THE YEAR 2005
OSLO KOMMUNE “Restructuring”
In December 2004, Pro Sentret carried out an evaluation of its organisational structure. The question we asked ourselves was whether our organisational structure was appropriate to the requirements of the market. Prostitution in Oslo had undergone dramatic changes in recent years, particularly through the growth in foreign prostitution. The ensuing evaluation and discussions resulted in us restructuring our organisation in order to make it more simple and flexible than it had been, and so as to make better use of our resources. We split the centre into two main areas:
1. A documentation department 2. A clinical department
The documentation department deals with documentation and research, public debate, education and information, national and international networking and our monitoring of the prostitution market in Norway.
The clinical department covers all of our welfare and health services for both Norwegian and foreign prostitutes. This includes all of our outreach work both in the indoor and street markets, as well as out-patient health care for individuals.
This annual report is also divided into these two sections.
The publishing of this report in English is partly sponsored by two EU projects: "TAMPEP" (a project under the EU public health program) and "Safe return to Motherland in the enlarged Europe" (a project under the Daphne II program).
“SAFE RETURN TO MOTHER LAND IN THE ENLARGED EUROPE”
The project is financially supported by Daphne II Programme of European Commission - Directorate General Justice, Freedom and Security. The Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.
- 2 - Contents
Introduction page 4
Documentation “Nigeria all over the place” page 5 Foreign prostitution in Norway page 6 Human trafficking page 16 How should we deal with the buyers of sexual services? page 23 Children and young people page 25 Networking and other partnerships page 26 New knowledge page 29
Clinical work Pro Sentret’s ideological platform page 33 New groups, new challenges page 34 Individual case work page 35 Drop-in centre page 36 Outreach work on the streets page 38 Outreach work in parlours and flats page 39 Health care page 40 Projects page 45
Statistics page 46
Appendices: Cultural mediation page 47
- 3 - Introduction
Time flies. Pro Sentret has now been helping women and men in prostitution for over 22 years. No-one can predict the future, and that’s probably a good thing. None of us who have worked at the centre for a number of years would have predicted recent developments in Norway, which have seen foreign, organised prostitution becoming dominant. Perhaps we would have lost heart. However, we did realise what was happening earlier than many other people in Norway. This is because we have forged close links with various foreign networks and organisations. Most EU countries had experienced this kind of cross-border prostitution for a long time. They had both described these developments to us and started working in ways that we were unfamiliar with in Norway. When the first Eastern European women arrived in Norway to sell sex, we were not entirely caught napping. Norway may have been the last country in Western Europe to experience this wave of organised prostitution. It was obvious that when the European markets came under pressure, the phenomenon would reach us. Here there was money to be made, both by the facilitators and by the women themselves. When Sweden criminalised prostitution and Holland legalised it, this affected Norway. Both countries wanted to get prostitution under control, albeit using diametrically opposed approaches. In some areas, both approaches can have the same effect. When you regulate a market, the parts that do not fit into it will be displaced. In Sweden prostitution went underground or across the border. In Holland, the same thing happened to the illegal sections of the market. It is in the years following these policy changes that Norway has experienced a large wave of foreign, organised prostitution. It is certainly true to say that no country is an island to itself. What we do in Norway will have ripple effects far beyond our borders. Fortunately, Norway is participating in international efforts to combat human trafficking. One of the ways that we can do this is by implementing helpful measures in our own country. We have made some progress through plans of action, but there is still some way to go in terms of implementing them. Pro Sentret proposes that the necessary measures be implemented, and above all that these measures result in women who have been trafficked being given the best help and protection that Norway has to offer. We are one of the richest countries in the world, and can offer much more than we currently do. We must build on the best of our Norwegian humanist traditions, and we must not be so afraid of assistance being abused that we create hurdles that prevent all but a few from receiving help. As none of the political parties in Norway can claim to have the perfect solution, the problem will be solved more quickly if combating human trafficking is seen as a cross-party issue. But this must not cause us to forget about the Norwegian women involved in prostitution. Their problems have not been solved – in fact, perhaps they have been exacerbated – by the arrival in Norway of foreign women who also need help. In the coming year we should focus more on global poverty and the money involved in prostitution, and less on the morals of the women. Perhaps that would both extend our understanding and combat some of the prejudices that we have. There is a risk that we would all become a little bit wiser.
Liv Jessen Director
- 4 - “Nigeria all over the place”
In 2005 Pro Sentret encountered 393 women from Nigeria as opposed to 128 in 2004.
Throughout the year there were public discussions about the flow of Nigerian women coming to Norway to work as prostitutes. The women are black, visible and pushy. They mainly work as street prostitutes, and have gained a reputation for being aggressive towards potential customers. They dominate street prostitution in Oslo. It has been reported that they do not just work in the traditional area for street prostitutes, but also on Oslo’s main avenue Karl Johan, and that they occasionally pop up in other parts of the city. Trouble occurs, and some people get angry.
The market is changing rapidly. Competition has been tough over the past year. Prices are falling, and there is a lot of movement and anxiety. Is this a sign that the market is becoming saturated? Some of the Nigerian prostitutes have appeared in Bergen and Stavanger. There too, the women work as street prostitutes, and have moved outside the traditional areas for street prostitutes.
The cities respond. This situation has led to the police, health workers and politicians wanting to take action. It is difficult to know how to limit the flow of women from Nigeria. Most of them do not come straight from their home country. Many have lived in a Schengen country for several years, particularly Italy or Spain. They are therefore legally entitled to visit Norway as tourists.
The Oslo police district sent a proposal to the National Police Directorate asking for foreign prostitutes to be expelled from Norway. The proposal was rejected by the directorate. The same proposal was raised in the public debate in Stavanger when the problems arrived there. Bjørg Tysdal Moe, the Deputy Mayor of Stavanger, responded to the challenge by asking Odd Einar Dørum, the then Minister of Justice, to hold a city conference focusing on: Human trafficking –what can be done? The first meeting was held in Oslo in August 2005. The next meeting was held in Oslo on 12 December 2005. The meeting was attended by representatives of the police and health and social services officials, as well as some politicians and individuals who are involved in the field.
Several cities were invited: Tromsø, Trondheim, Bergen, Stavanger, Kristiansand and Oslo. Although some of these cities do not currently have much foreign prostitution, they could see the benefits of learning from other people’s experiences in order to be as prepared as possible for any influx. Over the past year, the police in Trondheim and Bergen have put the issue on the agenda and have gained experience that the police forces in other cities could profit from. The city conferences will continue in 2006. In addition to the exchange of knowledge between the cities, another important benefit has been the creation in each city of networks of health and social services personnel, police and public officials, and the issue has also now moved on to the political agenda. The City of Bergen even has a plan of action on prostitution for the period 2005-2008 – an example worth emulating.
(Also see separate report on Nigerian prostitution.)
- 5 - Foreign prostitution in Norway (also see separate detailed report) The Norwegian market for prostitution is in a constant state of flux. The various arenas are changing rapidly, both in terms of where the arenas are, who is operating in them at any given time and how they are organised. Pro Sentret has worked with this market since 1983, and has watched it develop for more than 20 years. The most noticeable change in recent years has been the influx of foreign women working as prostitutes. These women come to Norway for a brief period purely in order to sell sexual services, either as street prostitutes or in the indoor market. The increase in the number of foreign prostitutes has in turn resulted in an increase in the level of organised prostitution in Norway.
Arena and extent
The prostitution market is complex. Women and men sell sexual services to women and men in different arenas. The various arenas are primarily defined by the way in which the buyer and seller make contact and by where the sexual service is performed. Broadly speaking, prostitution can be divided into street prostitution and prostitution in the indoor market. The first of these categories is self-explanatory, involving sexual services being sold on the streets. The indoor market is more diversified, consisting of various arenas, such as massage parlours, flats, mobile prostitution and hotel, restaurant, bar and club prostitution.
It is difficult to obtain systematic information about the number of women and men selling sexual services. It is hard to access the majority of the arenas in which prostitution takes place. The market is also in a constant state of flux. The number of people working in the various arenas and at different locations at any given time can change dramatically over a short period of time. How often and how much each individual works, as well as which groups arrive and which groups disappear, also changes rapidly. Recent developments, particularly in street prostitution in Oslo, provide a good example of the potential extent of fluctuations within a relatively short period of time.
- 6 -
Survey of the whole market in 2005 Although it is difficult to measure the market systematically, Pro Sentret has surveyed it as accurately as possible over the past year. We have looked at both the market in which contact is made through advertisements and the street market in its current form in Norway. So far we have come up with the following numbers:
People working in street prostitution: Oslo 850 Bergen 140 Stavanger 65 Total 1055 (41%)
People advertising their services (the indoor market) Total 1500 (59 %)
Norwegian total 2005 2555
The most visible arena for prostitution is the streets. The above figures show that it makes up 40% of the total market. Previously we have estimated that it only makes up around 1/3 of the market, but it has probably grown somewhat in recent years. For street prostitution we only have reports from Oslo, Bergen and Stavanger. Kristiansand, Trondheim and Tromsø report that they are not aware of any permanent street prostitution in their cities. No other towns or cities have reported the presence of street prostitution either. We assume that there may be some people working on the streets in towns with a particular drug scene, but we do not have any numbers for this. With prostitution in the indoor market, contact is generally made through advertisements. We are not aware of any stable groups of prostitutes who do not use advertising. We have therefore surveyed the advertising market carefully, both on the Internet and in magazines. After making allowance for certain potential sources of errors, we estimated that the indoor market involved 1500 individuals in Norway in 2005. This arena covers 60% of the total. It is hard to determine the proportions of Norwegians and foreigners in the market as a whole. Again it is easier to find out about street prostitutes, whereas advertisements do not always reveal the nationality of the women. There may be roughly equal numbers of Norwegians and foreigners working in the indoor market. We have a clearer idea of the situation on the streets of Oslo, Bergen and Stavanger. In Oslo 1/5 of street prostitutes are Norwegian and 4/5 are foreign. In Bergen 2/3 are Norwegian and 1/3 are foreign. In Stavanger 1/3 are Norwegian and 2/3 are foreign.
In 1995 and 1996, Pro Sentret did not record the presence of any foreign women working as street prostitutes in Oslo. This does not mean that there were no women of foreign origin selling sexual services on the streets, but rather that there were so few that they were not recorded as a separate category. Pro Sentret first recorded foreign women working as street prostitutes in 1997. At that time there were twelve of them. During the following two years, we recorded a similarly low number of foreign women working on the streets. However, around the turn of the millennium there was a marked change. The number of women arriving from Eastern Europe increased significantly, and Dominican women also appeared on the street prostitution scene.
- 7 - These two groups were the dominant foreign groups in terms of street prostitution until 2004, when large numbers of Nigerian women started coming to Norway. Over the past two years they have outcompeted everyone else, and they currently comprise the largest group of foreign women working as street prostitutes. In addition to dominating street prostitution in Oslo, which is now almost entirely the domain of foreign women, the Nigerians have also entered the street prostitution markets in other large cities such as Bergen and Stavanger.
