Without the prohibition against to buy sexual services, new Norwegian police could have forgotten an essential equipment to possess cutting people trafficking
It was feared that the sex purchase act would lead to a change in market dominance, from street markets to indoor markets. Thus, we had to investigate the impact of the law on the activities in the indoor market.
Estimates of the size of the indoor market are considerably more uncertain than the estimates of size of the street market. This is due to the increasing rotation of the market. The prostitutes frequently travel across cities and countries and only stay at one place for a short term. Furthermore, it is common to have several advertisements connected to the same telephone number (in the sense of a call centre), to have more than one telephone number, and to have more than one advertisement on the same website.
This makes it difficult to provide a correct estimate of the size of the market. Still, according to informants in this branch of the prostitution market, prices are lower now than before the introduction of the prohibition, which indicates lower demand. More travelling both across borders and within the country, more advertising and somewhat lower prices, show that competition has become tougher after the law was implemented, and demand is lower. It was reported that prostitutes in indoor market prostitution have to work harder now in order to secure 2008 income levels.
Our interview which have cops in the biggest metropolises together with indicate that the new prohibition against to get sexual services has experienced an excellent normative impact into the people’s behaviour
Our analysis of the indoor market is that it has stabilised at a somewhat lower level than before the introduction of the law. Our best estimate – with a high degree of uncertainty – is a market reduction of 10-15% compared to the situation before the prohibition.
