Stockholm - A new Swedish law making it illegal to buy sex has failed to scare prostitutes or their clients off the streets and is actually protecting pimps, police said yesterday. Six months after the law came into force, the number of prostitutes and clients was back to normal in the three main cities - Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo.
"The law has been toothless. It is almost impossible to charge anyone for buying sex," police spokesman, Mr Lars-Gunnar Bakemyr, told the TT news agency.
The law was introduced in January to stem an influx of eastern European women coming to Sweden for the sex trade. But so far only two men have been charged with buying sexual services.