The indoor market currently makes up 60% of the total market for prostitution. The sale of sexual services in this arena is considerably less visible than prostitution that takes place in public spaces. The arena is also constantly changing. There can be a great deal of mobility between the various arenas in the indoor market, but there is little evidence to suggest that there has been much of an overlap between the indoor and street markets over the course of the years. However, it appears that this may be beginning to change. We are increasingly encountering women who sell sexual services both in the indoor market and as street prostitutes.
In addition to Norwegian women and men working as prostitutes in the indoor market, both the Thai and Dominican communities have long been established in this arena. Regular outreach work in the indoor market over the course of many years has meant that Pro Sentret has gained access to the Thai, Dominican and Eastern European communities, in addition to the Norwegian one.
The table below shows changes in the number of people using Pro Sentret and the proportions of Norwegians and foreigners during the period 1995-2005. Although the table does not reveal anything about the actual number of women and men selling sex, as it only details the number of people using Pro Sentret, we still believe that the figures provide a useful indication of the changes that occurred in the prostitution market over that period.
1600 1500 1400 1300 1200 1100 1000 900 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
Total Norwegian Foreign
- 8 - The table shows that the increase in the number of foreign women working as prostitutes in Norway, regardless of arena, started in earnest in 1999. Unfortunately Pro Sentret does not have figures for 2000 showing the proportions of Norwegian and foreign users. By 2001, however, we know that people of foreign origin comprised 19% of our users. The rapid increase continued over the next three years, and by 2004 as many as 63% of our users were foreign. The increase continued into 2005, albeit at a much slower pace. Currently approx. 70% of our users are of foreign origin.
Where do the women come from?
In 2005, Pro Sentret had 1063 foreign users from 56 different countries. The table below shows the regions our users come from. In addition there was 1 person from Canada and 12 people for whom we do not know a country or region of origin.
Asia Africa South America Eastern Western and the Caribbean Europe Europe Thailand 146 Nigeria 393 Dominican Bulgaria 90 Spain 13 Vietnam 2 Ghana 14 Republic 27 Estonia 70 Sweden 8 India 1 Liberia 5 Brazil 7 Lithuania 46 Finland 5 Uzbekistan 1 Kenya 4 Cuba 6 Romania 41 Greece 3 Cameroon 3 Venezuela 5 Albania 38 Portugal 2 South 3 Colombia 4 Poland 34 Cyprus 1 Africa 2 Jamaica 3 Czech Belgium 1 Niger 2 Peru 3 Republic 22 Germany 1 Morocco 1 Chile 1 Russia 13 France 1 Senegal 1 Ecuador 1 Latvia 7 Italy 1 Sierra Nicaragua 1 Moldova 4 Denmark 1 Leone 1 Mexico 1 Hungary 2 Somalia 1 Slovakia 2 Sudan 1 Belarus 1 Tanzania 1 Bosnia 1 Togo 1 Uganda 1 Total 150 433 59 371 37
Since foreign women started entering the Norwegian prostitution market in a big way, Eastern European women have been the largest group. In spite of this group growing slightly from 2004 to 2005, they have now been relegated to second place. 2005 was definitely the year of the Africans. They now make up the biggest group of Pro Sentret’s users. They are also the group that is growing fastest, with growth of 218% from 2004 to 2005.
The group from Asia was stable, whilst the number of women from other Western European countries was slightly smaller in 2005 than in 2004. However, the largest reduction was in the number of women from South America and the Caribbean. There were 116 people in this group in 2004, but only 59 in 2005, a reduction of 51%.
Looking at the 11 biggest individual countries over the past three years gives a good impression of the changes that have occurred in the prostitution market in Oslo. The Thai community appears to be stable. The number of women from the Baltic states hasn’t changed significantly over the past three years either.
- 9 - The number of Russian and Albanian women has fallen slightly, as has the number of Polish women. They arrived on the scene in big numbers in 2004, only to fall back again slightly in 2005.
The number of women from the Dominican Republic has fallen most over the past three years. In 2003 Pro Sentret had 101 users from that country, but in 2005 there were only 27 of them. It is primarily the Dominican street prostitutes who have disappeared from the Norwegian prostitution market. As previously mentioned, these women live in other European countries and only came to Norway for a brief period in order to sell sexual services. As a result of increasing competition from the Nigerian women, they probably started to find the market less attractive.
Amongst the Eastern European women, there has been a small increase in the number of Czech women and a more significant increase in the numbers of Romanian and Bulgarian women. The latter group increased from 31 people in 2003 to 90 this year. However, no-one can match the explosive growth in the number of Nigerian women working as prostitutes in Oslo. As the table below reveals, in 2003 Pro Sentret encountered two people of Nigerian origin. In 2005 the figure was 393.
400 380 360 340 320 300 280 260 240 220 200 180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 . . d p ia ia ia ia ia p ia d ia n e n n s r e n n r la a n a s a a la e i R b to lg R g a n l s u u h m o i h A th R u c o P N T a E i B e ic L z R in C m o D
2003 2004 2005
The presence of foreign women selling sexual services in Norway is not a new phenomenon. Some nationalities have had a presence in the prostitution market for many years, whilst others are newcomers. Below is a brief description of what Pro Sentret sees as specific to the women from the various areas.
- 10 - Thailand
For many years, Thai women have been part of the prostitute community in Norway, and throughout this period they have been the largest group from a single country. Our knowledge of the Thai women suggests that it is unlikely that the majority of them arrive in Norway as a result of organised operations. A new study of Thai prostitutes also suggests that there is no obvious evidence that Thai women in Norway have been the victims of human trafficking1. The report concludes that these women are selling sexual services of their own accord. This is also Pro Sentret’s experience.
The majority of Thai women get to Norway with the help of personal networks. This can be through contact with people in the Thai community in Norway or through contact with Norwegian citizens. The majority of these women therefore have permanent residency in Norway through being, or having been, married to a Norwegian man. Prostitution is therefore also rarely the original reason for them having come to Norway, and is rather the result of difficult personal circumstances. There may therefore be a long interval between a woman arriving in this country and her starting to work as a prostitute.
Thai women only sell sexual services in the indoor market, either from massage parlours or from flats. Some work alone and are self-employed, with the only intermediaries between them and their customers being the advertisers. Others work in cooperatives.
Thai women who come to Norway through marriage often come from very poor backgrounds. It is not unusual for them to come from households in which the mother had sole responsibility for providing for the family. Their families have therefore worked hard in various ways to make enough money. Marriage to a Norwegian man is one route out of poverty, and makes it easier for them to help provide for their own families. And Thai women in Norway do certainly send money home. Their children, parents and siblings benefit from the prostitutes’ financial contributions.
The Dominican Republic
Another group in a similar situation are women from the Dominican Republic. Over a long period of time, Dominican women with permanent residency in Norway have made up a relatively stable part of the indoor market. These women are, or have been, married to Norwegian men, many of them have paper marriages, and they have generally been in Norway for quite some time. As with the Thai women, they did not come to Norway to sell sexual services, but prostitution has become a solution to difficult personal circumstances. The Dominican community in Oslo is small and transparent. On account of this, the women do not sell sexual services on the streets. However, most people in the community know who is working as a prostitute. They
1 Kristvik, E. (2004), Sterke hovud og sterke hjarte. Thailandske kvinner på den norske sexmarknaden. Department of Medical Anthropology, Institute for General Practice and Community Medicine. University of Oslo.
- 11 - don’t talk openly about prostitution, but it is not our impression that the women are particularly stigmatised or rejected.
In January 2002, Pro Sentret encountered women from the Dominican Republic selling sexual services on the street for the first time. In subsequent years we have encountered increasing numbers working as street prostitutes. Over a short period of time, they became the second largest group of foreign women from a single country working in the Norwegian prostitution market, only outnumbered by Thai women. The Dominican women selling sex on the streets have a different background from the ones who work in the indoor market. The majority of them have come to Norway from other European countries, in many cases from France and Spain. It is not uncommon for the women to have permanent jobs in those countries, and for them to come to Norway for short periods, such as in their holidays, in order to earn extra money. They themselves say that they come to Norway because prostitution is well paid here. We are therefore not under the impression that women from the Dominican Republic have come to Norway through organised activities. Instead, like the women from Thailand, they use personal networks to gain residency in the country, or use their rights as EU citizens/ third country citizens living in the EU.
The Dominican women who come to Europe generally have little education and come from poor backgrounds in their home country. They have few options in life, and they believe that they can obtain a better future for themselves and their families by travelling to Europe. It is in fact the case that the money which they earn here is primarily spent on their families in the Dominican Republic. The women send money home to their parents, pay for the education of younger siblings and their own children, build houses, buy cars and save money to start their own businesses. The majority of the women who we meet also express a wish to return to their home country sooner or later.
Western Europe
It has always been the case that the Norwegian prostitution market has sporadically been visited by women from various Nordic and Western European countries, who have chosen to travel to Norway in order to sell sexual services. These women do not generally work as prostitutes in their home countries, and out of fear of being discovered they choose to prostitute themselves in another country. It is also Pro Sentret’s experience that many of the women who say that they come from countries in Western Europe have different ethnic backgrounds.
Eastern Europe
The political upheavals experienced by Eastern Europe in the early 1990s resulted in borders opening, and the population being confronted by very different standards of living and lifestyles. The turbulence resulted in greater movement of goods and people across the region. Meanwhile, barter based on the body and sexuality arose. These changes affected prostitution in Oslo through a slow stream of women coming from Eastern Europe towards the end of the 90s. However, the number of women from the Baltic countries grew quickly, and women from new countries in Eastern
- 12 - Europe also started arriving. In 2005, Pro Sentret encountered 371 Eastern European women from 14 different countries. They are therefore a very large and diverse group. As a general rule, however, the women from north-eastern Europe appear to be more resourceful than the women from Southeastern Europe. The majority of the women from the Baltic states are educated, many of them right up to degree level, and they tend to have significantly better language skills than their sisters from Albania, Bulgaria and Romania, who often also lack education.
Many of the Baltic women state that they are only selling sexual services for a limited period of time. They aim to earn enough money to fund further studies, to buy a house or to set up their own business, or simply want a piece of the western lifestyle and prosperity. It is not our impression that the majority of these women come from families that have lived under the breadline. Nevertheless they feel that their lives are difficult, and that they have few chances of improving them in their home countries. By selling sexual services in Western Europe, these women hope to create the foundations for a better future.
The women from Southeastern Europe are younger, and more often come from a genuinely poor background than the women from the Baltic states. For a variety of reasons they are in a weaker position than their Baltic sisters, and they are more dependent on criminal networks in order to get to the West. Their journey into prostitution often involves them having married or got a boyfriend at a young age. In general it is these men, or other men in a close relationship to the women, who induce them, threaten them or exert the coercion that is often a distinguishing feature of their lives. Although some of these women state that they work independently as prostitutes, the sale of sexual services is rarely something that they are doing for a limited period of time with a clear financial goal in mind. In general they are more or less permanently drifting across Europe, living under conditions that it is hard to escape from.
