[7] The main objective of the model is to abolish the sex industry and the suffering it causes by punishing the purchase of sexual services and providing ressources for the survivors of prostitution.

The committee further stated that public opinion had changed more in comparison to that in Denmark and Norway, and that 70% of the population were in favour of the ban on the purchase of sexual services in Sweden.

[21] The committee added a caveat that as prostitution and trafficking are complex issues often carried out in secret and surveys are often limited in scope, any data should be treated with caution.

[22] A 2014 study examining the efficacy of the law concluded that it had "failed in its abolitionist ambition to decrease levels of prostitution, since there [was] no reliable data demonstrating any overall decline in people selling sex.

[11] A government report found that there was no evidence that violence against sex workers had increased, and that the street prostitution market fell to 45–60 % relative to the levels before the law was introduced.

[43] In 2009, after opinion polls indicated that 70% of the population supported banning the purchase of sexual services, paying for sex was outlawed.

Trials are often held privately without there being any effect on the reputation of the man being tried for buying sex, and the fines that are given out are also comparatively low.

[47] Women from Eastern Europe, the Baltics, and South America are subjected to sex trafficking in Iceland, often in nightclubs and bars.

"[53] The research conducted has been criticized as faulty by Julie Bindel as it gathered data from a website run by convicted brothel owners.

[54] Canada passed the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA), a version of the Nordic model law in 2014.

[55] Researchers at the Centre for Gender & Sexual Health Equity found that implementation of the law caused prostitutes to experience "significantly reduced access to critical health and sex worker/community-led services"; the authors concluded that full decriminalization would best provide labour and human rights to sex workers.

"[71] Other academics argue that there is insufficient evidence that the Nordic model actually reduces demand, and that they simply push prostitution underground through the black market.

In 2016, Amnesty International released a 100-page report stating that Nordic model laws caused sex workers to face ongoing risk of police harassment, client violence, discrimination, eviction, and exploitation.

[11] Figures provided by UglyMugs, an app where sex workers can confidentially report incidents of abuse and crime, showed that reports of abuse and crime against prostitutes greatly increased after Ireland's adoption of the Nordic model approach to prostitution by criminalizing the purchase of sexual services.

"[73] In response to this study Nordic Model Now, a British not-for-profit company describing itself as feminist, published a criticism of its methodology and conclusions.

[74] Meanwhile in 2019, a total of 261 migrant, queer, and women sex workers in France took the French government to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), saying that their fundamental human rights had been violated due to the adoption and enforcement of the new 2016 law, which Médecins du Monde stated had forced them to work in secluded, dangerous locations after the law criminalised their clients.

[76] On 31 August 2023, the ECtHR declared the complaint of the 261 sex workers against France's Nordic model law admissible for a hearing.

[76] On the 25th of July 2024 the court ruled that the French laws are not in breach of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human rights.