Opinion piece: “Pimps and hoes” is not festive – it’s a nightmare

This weekend, some of Sweden’s biggest influencers flocked to the “Pimps and hoes” theme party. Contributing to the normalization of prostitution in this way is nothing more than a collective failure of the celebrity elite and an insult to all the women and children who are vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation.

This weekend, a party was organized on the theme “pimps and hoes” where some of Sweden’s biggest influencers, who together have over a million followers, dressed up and partied carefree.

But if you have any insight at all into what it means to be a victim of prostitution, it is no party, it is a nightmare. A nightmare millions of women and children live in every day, with men lined up ready to commit abuse. We wonder if any of those who were there, or who made cheerful comments on social media, actually know what it means to be a victim of paid abuse in the form of prostitution, human trafficking or other forms of commercial sexual exploitation?

Trafficking in human beings is now ranked as the world’s third most lucrative crime category after drugs and arms. This form of crime is now overtaking organized arms and drug trafficking in scope for one simple reason:

Women’s and children’s bodies can be reused over and over again. Ten to fifteen times a day.

Their bodies are reviewed on forums where men rate the “body they bought”, like a commodity in any market. The money goes to pimps and organized crime who together make billions selling the bodies of women and children. For the majority of women and children who are trafficked, PTSD, mental health problems, physical and sexual injuries and lifelong trauma await them.

An international study shows that two out of three people exploited in prostitution have been threatened with weapons and three out of four have been beaten. And this is in addition to the sexual abuse they are subjected to in prostitution. In Sweden, 80 percent of those subjected to prostitution have also been subjected to other crimes or pressure in connection with the paid abuse.

These abuses also affect thousands of children and young people around the country today. Child10 is working to eradicate commercial sexual exploitation of children and our latest Sifo survey shows that there is one child in every ninth grade and high school who has been subjected to paid abuse.

For children subjected to commercial sexual exploitation, the average age of first exposure is 15.7 years. The majority of these children have previously been subjected to oral, vaginal or anal abuse. These children are also most likely to be among the followers of these celebrities.

Spreading the image of the ‘happy hooker’ and the ‘cool pimp’ contributes to the normalization of men selling and buying women and children. It is portrayed as something harmless and festive when instead it only plays right into the hands of ruthless organized crime.

Let’s state once and for all what should be obvious: being repeatedly sexually abused several times a day does not make you happy, it destroys and degrades your physical and mental health.

Therefore, this is nothing but a collective failure among the celebrity elite where the message sent to children and young people who see and hear about the party is; it is the guy who owns the girl and puts a value and price on her. That value lies entirely in her body and how it pleases men. Until we adults understand this, we have no chance of teaching our children that everyone has a right to their own body and that sex without consent and reciprocity is an assault.

In reality, ‘pimps and hoes’ have two other names: perpetrators and victims. It’s not a party any of us should want to attend.

Jacob Flärdh, Secretary General, Child10
Gabriella Kärnekull Wolfe, Ombudsman against commercial sexual exploitation of children
Ida Östensson, Head of Communications and Advocacy, Child10
Kajsa Rietz, Head of Operations, Nova House

Read the article on Expressen debatt.