The enlargement of the EU in 2004 served to exacerbate the differences between the Eastern European women coming to Norway. The new EU citizens have new opportunities. Women with passports from the Baltic states now find it easier to gain residency in Norway, learn the language and look for ordinary work. Unfortunately there are few opportunities for women from non-EU countries. Women from Romania and Bulgaria, for example, two countries which supply many prostitutes to Norway, remain dependent on criminal networks in order to gain access into Norway. Ethnic Russians from the Baltic states are not allowed in either. They still need a visa to enter Norway.
Many of the women from the Baltic states and Southeastern Europe have dependents in their home countries. This is sometimes their own children, but equally often it is their parents or siblings. These women send money home to their families when they are able to.
The majority of the Eastern European women are linked with some kind of organised group. They receive help with arranging all of the necessary paperwork (passport, exit permit and visa), the journey from their homes to Norway is organised for them, and they are set up as prostitutes here. The closeness of the ties between the women and their pimps and the nature of their agreements vary greatly, however.
- 13 - The range runs from simple assistance getting started to human trafficking. In the former case, the women generally only pay an agreed sum for the assistance that they have received. In the latter case the women will always have to pay some of what they earn, and generally a significant amount, to a third party. Between these two extremes there is a range of different constellations involving varying degrees of exploitation and coercion.
Nigeria
The most noticeable change to have taken place over the past two years is undoubtedly the influx of Nigerian women working as street prostitutes in Norway. In 2003 Pro Sentret only met a handful of women from Nigeria. In 2004 the figure had risen to 128. The flow of Nigerian women continued unabated in 2005. Over the course of the year, Pro Sentret was in contact with 393 different women from Nigeria. In addition, there are a number of women who we have been unable to get to know. The vast majority of the Nigerian women sell sexual services on the streets. We know of a few who have entered the indoor market, but they are the exceptions.
By and large the Nigerian women we meet live, often legally, in another Schengen country, generally in Italy or Spain. Others are illegal immigrants to these countries. The women have been in Europe for anything from 6 months up to many years. They generally say that they have, or have had, ordinary work in their country of residence, but that they have lost their jobs for various reasons. The idea of travelling to Norway in order to earn money, thereby solving the financial difficulties that unemployment causes, generally comes from someone else. The great majority are recruited by women who have already worked here as prostitutes, or by people who the latter know. Some say that they have been sent to Norway, or accompanied to Norway by their madams in Italy. Our impression is that the majority are aware of the fact that they are being recruited into prostitution. However, we have also met women who have been promised other kinds of work in Norway.
We know the real identity of around half of the Nigerian women who we have met. The youngest woman we have met is 18 years old, and the eldest is 53. Their average age is 29. So the Nigerian women who come to Norway are not particularly young. However, most of the women left Nigeria long before they came to Norway, and so they were considerably younger when they first left their home country. Some of the women were probably minors when they set out on their journeys to Western Europe. We do not know much about the women’s backgrounds. The women who have shared their experiences with us say that they had what they feel was a reasonable childhood, although poverty was an everyday fact of life and often made things difficult. In many cases they had to help provide for the family from an early age. The vast majority of the women come from extended families. Often their fathers have several wives, and therefore they have many siblings. They are also close to other family members, such as aunts, uncles and cousins. Some of the women have husbands or boyfriends, and they may have children in Nigeria or in Italy/ Spain who are dependent on them. Others have grown-up children in Nigeria to whom they provide financial assistance, and yet others give money to their siblings, nephews, nieces and cousins. This means that Nigerian women working as prostitutes are
- 14 - often providing for people from several generations in their home country, and these people will remain dependent on their financial contributions for many years.
The degree to which Nigerian women are part of organised groups in Norway varies greatly. We have met women who have been the victims of human trafficking. In general they have come directly from Nigeria to Norway. Their stories and backgrounds are often very different from those of the women who are resident in a Schengen country and who are staying in Norway on that basis. The majority of the latter group of women say that they are in Norway independently. They may have paid someone for information about how to get to Norway and about the prostitution market here, and perhaps also for assistance along the way and during an initial period, but once they are up and running they get to keep the money that they earn. However, it is not unreasonable to assume that the majority of the Nigerian women were initially smuggled into Europe as part of an organised operation. Many were probably also the victims of human trafficking.
The ever increasing number of foreign prostitutes in Norway has meant that Pro Sentret has had to change its approach to the market and the people involved in it. A number of new measures have been implemented in order to deal with these women and their particular requirements as well as possible. The hiring of cultural mediators2, and the provision of extended health services, psychosocial support, practical assistance and a drop-in centre/ café available to foreign women has resulted in Pro Sentret establishing good relationships with most groups of foreign women working as prostitutes. This contact has provided us with a great deal of information about foreign women working in prostitution in Norway, and about how this part of the prostitution market is organised.
Marginalisation
Pro Sentret knows that the majority of the foreign women came to Norway as part of an organised operation. We also know that the majority of them do not feel that they have been victims of human trafficking. There are many reasons for this. The fact is that the women have come to Norway in a great variety of ways. Some have clearly been the victims of human trafficking, others have a traditional pimp, yet others have a less traditional pimp, and some have come independently. Almost every woman who has come to Norway as part of an organised operation has a unique story to tell.
In spite of the differences in their circumstances, backgrounds, routes into prostitution, understandings of their own personal situations, thoughts about ways out of prostitution and relationships with any third parties, it is our view that the foreign women need a lot of assistance and support in a variety of areas. Although foreign women are probably in the majority in the Norwegian prostitution market, they remain a marginalised group. They are foreign, they are selling sexual services and they are part of organised prostitution networks, so they have little or no contact with Norwegian society.
2 See separate appendix.
- 15 - Human trafficking New plan of action
Human trafficking is a growing problem in Norwegian society. In order to continue and improve efforts to combat human trafficking, in 2005 the government set out a revised plan of action on the issue. The aims of the plan of action are: • to prevent human trafficking by limiting recruitment and demand • to assist and protect the victims of human trafficking • to identify and prosecute human traffickers • to increase understanding and cooperation • to enhance international frameworks and collaboration.
The victims of human trafficking are a diverse group with a variety of needs, which means that the support provided to them must be flexible.
Since the first Eastern European prostitutes came to Norway, and with them organised prostitution, we have made a great effort to understand what human trafficking involves. How should it be defined, and how can we identify its victims? One of the difficulties is that many of the women who are covered by the category of human trafficking do not identify themselves as victims of it. They may therefore neither speak out as victims nor appear as witnesses in proceedings against the facilitators. We believe that the reason for so few court cases being brought against human traffickers in Norway, in spite of the fact that we know the victims, may be that there is too much emphasis on women being “perfect witnesses”. But let’s first look at some definitions, as it is still difficult to define human trafficking. The UN’s Palermo protocol, which deals with trafficking, and which has been ratified by Norway, defines what the UN means by the term. But even the protocol is subject to many different interpretations in international discourse, depending on one’s political point of view in relation to prostitution. Norway has adjusted its legal framework in line with the protocol. Section 224 – the so-called human trafficking section – was adopted in 2003. But it is not entirely clear how this statute should be interpreted. One case that appeared before the courts in Trondheim was initially treated as a case of pimping, but on appeal a conviction was reached for trafficking. The case is now going to The Supreme Court of Norway. It will be interesting to see what they decide. This is the wording of Section 224:
Section 224 of the Norwegian Penal Code: Prohibition against the trafficking of humans
“Any person who by force, threats, misuse of another person’s vulnerability or other improper conduct exploits another person for the purpose of a) prostitution or other sexual purposes, b) forced labour, c) military service in a foreign country, or d) removal of any of the said person’s organs,
- 16 - or who induces another person to allow himself or herself to be used for such purposes, shall be guilty of human trafficking, and shall be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years. Any person who a) makes arrangements for such exploitation or inducement as is mentioned in the first paragraph by procuring, transporting or receiving the person concerned, b) in any other way aids and abets such exploitation or inducement, or c) provides payment or any other advantage in order to obtain consent to such exploitation from any person who is in a position of authority over the aggrieved party, or who receives such payment or other advantage shall be liable to the same penalty. Any person who commits an act referred to in the first or second paragraph against a person who is under the age of 18 shall be liable to a penalty independently of any use of force or threats, abuse of a person’s vulnerability, or other improper conduct. Gross human trafficking is punishable by imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years. In deciding whether the offence is gross, particular importance shall be attached to whether the person exposed to the act was under the age of 18, whether gross violence or coercion was used or whether the act led to considerable gain.”
The old section on pimping has therefore been changed to the following wording:
Section 202 of the Norwegian Penal Code: “The pimping section”
“Any person who a) promotes the engagement of other persons in prostitution, or b) lets premises on the understanding that such premises shall be used for prostitution or is grossly negligent in this respect shall be liable to fines or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years. Any person who in a public announcement unambiguously offers, arranges or asks for prostitution shall be liable to fines or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months. In this provision, prostitution means that a person engages in sexual activity or commits a sexual act with another person in return for payment.”
This section has been known as the “Pimping section”, as it deals with pimping, i.e. inducement, promotion, exploitation or the letting of premises for prostitution. Inducing someone to become a prostitute or to continue working as a prostitute, as well as exploiting other people’s prostitution, has now been taken out of Section 202 and moved to Section 224. The legislators wanted Section 202 to have a clear focus on the criminality of promoting the prostitution of others – even if it is voluntary, whilst the new section on human trafficking is supposed to focus on the illegal aspects of inducing someone into or exploiting another person’s prostitution.
The section on human trafficking is significantly different from the old law on pimping, in that in order for the exploitation or inducement to be punishable it must have occurred through force or threats, abuse of another person’s vulnerability or other improper conduct, unless the aggrieved party is a minor. In spite of this, the preparatory works to the act underline that the above changes are not intended to decriminalise any actions that were previously covered by Section 202 of the Norwegian Penal Code. It is also worth noting that Section 224, in contrast to Section
- 17 - 202, explicitly mentions that making arrangements for, or in any other way aiding or abetting exploitation or inducement, is just as punishable as actually being responsible for the exploitation or inducement. Firstly, human trafficking involves an element of movement. This includes recruitment, transportation, transfer, reception and housing. However, borders do not need to have been crossed in order for human trafficking to have taken place. Secondly, human trafficking involves exploitation. The facilitators aim to exploit other people through prostitution, forced labour or forced service, use them as slaves or remove their organs. There are varying degrees of exploitation. Thirdly, human trafficking involves controlling someone through threats, force, inducements or abuse of authority or a vulnerable situation.
The issue of volition, freedom of choice and force is complex. If we only look at recruitment, it is easy to end up focusing on the distinction between guilty and unworthy victims (i.e. the ones who knew they were going to be working as prostitutes) and innocent and worthy victims (i.e. the ones who were tricked). Even if a woman knows that she will be working as a prostitute, she can still be a victim of human trafficking. The issue is exploitation through force, threats, abuse of another person’s vulnerability or other improper conduct – not the finances or morality of the woman. It is important to develop cross-disciplinary ways of identifying victims of human trafficking.
