The suspect methodology and ethics of Melissa Farley, Gunilla Eckberg, and the flaws in the so-called Nordic Model
she selects her interview candidates based on what she already wants to find and interviews them in the same fashion. Â While she admits that there is significantly more violence in street work, she nonetheless used street workers answers as applicable to sex work and full service across the board. Â
[320] In a 1998 five-country study on prostitution, Dr. Farley and her co-authors found âsignificantly more physical violence in street as opposed to brothel prostitutionâ. Furthermore, in a 2005 article, Dr. Farley wrote that âsome types of prostitution are associated with more severe harm than othersâ and that â[t]here is some research evidence suggesting that outdoor prostitution may subject women in prostitution to higher rates of physical violence [than indoor prostitution]â:
âProstitution Harms Women Even if Indoors: Reply to Weitzerâ (2005), 11 Violence Against Women 950 at pp. 954-55. In cross-examination, Dr. Farley stated that she is not aware of any study that shows that indoor prostitution is as risky, or riskier, than street prostitution.
[321] With respect to psychological violence, Dr. Farley deposed that there is no difference between extreme emotional distress or post-traumatic stress disorder (âPTSDâ) in indoor and outdoor prostitution. However, on cross-examination, she acknowledged the difficulty in directly linking PTSD with prostitution, as opposed to events unrelated to prostitution, such as childhood abuse.
http://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2010/2010onsc4264/2010onsc4264.html#_Toc270411950
thereâs more there, and one of the judges goes into greater depth about why her testimony was contradictory and problematic:
I found the evidence of Dr. Melissa Farley to be problematicâŚher advocacy appears to have permeated her opinions.  For example, Dr. Farleyâs unqualified assertionâŚthat prostitution is inherently violent appears to contradict her own findings that prostitutes who work from indoor locations generally experience less violence.  FurthermoreâŚshe failed to qualify her opinionâŚthat [post-traumatic stress disorder] could be caused by events unrelated to prostitution.  Dr. Farleyâs choice of language is at times inflammatory and detracts from her conclusions.  For example, comments such as, âprostitution is to the community what incest is to the family,â and âjust as pedophiles justify sexual assault of childrenâŚ.men who use prostitutes develop elaborate cognitive schemes to justify purchase and use of womenâ make her opinions less persuasive.  Dr. Farley stated during cross-examination that some of her opinions on prostitution were formed prior to her research, including, âthat prostitution is a terrible harm to women, that prostitution is abusive in its very nature, and that prostitution amounts to men paying a woman for the right to rape her.â  AccordinglyâŚI assign less weight to Dr. Farleyâs evidence.
Here is a short-but-scathing peer critique of another of Farleyâs studies:
This research on which this report is based was not grounded in empirical research ethics or a critical, objective method of producing knowledge. There appears to be no ethics approval or peer review in terms of the design and execution of the project.
There is no evidence that participants were asked for informed consent and no information is given regarding the ethical protocols that were followed. Similarly, though the survey methodology is described, details of the questions asked are not provided. It is standard practice that questionnaire instruments are included in an Appendix for scrutiny. The report was published in-house by the Womenâs Support Project. This is outside the normal academic peer review process and therefore it is not entirely surprising that the report is not of an acceptable academic standard.
And thatâs just the intro. Â
Here is even more [from a post by errrbecca]:
itâs a letter from dr calum bennachie, a member of the nzpc, laying out just some of melissa farleyâs ethics breaches and outright lies about the results of decrim in nz.
for example, farley claimed that decrim had seen a 400% increase in street-based sex work in auckland; however,
In the Committeeâs first report, the number of street-based sex workers in Auckland was estimated to be 360 (PLRC, 2005). An increase of 400% would mean there would now be 1,440 sex workers on Aucklandâs streets. The Committee considers that the research undertaken by the CSOM conclusively refutes an increase of this magnitude, with the 2007 figures estimating the number of Auckland street-based sex workers at 230.
