The answer is no. The proponents of these laws see them as the answer to the “problem” of prostitution. Which is the problem with the laws, they require an iron-clad assumption that absolutely all SW is a social ill.
It’s been the law of the land in Sweden since 1999. Quite a few countries have followed along, and somebody please correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t know of anyplace that’s done this and later reversed it or moved towards decriminalizing.
Ann Martin, head of Sweden’s “trafficking unit” had this to say:
“I think of course the law has negative consequences for women in prostitution but that’s also some of the effect that we want to achieve with the law. It shouldn’t be as
easy as it was before to go out and sell sex… For me, a woman who goes into prostitution is not a happy woman, something happened to her. If you’re a normal woman with a normal upbringing, it’s not a step you take.”
Sounding incremental yet? I could go on and on proving it but everyone here hates that.
Google it. The more you read about it the more you’ll see that the entire purpose of these laws is to eliminate the sex industry; and that the driving theory behind them is that all sex work always and only occurs on a continuum of male violence against women.
Keywords for your searches: Nordic model, Swedish model, asymmetrical enforcement model, equality model, purchaser criminalization, it’s all pretty much the same thing under different names.
I will quickly note that Ireland passed similar laws and a couple years later a study found that violent crime against prostitutes had almost doubled. That study concluded that the best way to prevent this violence is full decriminalization.