The new plan of action has gone further towards setting out overall aims than the previous one did, but we still believe that the latest plan leaves plenty of room for improvement. Here are a few of our comments:
To prevent human trafficking by limiting recruitment and demand
On the demand side, the authorities have waited a long time with introducing any initiatives. This is regrettable. However, the Reform Resource Centre for Men has set up an Internet site called Sexhandel.no. Soon there will also be a campaign against people who buy sex run by a PR company that won a competitive tender held by the Ministry of Children and Equality. We are awaiting the results of these two initiatives.
Norway should aim to provide aid that is more clearly targeted at women in the countries that “send” most women to Norway to become prostitutes.
Better support and protection
Period of reflection The new plan of action and circular from the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) clarified the conditions for being granted a period of reflection. A period of reflection can be given for a minimum of 45 days, and applies to people who may have been the victims of human trafficking and who are illegally resident in Norway. For the record, only one person has so far asked for a period of reflection, whilst most people apply for asylum. There are several reasons for so few victims of human trafficking being willing to tell the authorities. Their relationships with the traffickers are often complex, and may alternate between assistance and exploitation. In many cases the women feel dependent on the traffickers, and they are often tied to them
- 18 - on account of debt. Combined with what is often an inherent distrust of government bodies and the fear of reprisals, this means that the women often need time and space in order to tell their stories.
The period of reflection is therefore all too short, the requirements are too strict and there is a great deal of uncertainty as to what will happen to the victim of human trafficking after this period. In Italy the period of reflection lasts half a year, and allows for the possibility of permanent residency under certain circumstances. We believe that the Norwegian authorities should adopt a period of reflection of six months for potential victims of human trafficking. This should be an entitlement, and not a matter of judgement as is currently the case. The period of reflection is too unpredictable and confers too few rights. For this reason, the women currently choose to apply for asylum. The possibility of permanent residency in Norway under certain conditions has not been clarified either. In order for a period of reflection to be granted, the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration currently requires that the person in question must intend to cut his or her ties with the people involved in prostitution, and must be willing to cooperate with the police. There are two reasons for this: firstly, one of the main aims of the plan of action is to prosecute the human traffickers - in addition to protecting and supporting the victims. The authorities believe that in cases like this it is often essential that the victim plays a part, by reporting the incident and providing the police with as much information as possible, for instance. They believe that this is hard to achieve without the person breaking his or her ties with the people involved in human trafficking. Secondly, the period of reflection is not supposed to be a way of gaining legal residency in order to continue work as a prostitute. There is recognition of the fact that the victim may be threatened by the facilitators, and may need to adjust, and that there must therefore be a degree of flexibility in the interpretation of the condition. But here the willingness of the victim to receive help will provide an indication of whether the condition has been met. It is easy to interpret the law in such a way that the women simply become a way for the authorities to get at the facilitators. We also believe that these conditions mean that the women have to do a lot of their reflection and decision-making prior to the period of reflection.
Leaving prostitution and cooperating with the police become prerequisites for being granted a period of reflection and for getting help. It is important to realise that breaking ties with the traffickers is generally more of a gradual process than a sudden decision. The women will generally have to assess their own safety as well as that of others (family, friends and other women they work with), as well as their dependence, debt and future prospects. It is therefore unrealistic to demand that they immediately cut off their ties with the prostitution scene in order to be granted a period of reflection. Nor is it reasonable, for that matter, to assume that people who turn down an offer on those terms cannot have been the victims of human trafficking. Furthermore, the right to the period of reflection must be independent of whether the person in question is willing or able to provide information about traffickers to the police, report the crime or act as a witness in any court case.
If the investigations carried out during the period of reflection confirm that the person has been a victim of human trafficking, Pro Sentret believes that the Norwegian government should enshrine the right to a further stay of six months in the statute
- 19 - books, with the possibility of extension. This would allow the victims to regain control of their lives, start a rehabilitation process and give them the opportunity to secure their futures. The Norwegian authorities should also undertake to carry out a risk assessment looking at the possibility of the person returning to their home country. The question of more permanent protection must be assessed in accordance with the standard rules on protection.
It is essential that the Norwegian authorities, both during the reflection period and in the event of temporary permission to stay, provide support to the women in terms of an adequate home, financial assistance, health care and social services, as well as the possibility of reunion with any children. We also believe that in the above circumstances they should have the right to work and receive an education.
In December 2005, the Minister of Justice Knut Storberget proposed giving permanent residency to foreign women who had been pushed into prostitution by criminal gangs. Speaking to the newspaper Dagsavisen, he said that there must be some action, and not just plans of action. Pro Sentret is aiming to be actively involved in the coming debate, and will work to ensure that victims of human trafficking both are allowed to stay for a longer period of time and receive better treatment during this stay, and that some are given the chance of permanent residency.
The ROSA project The project was initiated on 1 January 2005 in connection with the plan of action. The Ministry of Justice and the Police gave the Women’s Shelter a mandate to implement measures to coordinate support, and to provide safe places to stay for women who have been the victims of human trafficking in Norway. So far 18 women have received assistance.
On the issue of support for women who are part of a Norwegian protection programme, a few municipalities should not be left with the financial responsibility for their stay. Central government funding should follow the women in order to ensure that they are not subjected to further scrutiny, this time by social security offices with little experience of this kind of case.
We also hope that the government will provide other Norwegian cities with the necessary funding to allow them to meet the challenges that they will face when foreign prostitution spreads out from Oslo.
Enhance efforts to identify and prosecute facilitators
Here the police have great scope for improvement. Only a change of priorities, the earmarking of resources and a long-term, dedicated effort by the police to tackle these gangs will achieve any results. Some towns have raised the profile of the issue for a short period of time, but we are afraid that these issues will once again be downgraded when the campaigns are over. The work costs money and requires all kinds of resources. We believe that earmarked funding is required.
- 20 -
Understanding and cross-disciplinary cooperation
It is clear that more training is required: for the police, for health and social workers, for staff at shelters and for other stakeholders.
More research is also required. Fafo could be given the task of mapping the extent and trends in this field throughout Norway. We must find out more about a field that is constantly changing, in order to see whether we have implemented the right measures.
Court decisions
The trafficking case in Oslo
On 15 February 2005 a verdict was reached in the biggest human trafficking case in Norwegian history. At Oslo District Court, a Georgian man was sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment for human trafficking, rape, violence and pimping. The court was of the opinion that he was the leader of a gang that had forced two Eastern European women to work as prostitutes in Norway. Three other people, including the brother of the gang leader, were sentenced to between three and fives years’ imprisonment. A further three people had already been convicted in connection with the case. The sentences were described as being stiff. The judgement was important because it relied on the evidence of the women and awarded a relatively high level of compensation and damages to the victims.
The trafficking case in Trondheim
In 2005, at Frostating Court of Appeal, for the first time someone was convicted for human trafficking on the basis of the new version of Section 224 of the Norwegian Penal Code. A 42 year old man from Trondheim and a 26 year old man from Estonia were admittedly initially convicted of pimping but acquitted of human trafficking on 1 April 2005 in the Trondheim District Court. The two men were charged with having brought six Estonian girls to Norway for prostitution. Several of the girls were witnesses at the court of appeal, and they told about difficult family backgrounds, poverty and unemployment before they voluntarily went to Norway.
The fact that the women had agreed to sell sexual services meant that they were not considered victims in the district court’s judgement. There was a great deal of opposition to the judgement in the media, and it was a great disappointment for Pro Sentret and many other organisations working in the field. The judgement was seen as evidence that human trafficking was not being taken seriously, and that the definition of human trafficking was being interpreted in an extremely narrow way. The court had not taken into account the fact that one of the victims was under the age of 16, although the question of volition is not an issue in such cases.
- 21 - The accused were, however, found guilty of human trafficking on 20 September 2005 at the appeal hearing at the Frostating Court of Appeal. The men were sentenced to three and five years’ imprisonment for the human trafficking of six Estonian girls. In October, a third facilitator involved in the same case was sentenced to five and a half years’ imprisonment for human trafficking by Trondheim District Court. The court was of the opinion that he had primary responsibility for recruiting the Estonian girls to prostitution in Trondheim.
The proceedings at the district court and court of appeal help to highlight how the use of the term human trafficking affects the outcome of the case.
These cases are important because they provide the police and public prosecutors with guidelines for how they should view this type of trafficking of women and children. The fact that Norwegian courts take human trafficking seriously, and hand out stiff sentences, will provide a signal to criminal gangs and to women considering reporting these kinds of cases. The case has been appealed to the Supreme Court of Norway.
The “Drømmefanger” TV campaign
“We dream of a world without violence against women” The aim of this year’s “Drømmefanger” TV campaign was combating violence against women. Violence against women is so widespread that the World Bank has stated that it constitutes a global health problem on a par with cancer and AIDS. Many committed women and men have helped to highlight how widespread and serious the situation is. The funds raised will be used to combat violence against women in four theme-based areas: a) violence in close relationships, b) women during and after war and conflict, c) female genital mutilation and d) trafficking in women. In order to achieve this, support will be provided to projects in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Southern and Southeastern Europe. The projects will by run by local women’s organisations.
Although the FOKUS network organised the TV campaign, Pro Sentret was heavily involved and held lectures on human trafficking in connection with the campaign.
- 22 - How should we deal with the buyers of sexual services?
There is broad agreement in Norway that the spotlight should be put on the purchase of sexual services. The buyers constitute by far the biggest part of the market, and they are primarily men. The purchase of sexual services also reflects the imbalance in power between the sexes and prevailing gender roles. If you look at it like this, the purchase of sex is primarily a problematic male practice. The disagreements in the debate mainly relate to which measures should be implemented, whether or not the Norwegian Penal Code is a suitable tool, and what the consequences of criminalisation are for the people selling sex. There are also other underlying disagreements, such as different views on prostitution, on the question of victims/ assailants and on the role of the prostitutes in the debate.
Reference is often made to experiences in the Netherlands and in Sweden, as if one has to choose between two models of legislation: legalisation of parts of the market or greater criminalisation. There is also a lack of documentation of the effects of the legislation in the Netherlands and Sweden. For this reason, the Ministry of Justice and the Police established a committee to look at their experiences as part of the “Plan of action on human trafficking”. In 2004 the committee submitted its report, which can be downloaded from http://www.prosentret.no under publications. The debate raised by the report continued into 2005.
Pro Sentret launched the collection of essays Nei til kundekriminalisering [“No to criminalising customers”] in February 2005, and it can also be downloaded from our website. This collection briefly discusses current legislation, understandings of prostitution, what there is broad agreement on, knowledge about customers and what we know about the impact of the Swedish legislation. It also looks at what we consider to be the most important arguments against criminalisation:
• The market goes underground • The women are worst affected • Society must help – not punish • Prohibition paves the way for more organised crime • Voluntary measures have not been tried
The booklet can be seen as a contrast to the collection of essays entitled Prostitusjon og handel med kvinner [“Prostitution and the trafficking of women”], published in 2003 by Nettverk mot prostitusjon og handel med kvinner [“The network against prostitution and the trafficking of women”]. It is also available on our website.
