Prostitution as non-labour leading to forced labour. Vagrancy and Gender in Sweden and Stockholm, 1919–1939

Abstract

ABSTRACT As in many countries, the inter-war years in Sweden were a turbulent period involving economic crisis, ensuing depression, unemployment and political instability, but also cultural change, emancipation, the granting of the right to vote for women, increased social rights and social welfare. During this period of change, legal remnants from the Middle Ages, such as vagrancy legislation, were in place to control specific parts of society. The legislation stated that people without means of sustenance who lived in a ‘manner … that is hazardous to public security, order and decency’ could be arrested and sentenced to forced labour. Although they generally decreased in number, sentences of forced labour continued to be enforced, and women were almost exclusively sentenced on suspicion of prostitution. When women’s labour was discussed during the inter-war period prostitution was discussed as moral contagion, rather than as a way to support oneself. In practice, in the Stockholm area, vagrancy legislation was used as an arbitrary method to partly uphold the regulation of prostitution, which was abolished in 1919. Sentences to forced labour decreased over time, partly through legislative changes. Still, when Europe was on the verge of war, there were still a handful of women and men who were sentenced to forced labour specifically because of their way of life.