A new law passed in France that makes it an offence to pay for sex and moves the punishment from prostitutes to clients, has been hailed as revolutionary by activists who hope it will help stamp out sex trafficking.
Under the law, passed on Wednesday, those who pay for sex will face fines of up to 1,500 euros ($1,700) for the first offence, and up to 3,750 Euros ($4,300) for subsequent offences. They may also have to attend a prostitution awareness course.
France follows Northern Ireland, Canada, Sweden, Norway and Iceland in introducing laws designed to punish the client without criminalizing those who have been driven into prostitution.
“That’s a revolution in France because they’ve been criminalised for the last 76 years,” Gregoire Thery, secretary general of the French non-profit Mouvement du Nid, which works with men and women in prostitution, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on Thursday.