The previous government declared in the autumn of 2004 that it would not criminalise the customers of prostitutes. Criminalisation became an issue in the run-up to the spring 2005 election. The question was discussed at the Labour Party’s national women’s conference, the Socialist Left Party’s national conference and the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions’ (LO) committee on family and equal opportunity policy, and later at LO’s congress. LO has not reached a definite yes or no, but it wants criminalisation to be considered as an option. Both the Labour Party
- 23 - and the Socialist Left Party have decided against criminalising the purchase of sexual services. The main reason for this is that it is anticipated that prohibition would hit the sellers – particularly the street prostitutes – hardest. The words of Karin Andersen, a member of parliament for the Socialist Left Party, that “..my heart says yes, but my head says no (to criminalisation)” are representative of a widely held view. It has probably been very important that the prostitutes themselves have so unanimously spoken out against criminalisation. “Gitte”, PION and the users of Pro Sentret’s drop- in centre have all been actively involved in promoting this view. The providers of social welfare services to prostitutes and certain other stakeholders have also been against criminalisation.
The question of criminalisation has been the subject of widespread political debate over the past two years. Neither the current government nor the opposition supports taking such action. It is not surprising, therefore, that the debate has cooled down over the past half year.
The question of how we should approach the buyer’s of sexual services remains, even though a decision has been reached not to criminalise them. There are several potential strategies, but all of them involve changing attitudes in various ways. The contracts of public servants and employees at a number of private companies already include clauses prohibiting the purchase of sex in conjunction with work- related activities. In the course of the spring, the Ministry of Children and Equality will launch an awareness campaign to help combat the purchase of sex. On 16 February 2006 a new website, www.sexhandel.no, was launched. It is run by the REFORM resource centre for men, and it is aimed directly at buyers and other people who are interested in questions relating to prostitution. The key features of the website are information, dialogue and debate. In addition to the website, REFORM is considering a helpline for people who buy sex. Pro Sentret welcomes these initiatives, and also hopes that in the long-term treatment can be offered to compulsive buyers who want to change their behaviour. Gothenburg and Stockholm already offer this.
There is also a need for more research in this area. It is often assumed that an increase in the visible supply results in increased demand. We do not currently have any evidence for this. For example, we have seen an increase in the visible street prostitution in Oslo, but there has not been any corresponding increase in demand. Studies of sexual behaviour in recent years show that the number of Norwegian men who have bought sexual services has remained fairly constant at around 13% of 18 to 50 year olds. Nor do these surveys suggest that customers are becoming younger. It would also be interesting to look more closely at what objections Norwegian men have against buying sex.
7 out of 8 men do not buy sex.
- 24 - Children and young people
In 2005, minors and prostitution has not been a priority area, which means that we have not initiated any measures specially aimed at this group. Pro Sentret has nevertheless been an active participant in various forums where this issue gets raised.
Networks
Ecpat is a global network of organisations that work together to prevent the sexual exploitation of minors through prostitution, pornography and human trafficking. Save the Children Norway is the Norwegian representative on Ecpat. It has established a national network of interested people, organisations and institutions who work on matters related to the commercial sexual exploitation of minors. In addition to local activities, the network meets a few times a year. Pro Sentret is a part of this network.
We are also involved in a network and resource group working to combat the sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children run by the Ministry of Children and Equality.
The ministry commissioned the NOVA research foundation to prepare a technical guide for welfare authorities on how to work with minors who are exploited by the sex industry. The guide will include a summary of information about the topic of minors and the sale/ barter of sexual services, as well as practical advice to improve the welfare authorities’ handling of these issues. The aim has been to educate everyone who deals and works with children in this field, and to help them break the subject down into themes when talking to colleagues and minors. Pro Sentret has participated on a discussion group involved in drawing up this guide.
Trafficking in children
2005 was the year in which the trafficking of children to Norway became a serious reality. The very first sentence for human trafficking in Norway was handed down by Frostating Court of Appeal in September 2005. One of the women involved was only 16 years old when she came to Norway to sell sexual services.
At the end of November two people of Chinese origin were arrested in Sweden on suspicion of human trafficking/ trafficking children from China. That case probably has links to Norway, where several asylum seekers from China who were under the age of majority have disappeared from reception centres. No-one can be sure what has happened to these children.
The first Norwegian plan of action against human trafficking was produced in 2003. It has now been revised and extended until 2008. The plan includes a number of measures to prevent human trafficking and to protect and support victims, as well as to identify and prosecute human traffickers in this area. However, a weakness of the government’s plan of action on human trafficking is that the only measures it offers to children and minors who have been the victims of trafficking are safe accommodation and support. They are to be provided in cooperation between the local child
- 25 - protection services, the Directorate for Children and Young People and any other relevant bodies. A circular letter is being prepared which will clarify the role and responsibilities of the child protection authorities in these cases. Like Save the Children Norway, Pro Sentret believes that the support and protection of children must be looked at independently, and must meet Norway’s obligations under international law to safeguard the particular rights and needs of children.
Other views on minors, prostitution and human trafficking
In the spring of 2005, The Church City Mission in Trondheim published its report on minors and the sale of sexual services. The report Følelser i drift [“Feelings in Motion”] shows that in Trondheim there are both boys and girls aged 13-18 who sell or barter sexual services. The report states that it is young people from difficult backgrounds who have previously been the victims of abuse and neglect who are at risk of ending up in prostitution. The men who approach the young people are of all ages, and they establish contact both over the Internet and in public spaces.
In 2005, Willy Pedersen and Camilla Jordheim Larsen of NOVA published a report on young people and sexuality. Their report entitled Bytte, kjærlighet, overgrep – seksualitet blant ungdom i randsonen [“Barter, love and abuse – the sexuality of young people on the fringes of society”] looks at experiences in the grey areas between sexual assault, prostitution, so-called survival sex and normal sexual activity. The report reveals that overall, young people with drug problems are at much greater risk of being subjected to unwanted sexual attention and assaults than other young people. Relationships in which sexuality was used as a tool in return for other benefits were also much more common in this group than elsewhere.
This year Operation Day’s Work, the humanitarian campaign by Norwegian secondary schools, was dedicated to the topic of human trafficking, with a particular focus on young people. Pro Sentret was on the editorial committee for the booklets published in connection with this, and contributed articles to both the secondary school and sixth-form college editions. Networking and other partnerships
The arenas for prostitution are changing rapidly. It is therefore important for Pro Sentret to have a wide range of contacts both nationally and internationally. Our aims are to pass on our knowledge to stakeholders for whom it is useful, and to learn from the experiences of others so that we remain ahead of developments and can improve our work. Sometimes this is done through long-term networking, whilst on other occasions it involves limited projects. The partnerships that we have been involved in have had prostitution, health and human trafficking as their main topics. Here are the most important partnerships that we formed in 2005:
Norwegian networks
A network has been set up for the Norwegian groups providing welfare and health care services to prostitutes. Groups from Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim, Stavanger and
- 26 - Tromsø are involved. Prostitution, and particularly foreign prostitution, is changing rapidly. Foreign prostitution has been the subject of public debate in all Norwegian cities. This has made it necessary for the various groups to exchange experiences over the course of the year. In September, Pro Sentret held the annual network conference, the subject of which was “Foreign prostitution in Norway”. There is an account of it on our website, under publications. The network conference was part financed by the EU’s Daphne II programme – please see “Safe Return to Motherland in the enlarged Europe”.
The Oslo pilot project
The Oslo pilot project is a network set up by the Ministry of Justice. It comprises authorities and organisations that meet potential victims of human trafficking. This includes the police, immigration authorities, social services, health services, groups working with prostitutes, shelters and organisations working with ethnic minorities. Ministries and directorates with responsibilities set out in the plan of action also participate. The network aims to ensure that there is practical cooperation between organisations and support for victims in the Oslo region. The project is supposed to give us a better understanding of human trafficking, as well as to improve cooperation and regulatory frameworks in order to enhance the support and protection offered to victims of human trafficking in Oslo. The intention is also that it shall be possible to pass on the experiences of the network to the rest of Norway.
Amnesty International, Norway
Since 2004 Amnesty has been running the campaign “Stop violence against women”. Pro Sentret has supported the campaign, and held the “Trafficking and Human Rights” conference in collaboration with Amnesty on 2 May 2005. You can read an account of it on our website, under publications.
TAMPEP
Pro Sentret is involved in the TAMPEP 7 network (Transnational AIDS/ STI Prevention among Migrant Prostitutes in Europe/Project) www.tampep.com. This is an EU public health project which involves measures in 24 countries. The network focuses on health care for migrant prostitutes. It looks at information, developing methodologies, surveying trends in prostitution and the women’s need for assistance.
TAMPEP Onlus
Northern Italy has greater experience of Nigerian prostitution than we do. TAMPEP’s branch in Turin (TAMPEP Onlus) has collected information about this group, and has developed services that are designed to meet their requirements. Amongst other things they have worked with Nigerian groups on a repatriation project. Pro Sentret has received a lot of useful information from TAMPEP Onlus. They also gave the introduction to the seminar on Nigerian prostitution in Oslo that was held by Pro Sentret on 11 November 2005. There is an account of this meeting on our website, under publications. We wish to continue this collaboration next year, and will look more closely at the possibility of supporting groups in Nigeria.
- 27 -
Correlation
Correlation (http://www.correlation-net.org/) is a new EU public health network that involves more than 50 organisations from 28 European countries. The aim of the network is to improve public health services, particularly their availability to marginalised/ excluded groups such as prostitutes, drug addicts, ethnic minorities and young people who are at risk. The aim is to achieve this through research, surveys and monitoring, political pressure and by developing suitable methodologies.
“Safe return to motherland in the enlarged Europe”
This project is part of the Daphne II programme (the EU’s programme for the prevention of violence against women and children). The project is being coordinated by the “Genders” organisation in Latvia. There are partners from Norway, Germany and Italy. The background to the project is a belief that Latvia may go from being a country of origin for the trafficking of women for prostitution to being a destination or transit country. The aim is to exchange experiences and to draw up a guide to best practice. We have had Genders visiting us in Oslo on a study trip, and we have organised a national seminar on foreign prostitution: the Norwegian network meeting.
Cooperation with northwest Russia
We have been working with the AIDS clinic in Murmansk since 2001. Our most important project has been providing a “needle exchange bus” in Murmansk and including prostitutes in the outreach work that the bus does. Looking forward, the plan is to set up a drop-in centre with an emphasis on preventive health services for prostitutes in Murmansk. Several study groups from Murmansk, Arkhangelsk and St. Petersburg have also visited us here. In St. Petersburg we have for a number of years cooperated with “Stellit”, an organisation whose work includes outreach projects aimed at prostitutes in the city. “Stellit” visited us here in 2005, and we expect our cooperation to continue. Our cooperation with northwest Russia has primarily been supported by the Barents Health Programme and the EU’s Northern Dimension.
