On BBC news a couple of hours ago, they mentioned that a UK government 'task force' support adopting Sweden's policy of legalising the supply of prostitution but strongly criminalising the demand. I'd be surprised if we haven't heard Sweden's policy here before, but to see the BBC promoting it and the UK gov supporting it really scared me.

I wanted to ask a few questions about it (at the bottom of my post).

To me, this idea seems insane for many reasons:

Firstly (and the weakest point), for drugs we criminalise the suppliers far more harshly than the users. This makes sense practically, the suppliers are creating the problem to a far greater extent than the users. One drug user is one drug user, one drug dealer enables many users. From a practical point of view, reducing supply is a lot easier than reducing demand. Demand has always and will always be there, but supply can be controlled.

Secondly (a better point), is that prostitution doesn't harm anyone. This is where I'll leave the drug analogy because while some drugs sometimes harm the user and/or others, prostitution does not do either. Forced prostitution is excluded because it is rape, and therefore already a separate crime that doesn't need to be made illegal because it already is. In fact, prostitution is a mutually-benefitial deal.

Finally, "Sweden do it" doesn't seem like a good reason alone to do anything. We should do what's right and what works, not just copy other countries.

So, does anyone have any idea why the UK gov and BBC would be in favour of this? In fact, why would anyone be in favour of this? Also, what effects has it had in Sweden? And does anyone have any more counter arguments against it? We can pool the counter arguments here in case any of us have to argue against this crazy policy.