The EU’s approach to prostitution: Explaining the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of the EP’s neo-abolitionist turn

Abstract

The aim of this article is to offer a comprehensive analysis of the European Union’s neo-abolitionist approach to prostitution, drawing on the literature that addresses the global rise of neo-abolitionism and using key concepts developed by the gendered approaches to the European Union in order to adapt them to the particular context of the European Union. To do so, the article undertakes a critical frame analysis of the European Union’s violence against women policies, as it is in such policies that prostitution has been most thoroughly addressed, in combination with an analysis of the nature and evolution of the European Union’s gender equality policies more broadly. The article contends that the emergence of prostitution on the gender equality agenda of the European Union and the adoption of an explicit neo-abolitionist approach by the European Parliament can be explained by the coalescence, in the mid 1990s, of three key factors: Sweden’s accession to the European Union and the consequent positioning of Swedish femocrats, keen on exporting Sweden’s neo-abolitionist agenda to the European Union, in central positions of power within European Union institutions; the crystallisation of a robust neo-abolitionist velvet triangle through the creation of strong institutional links between the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Women’s Lobby, which remained unchallenged; and the gradual development of a hybrid model of gender equality in the European Union which resonates with neo-abolitionist ideals at the same time as neo-abolitionism itself was increasingly associated to gender equality as a fundamental European Union value.

The Scylla State. A gendered understanding of the experiences of marginalised women in the United Kingdom

“…This again indicates the presence of duality and dual punishment, where punitivism is meted out and justified by the individualisation of histories of deprivation and trauma, and where victimhood is sullied by assumptions of choice and deviance. This is evident in neo‐abolitionist sex work policies, which justify control and coercion and devalue and punish those who do not successfully submit to this Rubio Grundell (2021).…”

Queer theory, sex work and the European Union: on the constitutive exclusion of sex work from the European Union’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersexual policies

“…The EU began to develop its legal and policy framework on LGBTI rights in the mid-1980s, first through the pioneering role of the European Parliament (EP) and strategic litigation before the EU's Court of Justice (CJEU), then through the non-discrimination framework enabled by the Amsterdam Treaty, and finally through a focus on same-sex partnerships and parenting and protection from hate (Eigenmann, 2022). In parallel, the EU has adopted an explicit neo-abolitionist approach to prostitution, which defines it as a form of violence against women and a violation of women's human rights, actively advocating for client criminalisation (Rubio Grundell, 2021). In turn, both LGBTI and sex worker organisations have developed at the EU level; however, until recently, they have operated fundamentally in isolation.…”