Study trip to Romania
Pro Sentret has recently seen an increase in the number of Romanian women working as street prostitutes in Oslo. In 2005 we met 41 Romanian women, nearly all of whom were new acquaintances. We therefore decided that it was sensible to find out more about the issues surrounding human trafficking in Romania and to establish contacts with reintegration centres there. We visited two local groups and held discussions with the Norwegian embassy in Bucharest. The study trip was a collaboration with Nadheim and Rosaprosjektet. There is a report on the trip on our website.
- 28 - New knowledge
Taking Stock – A review of the existing research on trafficking for sexual exploitation Fafo report 493 by Guri Tyldum, Marianne Tveit and Anette Brunovskis
“Taking Stock” is Fafo’s second report dealing with the issues relating to human trafficking and prostitution. In the first report, “Crossing borders”, they analysed the position of foreign prostitutes in Oslo, how they had been recruited and whether they had been trafficked or had come to Norway of their own volition. In “Taking Stock”, the authors look at existing European research and publications on the topic of human trafficking. The aim here was to look at the political and normative discourses in the field, and to find out what we know and how we know it. The other aim was to highlight areas that are important to future research and to develop better, more effective strategies in the fight against human trafficking.
The report reveals that there is a lack of qualitative empirical studies on human trafficking, in spite of the large number of publications on the subject in recent years. These publications often overestimate the number of victims. The project also revealed that the definition of human trafficking in the Palermo protocol is also a cause of ongoing disagreement between various stakeholders. Everyone agrees that human trafficking is a big problem, but various groups view the problem from different political angles, and have clear political agendas. The phenomenon of human trafficking overlaps with phenomena such as migration, smuggling and prostitution. We therefore need a more precise definition of what human trafficking is from a practical point of view, so that we can develop programmes that are aimed at the prevention of human trafficking, as well as at identifying the victims, providing help to them and reintegrating and repatriating them.
Fra Nigeria til Europa. Innvandring, menneskesmugling og menneskehandel [“From Nigeria to Europe. Immigration, people smuggling and human trafficking”] by Jørgen Carling, The International Peace Research Institute (Prio) 2005
The arrival of Nigerian women to Norway is a relatively new phenomenon. The report is based on information about Nigerian immigration, people smuggling and human trafficking in other parts of Europe. These are generally the main topics in relation to the arrival of Nigerian migrants to Europe. Terms like immigration, people smuggling and human trafficking also overlap one another. Although people smuggling does not involve force per se, both it and human trafficking can be aspects of organised crime. This is due to the poverty, crime, corruption and violence that is widespread in Nigerian society.
When human traffickers offer young women the chance to travel to Europe, they generally tempt them with good jobs, although many of them are aware that they will be going into prostitution. The surprises for the women are the framework around it and the large amount of debt that they incur, which it can take them up to three years to repay. Once their debt has been cleared, it is normal for some of the prostitutes to join the human trafficking networks in order to recruit new women. On the other hand,
- 29 - many families have escaped from the dire poverty that exists in the areas from which the largest numbers of prostitutes are recruited. Emigration has resulted in Nigeria losing large numbers of highly qualified people. On the other hand, expatriate Nigerians are a significant resource for their country of origin, and they send more than a billion dollars back to their relatives each year.
A Life of One’s own - Rehabilitation of victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation
Fafo report 477 Lise Bjerkan (ed.)
This report is the result of a one-year research project carried out by Fafo, the University of Trondheim and a Serbian research institute. The project involved field work and interviews with identified victims of human trafficking in Serbia and – to a lesser extent – Italy and Moldova. The aim was to describe welfare services in Serbia, and to look at the backgrounds of the victims of human trafficking, their experiences as trafficked women and their views of the subsequent support provided. The report hovers around questions relating to the identification, rehabilitation and reintegration of victims, and discusses whether their needs and expectations are being fulfilled. The role of professional helpers is also discussed. The report identifies a need for the coordination and quality assurance of welfare services. It also focuses on the importance of predictability and information for people receiving help, as well as their need for individual services.
Sterke hovud og sterke hjarte [“Strong minds and strong hearts – Thai women in the Norwegian sex market”] Ellen Kristvik
This report was written for the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, as part of the research done for the plan of action against human trafficking. The methodology involved field work and interviews with Thai prostitutes in Oslo. By presenting seven personal life stories, it illustrates typical aspects of the women’s situations. The report concludes that there is no proof of human trafficking as defined by the UN protocol. Most of the women came to Norway through marriage. Many of them face language barriers and find it hard to integrate into the Norwegian labour market. Prostitution is often the only option that these women feel is open to them if they become divorced or face some other financial crisis. Recommended measures could include: better tailoring of information about rights, genuine integration measures both in terms of language and the labour market and recognition of the women’s skills in terms of work.
Bytte, kjærlighet, overgrep – seksualitet blant ungdom i randsonen [“Barter, love and abuse – the sexuality of young people on the fringes of society”] NOVA Report 10/05 Camilla Jordheim Larsen and Willy Pedersen
When young people barter sexual services with goods from adults, it is often described as abuse or youth prostitution, but this does not mean that the people
- 30 - involved see it as such. The report describes these grey areas where sex is used in barter transactions. New technology like text messaging and chatrooms have also expanded the arenas for these barter relationships. The report is based on qualitative interviews with 60 young people who are on the fringes of society. Equally, many of them are recognisably “normal young people”. The main conclusion of the report is that difficult personal circumstances often also result in damaging sexual experiences. The report discusses important terms such as abuse, prostitution, survival sex and “normal sexual activity”.
Følelser i drift – Om ungdom under 18 år som selger /bytter seksuelle tjenester i Trondheim [“Feelings in Motion – On young people under the age of 18 who sell/ barter sexual services in Trondheim”] BUS, Midt-Norge’s progress report no. 17 by Anne Grytbakk and Jannicke H, Borgersrud
The authors are employed at the Church City Mission in Trondheim’s drop-in centre for young people. The report was commissioned by the City of Trondheim. The aim was to carry out a survey of youth prostitution in the city. 21 young people and employees at 23 welfare organisation in the city were interviewed. Although all of the interviewees, except for two service providers, were aware of the sale/ barter of sexual services, there is no evidence of a visible prostitution market in Trondheim. It has been impossible to quantify the extent of the problem. The report provides a good description of how the Internet, and particularly chatrooms, can act as a forum for the sale of sex. Like the NOVA report described above, it looks at the grey areas between experimentation, exploitation, abuse and selling. The report concludes that it is young people from difficult backgrounds who are most at risk of ending up in prostitution. It also confirms that professionals in the field say that they know too little about the subject, and that they find it hard to talk about prostitution. The report will in due course be published on the drop-in centre’s website when it has been completed in 2006.
The City of Bergen’s plan of action on prostitution 2005 – 2008 adopted 7 March 2005
The plan of action sums up current knowledge about the prostitution market in Bergen, and the measures being taken. It also describes future plans. It is estimated that approx. 100 women work as street prostitutes in Bergen. The figures for the indoor market and male prostitutes are not known. Measures aimed at street prostitution focus on the treatment of drug addiction and on the provision of health care and housing. Measures aimed at the indoor market focus on health care and motivation. Preventative measures are also planned, particularly aimed at young people in groups that are at risk.
- 31 - Det skal ikke bare være en krop mot krop-opplevelse… En sociologisk undersøgelse om prostitutionskunder [“It isn’t supposed to be just a physical experience – A sociological study of prostitute’s customers”]. Claus Lautrop, the Danish Centre for Research on Social Vulnerability, Copenhagen
This is the most recent Nordic study of customers, and it is also one of the most extensive ones. The quantitative part included an Internet survey of 6350 men, including both those who had and those who had not purchased sex. The qualitative part involved telephone interviews of 20 men who regularly bought sex. Some of the findings: 86 % of the men had never bought sex. Three out of four of these men replied that they would not consider doing so, even if the opportunity arose. The majority of the men who did not buy sex viewed customers of prostitutes as deviant or as losers in terms of being attractive to women. 14% of the men had bought sex. This tallies well with other Scandinavian studies. A question that is often raised is whether demand has remained constant for the past 20 years. There is a lot of evidence to suggest this, but we do not have exact figures for fluctuations in demand. However, it is believed that supply has increased in Denmark in recent years. Of the men who bought sex, just under a third were regular buyers, which is rather higher than the figure in Norway. Approx. 60% of the men had only bought sex once or a few times. The report distinguishes between three types of buyers: • Experimenters (occasional buyers) • Heavy users in relationships • Heavy users who are single One of the findings of the report was that the younger you are when you buy sex for the first time, the greater the chance of you buying sex regularly as an adult.
Scandinavian Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology – No. 1 March 2005
This was a special issue entirely dedicated to legislation on prostitution in the Nordic countries. It should be of interest to everyone who is interested in the legal framework for prostitution in the Nordic countries.
Samtiden no. 3 - 2005
The Samtiden journal had a special issue with three articles on prostitution. Two of the articles were interviews with people with experience of prostitution, and the third one looked at feminist discourses on prostitution. It resulted in quite an interesting debate in Ny Tid and Klassekampen, which ended up dealing with the credibility of the prostitutes in the debate, and with the ethics of research and journalism.
Prostitutes organise a conference.
In October there was a prostitution conference in Brussels. The conference was organised by sex-workers and some of their allies. The title of the conference was: European Conference on Sex Work, Human Rights, Labour and Migration. To quote from its stated aims: “The general goals of our conference are to celebrate our lives and work, to share experiences about working in the sex industry, to reaffirm
- 32 - partnerships with “old” allies and to establish partnerships with “new” allies. Through working together during the conference we aim to put sex workers’ rights back on the European political agenda and to shift the current focus on trafficking to migration, labour and human rights”.
Pro Sentret attended the conference along with Amnesty International Norway. We were both asked to sit on a panel looking at human rights and cooperation aiming to promote them. Parts of the conference were restricted to prostitutes. Some Norwegians were actively involved in the whole conference. A manifesto prepared on the basis of the conference can be found at: www.sexworkeurope.org
Educating other people
Over the past year, employees at Pro Sentret have been involved in over 200 different projects aiming to provide education, training and information to: school children, students, welfare authorities, the police, political parties and charitable foundations. We have been on various councils and committees, have received several hundred enquiries from the press and have had many visitors to our centre both from Norway and overseas. In 2005 we had 20 students and student teachers from police, social work and nursing colleges.
Clinical work
Introduction
Pro Sentret is both a national centre of expertise with responsibility for everything relating to prostitution, and a service provider for women and men who have worked in prostitution. As a provider of welfare services, our target group is all women and men working as prostitutes, both Norwegian and foreign, children and adults. We work with the traditional street market, but also with the indoor market on a regular basis.
