Due to circumstances beyond our control, we have taken the difficult decision to cancel this event. We apologise for inconvience.

Children are not OK. The Netflix series, Adolescence, shone a light on the online radicalisation of boys by the ‘manosphere’ while scandals around so-called grooming gangs in the north of England have raised public anxiety about the sexual exploitation of girls.

But missing from much of the discussion of these trends is the role of pornography and prostitution, and the normalisation of these practices in our culture. We are grooming children to believe that a girl’s main role in life is to be sexy and that boys are more important than girls.

Social media amplifies these trends: girls are sold the lie that monetising their image and sexuality is an easy and safe way to fame and fortune; boys learn that to become a man they must act out the brutal practices they’ve seen in violent, misogynistic porn.

Stuck in the middle, is it any wonder so many children and young people are struggling.

This conference will take a critical look at how the sex industry is hoodwinking all of us to believe the unbelievable and discuss what we, as adults, can do to rewrite the script.

Venue

Central Bradford. The exact details of the venue will be communicated to ticket holders by email shortly before the event.

Tickets

Ticket prices are on a sliding scale from £3 to £25, with £10 being the standard price. Please select the ticket price that best matches your financial circumstances.

If you want to come but cannot afford a concessionary ticket, please email info@nordicmodelnow.org and we will do our best to provide you with a free ticket.

Programme and workshops

The day will consist of panel discussions in the main hall and smaller interactive workshops on related themes. We will announce more details soon.

Space in the workshops is limited and will be allocated on a first come, first served basis. There will be plenty of space in the main hall for everyone else.

A few workshops will be looking at the practical impacts of porn and the sex trade on our personal lives. These have different impacts and meanings for men vs. women and so we are offering separate workshops for men and women. The aim is that everyone feels free to discuss the issues honestly and not be inhibited by potential reactions from those of the opposite sex. We ask that everyone respects this. However, most of the sessions will be open to all regardless of sex or gender. For more about this, see Why women-only and men-only workshops.

Practical stuff

Food and drink: In order to keep costs to a minimum, we will not be providing any food or drink. You are welcome to bring your own soft drinks and packed lunch – and there are plenty of cafes nearby. We recommend bringing water in case you are thirsty during the event.

Accessibility: The venue is wheelchair accessible and there is an accessible toilet.

If you need any special assistance, please email us at info@nordicmodelnow.org.

Getting here: We will provide information about how to get here to ticket holders when we release the venue details.

After the event: We are planning to book space in a nearby pub, where everyone is invited to join us to continue the conversation in a more relaxed environment. Details of this will be announced at the end of the conference.

Children and teenagers

We apologise that we are not running a creche at this event. Babes in arms are welcome (please take them outside the hall if they cry). We encourage older teenagers (16+) to attend, and they may do so unaccompanied. This event is not suitable for children under 14. We leave it to parental discretion as to whether they wish to bring their teenagers between the ages of 14 and 16, but they must remain accompanied by a parent or other responsible adult at all times.

Questions

There will be time for questions during the event, but you are welcome to email in advance any questions you would like one of the panels to consider. Please put ‘Conference Question’ in the subject line, explain which panel it is directed at, and email it to info@nordicmodelnow.org. Time constraints mean we will be limited in how many questions we can address.

Recordings

The talks and discussion in the main hall will be recorded and the recording will be freely available on our YouTube channel shortly after the conference. We recommend you subscribe to our channel so that you get a notification when they are uploaded.

We are not planning to live stream the event and we will not film the audience – only the audio from any audience questions – although sometimes people sitting in the front rows may inadvertently be caught on camera, so if you don’t want to appear on the recordings, please sit further back.

This is a mixed event

This event will include women talking about some of the worst forms of male violence. We ask everyone to be mindful of this and how both speakers and members of the audience may find this triggering because it resonates with their own experiences of male violence. We ask everyone to be open and respectful to each other and to venue staff, etc.

Speakers

Ash Regan: Ashten Regan is a Scottish politician. She has been the Member of the Scottish Parliament for Edinburgh Eastern since 2016. (More details coming soon.)

Emily Husain: Emily is a civil barrister and feminist who has volunteered with women’s organisations and groups addressing violence against women for several years. Emily has a particular interest in the domestic and international legislative framework surrounding prostitution and she joined NMN in 2023. Emily will chair proceedings in the main hall.

Esther: Esther is the Nordic Model Now! policy advisor. She has a longstanding interest in research on legal and public policy approaches to sexualised violence and domestic abuse. She uses her own experience of porn and prostitution to reflect on these issues.

Fiona Broadfoot: Fiona was groomed into prostitution by her ‘boyfriend’ when she was 15 and only managed to escape when she was 26, after hearing that her cousin, who had also been exploited in prostitution, had been murdered by a punter. Since then, Fiona has been a passionate activist against the sex trade and is the founder of Build a Girl, a social enterprise working with girls at risk of or experiencing sexual exploitation.

Heli St Luce: Heli designs and facilitates workshops and writes. She works with pseudonyms to encompass her varied areas of operation. As Maxi McNaughty she is a therapist, healer, ceremony and ritual guide. As Ms Ina Propriate she performs. The constant is the use and sharing of her powerful and moving voice which inspires and gives her work a unique quality. Heli will speak in the closing plenary.

Kellie Ziemba: Kellie is the Chief Executive Officer of Kairos Women Working Together, a Coventry based specialist women’s organisation supporting and advocating for women who face multiple intersecting forms of disadvantage and are subject to or at risk of sexual exploitation, including women involved in prostitution. She is also a trustee of EVAW (End Violence Against Women), a group of feminist organisations and experts from across the UK, working to end violence against women and girls in all its forms.

Kellie has lived experience as a survivor of men’s violence against women and girls, including sexual exploitation, both inside and outside of the sex industry. She found solace in specialist women’s services and safety and sisterhoood in women-only spaces, which were key to her life-long journey of survival, growth, and healing.

Kellie is passionate about the needs and rights of women and girls and the importance of the women’s sector. As a member of SoundDelivery Media’s Spokesperson Network, she utilises her lived and learned expertise to advocate for systems change so that all women may live free from violence, abuse, and sexual exploitation.

Michael Conroy: Michael is the founder of Men At Work and creator of the ‘12 Dialogues’ resource for those working with boys and young men. After working in Secondary education for 16 years, he now trains educators and youth workers in facilitating constructive dialogues with male students on a range of themes around sexism, misogyny, objectification, risk-taking behaviours, peer pressure and personal autonomy. Michael has spoken as a panelist in a Parliamentary Select Committee on Sexual Harassment in Public Spaces and at an APPG session on Sex Education.

Naz Shah: Naz is the MP for Bradford West. (More details coming soon.)

Rosie Duffield: Rosie is the MP for Canterbury. (More details coming soon.)

Roxie Roots is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse (CSA). After a life of not fitting in she ended up in the ‘sex abuse industry’, where she experienced all forms of commercial sexual abuse, including digital exploitation, as she witnessed the rise of OnlyFans. She has lived experience of how pornography shapes and fuels our culture and now speaks publicly about her experiences with a special focus on talking to youth about the marketing of ‘sexual liberation’ by educating about its harms. You can find links to her work on Linktree.

Ticket sales have ended

Standing Together Against the Sexualisation of Kids