Nearly one in six Danish men have admitted that they have paid for sex on at least one occasion in their lives.
This means that 15.5 per cent of males in the country, between 260,000 and 285,000 people, have been a sex customer at some stage. Thirty per cent of men say they have visited a prostitute just once, while nine per cent admitted to paying for sex more than 50 times. On average, men who have paid for sex visit their first prostitute between the age of 24 and 25.
There are around 3,200 prostitutes working in Denmark, with about half of them said to be immigrants. Around 85 per cent of these sex workers say they took up prostitution solely to make money, while 18 per cent claimed to have been physically abused by clients at least once over the past 12 months.
Fifty seven per cent of Danes are against banning prostitution, while 25 per cent are of the opinion that it should be illegal. When comparing the opinion of Danish men and women, more women support a ban. However, around 70 per cent of those questioned did not feel a ban would make any difference.
Some 10 per cent of prostitutes in Denmark start working before reaching the age of 18.