Pro Sentret’s ideological platform
Pro Sentret aims to base its work on our society’s finest humanist traditions. Prostitution is an act, not a human characteristic. We aim to view individuals in a holistic light. Society needs to show solidarity towards women and men who sell sex. We must recognise them as subjects in their own lives, and respect their choices. We aim to destroy myths and prejudices by providing insight and information, and try to ensure that society does not stigmatise the people involved in prostitution. There are myriad reasons for women and men choosing prostitution. Often it is the lack of better alternatives. Most of them want to get out of prostitution.
Prostitution takes place when at least two parties buy or sell sexual services. Society should invest heavily in preventing prostitution and in providing good welfare services
- 33 - to people who want to leave prostitution. The work must be based on a non- judgemental approach. Respecting the wishes of individuals is a fundamental principle of our work.
New groups, new challenges
Year Number of unique users Of whom foreign 2001 847 161 (19 %) 2002 1300 400 (31 %) 2003 1336 644 (48 %) 2004 1404 884 (63 %) 2005 1527 1064 (70 %)
The above table of Pro Sentret’s users shows a clear trend. Although there was only a 7% increase in the proportion of foreign users last year, it is extremely challenging to help so many clients with different nationalities, cultures, wishes and needs. However, in the face of this influx of new nationalities, we must not “forget” the Norwegian women who have had very strong connections to the centre over the course of many years. A Norwegian drug addict has different needs from a Norwegian woman working from her own flat. The latter may be struggling with debt, have mental health problems or be in a difficult marriage. A woman from Estonia – now an EU member state – naturally has different rights in Norway than an Albanian woman. In addition to their cultural differences, they also have highly different personal problems and resources. Although Pro Sentret does not aim to meet all of the women’s various wishes and requirements, we need to be in a position to refer them to other bodies that can. This requires us to be very flexible and well-informed.
Norwegian women working as street prostitutes?
In our previous annual report we indicated that Norwegian women with drug problems appear to be disappearing from street prostitution. This trend continued in 2005, albeit less dramatically.
2004 2005 Number of Norwegian 142 123 women encountered as a % 22.2 % 17.5 %
There may be several explanations for this. One is that they have been outcompeted. They are therefore forced to find alternative sources of income. Some of them sell sex at different times of day, others have “regular customers”, whilst yet others sell drugs or obtain money in alternative ways through friends or crime. Other explanations are related to changes in the drug scene. Many addicts are being treated with the aid of prescription drugs. There is also the fact that the price of drugs has fallen. A recently published report by SIRUS (Report 4/2005) on trends from 1993 to 2004 amongst injecting addicts on the streets of Oslo indicated that their income from
- 34 - pushing drugs, prostitution and crime had halved over that period of time. The proportion receiving income from prostitution had also fallen. They provide evidence that heroin prices have fallen by approx. 70% since 1993, and that the expenses of heroin addicts have been reduced by approx. a third since 1998.
Our colleagues in Stavanger also say that there has been a significant decrease in the number of Norwegian drug addicts working as street prostitutes, but there the explanation is primarily a successful Subutex/ Methadone treatment programme.
Nevertheless, our statistics show that there are just as many Norwegian women who are drug addicts using Pro Sentret’s health care services and drop-in centre this year as last year. This may indicate that they still have a strong bond to us although they are no longer as active as prostitutes. Another possibility is that there are few other options that seem attractive.
Individual case work
Individual case work has always been an important part of Pro Sentret’s contribution. This is outpatient treatment in which individual clients are given systematic care over a period of time. We also work with couples. The vast majority of prostitutes want to get out of prostitution, but need help to manage this. The road out is often long and winding. In many cases there is a shortage of appropriate support and welfare provision elsewhere in society. Take the example of a woman who after many years of drug addiction managed to make a fresh start. She found a home and got a place on a course at a college. After a great deal of argument with the social security and benefits offices, she was granted rehabilitation benefits. However, the total value of the benefits was so low that it was impossible to cope on the monthly amount. Through a three-year university college course she was supposed to survive on income support. She struggled hard. She was unable to participate at her discussion group’s Christmas party. She faced this kind of dilemma the whole time. In order to manage, she needed either to take work in the informal sector or to keep a few, regular prostitution clients, although this was something she really wanted to avoid doing. We know about many stories like that. In addition to struggling their way through a multitude of often inappropriate government-run initiatives, the women have to deal with major and minor mental health problems after many years of prostitution or drug addiction. We have to tackle their welfare, financial and rehabilitative problems, and also to a large extent their mental health issues. Our experience is that the road out of prostitution is a long process. The most important thing is for the woman herself to define her own problems, and to say where we should start, the speed at which we should do things and when she thinks that she has reached her goal. These women have often experienced that other people have strong opinions on how they are leading their lives, and on what they should do to change them. Many people have made decisions for them. It is therefore important for them to become subjects in their own lives, taking their own decisions and responsibilities. This is what makes people human beings. It promotes personal development. The women who want to get out of prostitution, which is the vast majority of them, must receive all possible help and support along the way.
- 35 - The ones who for whatever reason cannot or do not want to stop working as prostitutes, must also receive help to improve their day-to-day lives. The factors that force them to stay in prostitution are often financial problems, such as having sole responsibility for children, having little or no education and therefore only being able to find poorly paid work, or perhaps having no work experience. For women who come from countries outside the EU, the normal labour market will be closed to them. “Can you give me a job?” is what the Nigerian women reply when we ask them what they would like. With a clear answer like that, there is no reason to look for psychological reasons for their prostitution. It is therefore important for us to provide help to ensure that they suffer as little as possible harm, and live as well as possible, while they are here. Punishment or shaming have always been poor instruments for solving social problems or poverty. Fortunately, we find that some of the women from the new EU countries look for ordinary work in Norway. In 2005 we ran a small project on applying for jobs (see separate section). We hope to continue this project on a bigger scale in 2006. For some of the Norwegian women, drug addiction and prostitution are closely linked. In our work with individuals we therefore have to focus on treating their addiction. We have a great deal of experience of providing intensive support to clients, and of cooperating closely with other bodies working with drug addicts. We also have to take the women’s mental health problems seriously. For example, many of them have lost contact with their families and with their own children. Reuniting families is a long process that requires a great deal on the part of the women. In conversations we discuss questions such as sorrow, loss, guilt and self-confidence. Fortunately we find that many of the women who join the LAR system (which offers rehabilitation with the help of prescription drugs) stop working as prostitutes. As we work with such a diverse group of users, who have different requirements and who are at different stages of any given rehabilitation process, we have to work with many different welfare providers, such as lawyers, the police, social security offices, immigration authorities, addiction and psychiatric services, etc. The women who receive individual support include both street prostitutes and women who have worked in the indoor market. They may be Norwegian or foreign, and as previously stated, they have a wide variety of requirements, which means that we need to be flexible and imaginative in our approach.
172 women received outpatient care over the past year. The majority of them were Norwegian women with major drug problems.
Drop-in centre
The drop-in centre is a low-threshold service for women who work or have worked as prostitutes. The target group is women on the margins of society, with serious drug problems often combined with mental health issues. The drop-in centre aims to provide care and motivation, is easily accessible and accepts people heavily under the influence of drink or drugs or with serious mental health problems.
The staff at the drop-in centre assist the women with their acute needs. Here they can get food, wash their clothes, relax, sleep, get in touch with our health care workers, receive help contacting emergency accommodation centres and other welfare services, as well as talk about their personal situations. Toiletries, condoms
- 36 - and lubricant are handed out free of charge. Staff also work to motivate and raise the awareness of users. Raising people’s awareness and their ability to see alternatives helps motivate them to choose something different, and to bring about the changes they want to see in their own lives. If the women need long-term, systematic support, they are offered outpatient care.
The prostitute community has changed significantly in recent years. This is particularly noticeable amongst street prostitutes, many of whom are foreign women. These changes have been reflected in Pro Sentret’s users, 70% of whom are now of foreign origin.
699 different women used the drop-in centre in 2005. Between them they visited 6128 times. 403 of the women were foreign. But the statistics also reveal that it is the Norwegian women who come regularly and often.
The challenge for the drop-in centre, which had previously only been used by Norwegian women, was put into sharp relief in 2005. Increasing numbers of foreign prostitutes wanted to use the drop-in centre. The question was therefore how best to integrate them. Naturally the Norwegian women have at times felt marginalised. This is understandable given that they are also being pushed out of the areas for street prostitution. We found that by taking a gradual approach, and by consulting the Norwegian women throughout, integration became more successful. We would therefore like to praise the Norwegian women who have coped well with the changes at the drop-in centre, and who in the vast majority of cases have shown great open- mindedness. Sharing meals around a friendly table can help to spread understanding and dialogue across cultural boundaries. It is exciting when we invite the foreign women to make their own food for all of us.
For many women, the drop-in centre is a safe place to meet other women in the same situation as themselves. Here they can share experiences that they do not talk about in other contexts. The focus of our work at the centre is on recognising the needs of individuals, providing care and putting in place a framework that allows the women to communicate well amongst themselves. There is also a strong focus on user participation. In so far as it is possible, we try to involve users in the day-to-day running of the drop-in centre. Staff also listen to women and their requirements, and strive to develop our services on their terms. In order to give the women greater influence, we hold regular user meetings at which topical problems and important issues are discussed. They may include: • How should Norwegian and foreign women interact at the drop-in centre • What rules apply at the centre • Rights in relation to social security and benefits • Any wishes in terms of inviting politicians or other people for discussions In 2005, decision-makers and people from the authorities were invited to the drop-in centre in order to give the women the chance to make a difference to society as a whole. There was a particular focus on the issue of criminalising customers. Visitors included Kristin Halvorsen and Inga Marthe Thorkildsen of the Socialist Left Party, Gry Larsen and colleagues from the Labour Party youth movement, several ministers from the previous government and Dagfinn Høybråten of the Christian Democratic Party. The women also spoke a great deal about their encounters with social security
- 37 - offices and other welfare authorities. They often feel that they are poorly treated and are not listened to by the welfare authorities, and feel a strong need to tell people about this. We have also held meetings with selected branches of the police service. The women have been particularly keen to discuss problems relating to violence. Many of them are the victims of violence, and want more help from the police. Pro Sentret believes that it is important for there to be a continuous and good dialogue between the prostitute community and the police. Several of our users – both from Norway and overseas – work as volunteers at the drop-in centre. Last year we also refurbished one of the rooms to provide the women with PCs with Internet access. The PCs are used a great deal by both our Norwegian and foreign clients. In 2005 we held another of our traditional, big Christmas parties. One of our faithful and longstanding volunteers again made the fantastic food. We would also like to mention that the leader of PION has been an invaluable promoter of and driving force behind the meetings at the centre, and has made lots of useful proposals regarding improvements for the women. We are grateful for that.
