 After 1918, control of prostitution was a national responsibility, under two laws, the Lex Veneris (1918),
and the Vagrancy law (1885), dealing with disease and unemployment respectively, since money earned through prostitution was considered illegal.These were now gender neutral in language, but, as elsewhere, not in practice, and the new vagrancy provisions were condemned as even more coercive by women.This was the Scandinavian "Sonderweg" (Special Way).