Socio-legal Aspects of the Legal Prosecution of the Criminal Offence of Abuse of Prostitution in Slovenia

Abstract

The article is based on an empirical socio-legal analysis of criminal files in prosecuting prostitution abuse under Article 175 of the Slovenian Criminal Code ("KZ-1", 2012). The authors analyse how three theoretically based approaches to dealing with sex work developed by Ostergren-repressive, restrictive and integrative-are reflected in the criminal prosecution of this crime. The authors begin by outlining the legal and sociological theoretical foundations of the approach to prostitution in Slovenia. Furthermore, by analysing the casefiles, they demonstrate how law enforcement authorities and courts establish the existence of "abuse" and "exploitation" of prostitution, how they treat the third-party participation in it, how the vulnerability of sex workers is treated, and how the existence of consent or non-consent is considered before the courts. The authors examine the files for moral arguments, stereotyping, and stigmatisation, as well as references to occupational risks in the field of sex work and sex workers' rights. The focus is also on whether there are any differences in the approaches of the police, the prosecution and courts, that can be seen in the files. In the concluding part, the authors justify which of the three approaches-repressive, restrictive or integrative-in which the Slovenian model can be classified, given the characteristics of the criminal prosecution of prostitution abuse in Slovenia, and argue that the characteristics of the restrictive model, with elements of both repressive and integrative, prevails.