(itâs worth pointing out that farleyâs source, mama tere strickland, is a controversial figure in nz sex work/lgbtq circles - there are a lot of allegations that she abused vulnerable street-based workers herself.)
or this quote, from a woman named colleen winn, who briefly worked with farley when she arrived in new zealand, but quit when she realised that farley was not adhering to ethics standards (nor had she consulted with local maori groups):
I will carry on with extracts from that letter: âOn the second day of my employment with Dr Melissa Farley, I discovered that her research project had not been seen or passed by any ethics committee in New Zealand. It was at this point that I withdrew my services as researcher and terminated my employment agreement. I have read and am aware of the ethics of psychologists working in New Zealand. I know these were not adhered to.â That is of concern in relation to this research.
[âŚ]
Finally, it is the opinion of Ms Winn that this study âwas not ethical, and the impact has done harm to those women and men who took part in it. It is for that reason that I am writing to the psychologists board of registration in California to lay a formal complaint regarding Melissa. I also believe that Melissa has committed an act of intentional misrepresentation of fact.â
the letter itself is 17 pages long (because thereâs so much to criticise about farleyâs methodology and haphazard approach to ethics!); the rest is appendices.
also, seriously? Melissa Farley called sex workers âhouse [n-word]sâ.
why would you give this woman any attention at all?
also, seriously? Melissa Farley called sex workers âhouse [n-word]sâ.
why would you give this woman any attention at all?
We found that the differences not only between, but also within, the Nordic countries are too great for there to be anything like a shared âNordicâ model â and that the case for their success is far more fraught than popular support would suggest. Only Sweden, Norway and Iceland have acts unilaterally criminalising the purchase of sex. Finland has a partial ban; Denmark has opted for decriminalisation. The âNordic modelâ, then, is in fact confined to only three countries.
These countriesâ laws prohibiting the purchase of sex are oftendepicted as ways to redistribute the guilt and shame of prostitution from the seller to the buyer of sex. However, this was by no means the only argument for their introduction. Contrary to many common feminist appraisals, these laws do not in fact send a clear message as to what and who is the problem with prostitution; on the contrary, they are often implemented in ways that produce negative outcomes for people in prostitution.
In truth, while these laws have attracted flattering attentioninternationally, the politics and practices associated with them are very complex. In particular, they are sometimes applied in conjunction with other laws, by-laws and practices specifically aimed at pinning the blame for prostitution on people who sell sex, particularly if they are migrants. For these and other reasons, the Nordic countriesâ approaches must be judged with caution â and none more so than the most popular example, the case of Sweden.
Why none more than Sweden? For one thing, Gunilla Eckberg, the Swedish expert on prostitution (never a prostitute herself, lived experience generally being a helpful requirement except when it comes to marginalised populations)forced a young woman to lie and to leave sweden for Norway to support some of her claims. Sound familiar? Â Should I link to Somaly Mam or do you already know about that?
When questioned about it she threatened the reporter questioning her: Â donât expect help from feminists or womenâs shelters if you are ever in danger. Â (What is up with feminists threatening people who question them?) Now Eckberg is involved in constructing the Canadian version, C-36.
More on the dangers of the Nordic Model
from a BC study on decreased sex worker safety caused by the nordic model:
âWhile rhetorically powerful and politically appealing, there is a fundamental conceptual inconsistency in policies that criminalise clients and purport to prioritise the safety of sex workers. In its original incarnation, the model of criminalising clients in Sweden was not designed to increase the safety of women in sex work; rather its goal was to eradicate prostitution and increase the safety of women who exit sex work,â the study said.
âIndeed, in Sweden, the government explicitly condoned the increased risks that marginalised sex workers were exposed to by arguing that any adverse effects on women who remain in sex work were outweighed by the message of the law that prostitution is not tolerated.
