This provision will provide genuine support to these women who need help with accommodation, employment, and access to services like drug and alcohol rehabilitation.

We must provide a pathway out of prostitution for women who are desperate to change their lives.

A Transcript of Senator Antic’s Speech

A transcript of Senator Alex Antic’s speech in the Federal Senate appears below:

The Summary Offences (Prostitution Law Reform) Amendment Bill 2023, introduced by my friend and colleague, The Honorable Nicola Centofanti MLC, in the South Australian state parliament last week seeks to decriminalise the selling of sex but criminalise the buying of sex and the profiting of it through pimping, managing a brothel, and so on.

This approach is called the Nordic Model, and it has reduced the prevalence of prostitution in various countries, including Norway, Sweden, France and Israel.

The evidence suggests that it would be instrumental in reducing the demand for prostitution in South Australia and could help women escape the cycle of exploitation, degradation and violence that is prostitution.

Since its implementation in Sweden in 1999, the Nordic Model has successfully reduced demand for prostitution and has made it more difficult to profit from it, as opposed to standard decriminalisation laws which only help the pimps and harm women.

The Swedish government has helped many women exit prostitution by providing programs to help them overcome addiction and trauma, as well as find suitable housing and meaningful employment.

The strength of the Nordic Model is that it recognises that prostituted women are overwhelmingly the victims of childhood abuse, and may be considered victims deserving of help to escape this lifestyle.

Prostitution is a scourge, yet many on the left argue for its decriminalisation. Any society that does so finds that the demand for sex buying increases along with the rates of sexual assault, human trafficking, violence, drug addiction, isolation and death, as all of these are inextricably linked to prostitution.

Prostitution is dehumanisation. It reduces the entire person to an object to be bought and sold. Prostituted women are often the victims of abuse in childhood and groomed into this lifestyle, feeling they have no other recourse.

One excellent report on the Nordic Model’s efficacy by Dr Ingeborg Kraus says, “They are not the daughters of well-to-do families. No, women in prostitution are extremely vulnerable: Poverty, experiences of violence, dysfunctional families, marginalisation, vulnerability.”

These women are not empowered. They’re traumatised. They are not taking control of their lives or their bodies; they’re dominated by men.

To quote one study which surveyed over 800 prostitutes across nine countries, “63% were sexually abused as children, with an average of four perpetrators against each child. As adults in prostitution, 69% of these respondents had been threatened with a weapon, 71% had experienced physical assault, 63% had been raped, current or past homelessness averaged 75% across countries.”

In what other line of work are these experiences typical?

Furthermore, women trapped in brothels don’t have the option to decline sex buyers. Here’s what one former prostitute had to say about the notion that “sex work is real work”: “Consent relies on three preconditions: the freedom to choose your sexual partner, the freedom to select the nature of the sexual activity, and the freedom to choose the timing.”

Women in prostitution do not choose their clients. They do not choose their timing. And in most cases, they hardly have any freedom to determine the nature of the acts performed.

If we wish to be a society that elevates women, we must dispense with the lie that prostitution is in any way empowering.

Would you want a brothel operating in your local area? Or mega brothels, common in Germany, opening in the city centre? I suspect there are some in this building that would celebrate this, but the average Australian recoils at the notion.

If we promote the dim views of those who support so-called sex work, we should’t be surprised when the next generation of boys and girls grow up accepting the objectification of women.

I commend my colleague, the member Nicola Centofanti MLC. I support these efforts, and I urge the South Australian parliament to pass this bill.

Watch Senator Alex Antic’s Senate speech here.