Call Girls at Nursing Home Fuel Debate in Denmark (Update1)
By Christian Wienberg

April 16 (Bloomberg) -- When a male resident at Kildegaarden nursing home in Denmark made an indecent sexual proposal to a member of the staff, the home's director, Inger Marie Kristensen, told a nurse to telephone for a prostitute.

``There was a considerable change in his demeanor after the escort girl had paid him a visit,'' Kristensen said in an interview. ``We do this for our clients just as we offer them other services that they need as human beings.''

Kildegaarden, located 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of Copenhagen in Skanderborg, has about 100 residents, including victims of Alzheimer's disease and strokes. Nurses arranged visits by call girls three times in the past three years.

While Welfare Minister Karen Jespersen says Denmark's 98 municipalities are free to let nurses call prostitutes, some lawmakers are stepping up efforts to pull women out of the profession, which has been legal in the country since 1999.

``I don't want to contribute to keeping this industry in business,'' said Mie Bergmann, an elected official with the Social-Liberal Party in Skanderborg, who led a failed vote to end prostitution at Kildegaarden.

Denmark is doubling spending to 80 million kroner ($17 million) over the next three years to get women out of the sex trade. The government estimates that 6,000 women work in the profession in the Scandinavian country of 5.5 million.

`Discriminating'

Copenhagen forbids contact with call girls in nursing homes. Other towns don't publicize their policies.

In a poll posted last week on the Web site of national broadcaster DR, 46 percent of 1,982 readers said nursing home staff should be able to organize visits by prostitutes, 45 percent were against the practice and 8 percent were undecided. A margin of error wasn't given.

Denmark's Society for Women started a campaign in March called ``Take a Position, Man'' urging men to sign up at a Web site to protest against prostitution. So far, 1,887 women and men, including the editor-in-chief of newspaper Politiken Thoeger Seidenfaden, have signed.

The Copenhagen-based Danish Sex-worker Association was established last month in a bid to protect the industry. The leader, who gives her name only as Susanne on the association's Web site, said prostitutes ``often'' visit Danish elderly homes.

``To forbid vulnerable customers from obtaining the services of a legal business is discriminating, both against the sex workers and the people who need help to get the services,'' Susanne said in an e-mailed response to questions.

Ban Proposal

An increasing number of Danes oppose prostitution, a December 2006 opinion poll by newspaper Politiken showed. Forty- two percent of 1,180 said prostitution was unacceptable compared with 25 percent four years earlier. A majority of 54 percent approved of prostitution, compared with 66 percent in 2002.

``I don't want a society where some people are used as a vehicle for others to live out their desires,'' Ozlem Sara Cekic, a Danish Turkish member of parliament for the Socialist People's Party, said in comments posted on her Web site.

The Danish People's Party, which backs the minority Liberal- Conservative government in parliament, said earlier this year it may join opposition lawmakers to form a majority in favor of a ban on the sex trade.

The parliamentary committee for social affairs announced this year that it's planning a trip to neighboring Sweden to investigate how that country has handled legislation it passed in 1999 that criminalized paying for sex.

For Kristensen, residents at the Kildegaarden home have rights under the current laws, no matter how old they are. And Danes are getting older. According to the Danish government Web site, on Jan. 1, 2007, 715 people were 100 years of age or more.

``Basically this is a matter of respecting the elderly and their needs,'' she said.