âThis empirical research clearly demonstrates that continued criminalisation and policing of clients, even in a context where sex workers no longer represent police targets, did not reduce the prevalence of sex work-related violence and profoundly impacted sex workersâ ability to negotiate their working conditions, health and safety, including protections from violence, abuse and HIV/STIs.â
Did you know that in New Zealand, where sex work is decriminalised, sex workers can and do go to the police when theyâre assaulted and robbed? mostly successfully! and the police canât assault them! Itâs not perfect but itâs way more than any other countryâs sex workers have.
I also have access to writings and testimony by first nations sex workers if you would like to read them but honestly I canât help but be skeptical. Â
a lot of feminists have made up their minds already that current sex workers, rather than being EXPERTS by dint of our lived experience and vested interest in OUR OWN LIVES AND SAFETY, are, rather, suspect; our interests are too closely involved, weâre not the lovely and invisible white middle-class neutral. Â
And if you, like the C-36 committee who ignored the sex workersâ testimonies, have already made up your mind that only certain sex workersâ voices count, then nothing Iâve said here matters. Â Itâs all the biased lies of the pimp lobby and you can keep right on talking over us.
And, to keep this all in one place so you donât get confused, here is the testimony of a first nations sex worker. Â So this is now not only not one personâs worthless blog post, it also has direct first person testimony. Â
I am an Indigenous woman, a domestic violence survivor and a sexual assault survivor. I am also a former sex worker. An Anishnaabe-kwe, I am originally from Northern Ontario, where I first started working as an escort. Eventually, I moved to Southern Ontario in search of more opportunities and I did so in the context of sex work. I am not a victim of human trafficking. But because the definition of a human trafficking victim is so broad, I would be considered a victim based on definition alone: young, Indigenous, female, travelling from the north to the south in search of more job opportunities, and working in the sex industry. In the context of Bill C-36, all sex workers would be considered victims irrespective of exploitative or coercive situations. Bill C-36 fails to differentiate between exploitative situations and non-exploitative situations, which is a complete contradiction to Bedford. For those individuals who do experience exploitation and coercion, diverting resources away from victims of exploitation toward anti-prostitution campaigns, like Bill C-36, does an injustice to the victims.
When I was sexually assaulted, I quickly learned, as a sex worker, I could not go to the police for protection. After this assault, which did not happen in the context of sex work, I went to the police to make a report. Yet, when the investigating officer asked what I did for work, I told her I was a sex worker. The officer then blamed my work for what happened even after I kept emphasizing that the assault did not happen in the context of sex work. Following this assault, I also asked to be referred to mental health counseling for what happened and my doctorâs office would not refer me until I lied about not doing sex work anymoreâI asked three times and by the third time, I realized I would not receive the referral unless my nurse believed I was not doing sex work anymore. Again, even though sex work had nothing to do with the assault.
I left the police station feeling yet again alienated and isolated due to the criminalization of my work and the inability to access to basic services like safety and protection. This idea that all prostitution is violence against women ignores these realities that I outlined above. More importantly, these arguments, that prostitution is male violence against women, ignore the fact that Indigenous sex workers can experience institutional and systemic violence. Bill C-36 also ignores this reality.
This is one reality of many that is often ignoredâthe story of those who have worked in the trade without coercion or exploitation. I was not trafficked but because of the definition of a human trafficking victim, I would be considered a victim. The alienation, isolation, and denial of services from the policing agencies and domestic violence organizations are re-traumatizing in itself. Sex workers deserve protection and access to services. Sex workers are persons too!
http://kwetoday.com/2014/07/12/we-are-persons-too-sexwork-c36-c36just/
I can keep it coming. I can give you different individual stories, multiple people multiple times a day, because it isnât just one personâs worthless blog post. Â Itâs a global movement of activists who are tired of your worthless misogynist actions, your lying in the face of any evidence to the contrary, and your complete disregard for the harm you cause. Â
We arenât the pimp lobby, we arenât brain washed, weâre just working class and woc and queer and crazy, weâre marginalised and you guys are being listened to now, but there are more of us than there are of you. And since itâs our safety and our lives on the line, we wonât give up.