Outreach work on the streets
The most visible arena for prostitution is the streets. The aim of our outreach work on the streets is to get to know and maintain contact with new and old faces. We offer the women advice and information about their rights, help them to avoid sexually transmitted diseases and other health problems, and tell them about the other services offered by Pro Sentret. We also aim to systematically survey and learn about this arena, and about any changes that are taking place. We focus on “new recruits”, i.e. new prostitutes under the age of 25, and try to prevent them from having to continue their careers in prostitution.
Four of our staff, split into two teams, go out to meet street prostitutes twice a week. The teams consist of a social worker, cultural mediator and nurse.
In addition to providing information of various kinds to the women we meet, and finding out about their individual requirements, we hand out condoms, lubricant, toiletries and emergency contraception as required.
We have met 704 individual women through our outreach work over the past year. That is not the total number of street prostitutes in Oslo, and there may be around 150 who we do not meet in any given year. This would mean that there were approx. 850 individual women involved in street prostitution in 2005.
The increasing numbers of women working as street prostitutes over the past four years has made the task of our outreach workers more difficult. Five years ago this arena was entirely Norwegian. Now it is totally dominated by foreign women, particularly from Nigeria, Romania and Bulgaria, as well as from some other Eastern European countries. The situation has been completely turned on its head over a short period of time. We must therefore continuously reassess our goals for our outreach work. Aims and approaches quickly become out of date in the face of such
- 38 - dramatic changes. For example, last summer we extended our working hours on some nights, and found that the situation was very different after midnight. At that time of night there were only Nigerian women working. Over the course of an hour we would meet around 100 different women, many of whom we had not previously met. We observed that they covered large parts of the area used for street prostitution, and also went up Karl Johan, where we had not previously seen prostitution. This has been the subject of media attention, and is a matter of concern for us, politicians and the police. We are concerned about this development, as we believe that it is the prostitutes who will lose out if there is too much “confrontation” with the general public. There have already been proposals to deny them entry into Norway. It is important that we participate in discussions on how to regulate prostitution.
Outreach work in parlours and flats
Pro Sentret has again in 2005 performed outreach work at massage parlours and in individual flats. The main aim of this work has been to reach women and men who sell sexual services in the indoor market in order to offer them help, information and advice. Our experience is that many of the people who we meet in the indoor market have had little contact with the welfare authorities, and particularly some of the foreign sex workers live in relative isolation in Norway, with a limited understanding of Norwegian language and society.
Our outreach team consists of a nurse, a social worker and a Thai cultural mediator. Over the past year, the main focus of our outreach work has been on health care and preventive measures. The team offers vaccines against hepatitis A and B, as well as blood tests to check for various types of sexually transmitted diseases. We have developed a healthcare kit for use in this work. It contains demonstration materials and brochures in several languages. Condoms and lubricant are also handed out free of charge. In addition to providing health care, we also give advice on social, legal and financial questions.
In 2005 the outreach team observed a great deal of mobility in the indoor market, with new parlours opening and old ones closing, and more people working from flats. The flats and parlours are all in central parts of Oslo. The team met some women, often from Thailand, who work at different places in parallel. There are also many women who travel around, working over large parts of the country. When the market is saturated, more people move to new locations.
Many of the Thai women have been in Norway for many years, and we are finding that increasing numbers of them are making use of the long-term social services available in addition to the popular health care services. On the recommendation of their friends, many of them get in touch with our field workers themselves, and invite our teams to their flats in order to take a blood test or to ask for other kinds of help. There are Norwegians, Scandinavians, Eastern Europeans, Latin Americans, Africans and Thais working in this market.
We recorded 12 different massage parlours in Oslo in 2005, the same number as the previous year.
- 39 - Health care
In 2005, Pro Sentret provided a wide range of sexual and reproductive health services, and addiction-related health care. The service has had a nurse and midwife working daily, whilst a doctor has been available 8 hours per week. There was a great deal of demand for the service, and the number of people using it and the number of appointments increased in comparison with 2004. The evidence of 2005 indicates that our health care services should be enhanced, particularly in relation to preventing sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancies.
Strong demand and more users
Of the 1527 people that Pro Sentret was in contact with in 2005
741 people (48 %) made use of our health care services, 232 of whom (31%) were Norwegian, and 509 of whom (69%) were foreign nationals.
It was almost entirely women who used the service in 2005.
Users of Pro Sentret's Health Care Services 2004-2005
800
741 737
700
600 585 577
509 500
2004 400 352 2005
300
233 232
200
100
8 4 0 No. of users No. of Norwegian users No. of foreign users No. of women No. of men
The number of Norwegian users remained stable, whilst there was a significant increase in the number of foreign users, which is in line with the trends in the prostitute community as a whole. By far the biggest increase was in the number of Nigerian women, and this group is now almost as big as the Norwegian one, whilst there were smaller changes for other nationalities. The large increase in the number
- 40 - of Nigerian women has created a major challenge, both in terms of the capacity of our service, and the skills and knowledge of our staff. We are also experiencing an increase in the number of Bulgarian women using our health care services. Previously they rarely approached Pro Sentret, although we have been in contact with them through our outreach work on the streets for several years.
Foreign Users of Pro Sentret's Health Care Services 2004-2005
250
217
200
150
2004 2005
100
70 65 60 46 50 34 32 28 26 23 25 22 24 14 14 11 14 7 6 1 0 Nigeria Thailand Estonia Bulgaria Lithuania Albania Poland Dom. Rep. Romania Latvia
Of a total of 3141 appointments with a nurse, midwife or doctor in 2005, 1094 (35%) were with Norwegian clients and 2047 (65%) were with foreign clients. There were 14% more appointments than in 2004. On average, each user had 4.2 appointments. Foreign clients had an average of 4.0 appointments, an increase from 3.4 in 2004, whilst Norwegian clients had 4.7 appointments per user, a reduction from 6.6 in 2004. It appears that patterns of use measured by frequency of appointments are converging for Norwegian and foreign clients, and that the need for and interest in our health care services are fairly evenly distributed. It also appears that the various foreign groups have quite similar patterns of use. The reduction in the number of appointments per Norwegian user is related to there being a large proportion of drug addicts in this group. The number of users with addiction problems has not fallen significantly, but addicts are using our health care service less frequently.
Sexual health
Pro Sentret’s staff are heavily involved in preventing the transmission of infectious disease through outreach work in the indoor market (parlours and flats), on the streets and with people who contact Pro Sentret. This involves the distribution of
- 41 - condoms, lubricant and toiletries, as well as advice and information about safer sex. Prostitutes themselves play an important role in preventing the spread of infection by learning about safer sex and putting this knowledge into practice. At Pro Sentret's health care facility users can take blood tests to check for HIV, hepatitis A, B and C and syphilis, have gynaecological examinations including tests for Chlamydia, gonorrhoea, genital herpes and cervical cell changes, receive vaccinations against hepatitis A and B, and if necessary receive suitable treatment or be referred for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and other problems such as vaginosis, fungal infections, etc. If infections are found, the source of contagion is also traced. Sexual partners are also treated if possible.
Blood tests and gynaecological exam inations 2004-2005
600
523
500
388 400
2004 300 266 246 2005
200
100
0 No. of blood tests No. of GEs
In 2005, we performed 523 blood tests and 388 gynaecological examinations, against 266 blood tests and 246 gynaecological examinations in 2004. In 2005 there was an increase in the number of newly diagnosed sexually transmitted infections (see summary on page 42). This is obviously related to the fact that the number of users has increased, which means that more people have been tested for STIs. However, we still believe that it is necessary to monitor the situation carefully, and to increase work on preventing infection in the prostitute community. This is because an increasing number of our clients come from countries where many STIs are more prevalent than in Norway, because increasing mobility within the prostitute community means that the number of people selling sex is increasing and because many of our foreign users have few entitlements to health care in Norway. In 2005 we cooperated with the chief medical officer in Oslo and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health on the question of STIs and preventing the spread of disease amongst prostitutes, and with the Olafia clinic and the department of infectious diseases at Ullevål University Hospital on the treatment of newly diagnosed clients.
- 42 - Sexually transmitted infections 2004-2005
30
25 25
20
2004 15 13 2005
11
10 8 7 7 6 5 5 3 3 3
0 0 HIV Hep. B Hep. C Syphilis Chlamydia Gonorrhea
The use of condoms with one-off customers is very widespread, but our users say that it is not unusual for customers to request intercourse without a condom. It appears that the threshold for intercourse without a condom may be somewhat lower with regular customers, particularly if the woman “trusts” the customer or if the relationship is perceived as being deeper than a normal customer relationship. A large proportion of our clients report that they have experienced condom failure, either through the condom splitting or through it slipping off during intercourse. This is often due to lack of information and incorrect condom use. In general the women do not use condoms with regular partners, who may include husbands or boyfriends, but who may also include facilitators/ pimps who have sex with the women they control. The boundaries are fluid, but our experience from tracing sources of infection is that it is often the person who the user defines as a regular partner, and not a customer, who is the likely source of contagion. We offer advice on STIs and tests to anyone who may have been at risk of infection. We have increased our focus on advice and support prior to testing, particularly for users who say that they have sexual partners with whom they are unwilling or unable to use condoms, or who say that they have experienced condom failure. There is also evidence that the threshold for sex without a condom is lower for oral sex than for vaginal or anal intercourse. We have therefore since June 2005 been performing routine throat tests for Chlamydia and gonorrhoea, in addition to vaginal tests.
Reproductive health
The prevention of unwanted pregnancies has been an important area of our work in 2005. Contraception is therefore discussed during the first appointment with all new users. Our various user groups have very different attitudes and experiences of
- 43 - hormonal contraception, which means that providing advice on contraception is very challenging. African women in particular have little experience of hormonal contraception. This group is therefore in great need of information and advice. We offer advice on contraception and free of charge hormonal contraceptives. In order to minimise the risk of incorrect use, we have tried to find contraceptives that work for our users on the basis of their lifestyles. The most popular form of contraception is the contraceptive plaster, but contraceptive injections, the pill and the coil are also used. We find that users who have been in contact with us for a long period of time are more open to information and advice on contraception, and it is often only after several appointments at which contraception has been discussed that users are ready to start using regular contraception. Everyone who attends our health clinic after condom failure, or after having had sex without a condom for other reasons, is offered emergency contraception.
The increase in the number of pregnant users continued in 2005.
In 2004 there were 21 unwanted pregnancies, whilst in 2005 the figure had risen to 36.
The majority want to have an abortion, but a few choose to go through with the pregnancy. The majority of the women say that they have become pregnant with a more or less regular partner, and not with a one-off customer. Some of the women were pregnant when they arrived in Norway. If the woman wants to have an abortion, we help her to arrange it. Women who are addicted to drugs but who do not want to have an abortion are referred to the social services and to health care workers with expertise on drug abuse and pregnancy. Other women who want to go through with their pregnancies are referred to the local health authority and provided with support in the usual way.
Pro Sentret has for several years been pointing out that foreign women have inadequate access to abortion in so far as they have to pay NOK 7,500 for the procedure. We raised this issue in the media on several occasions in 2005, and we have made the Directorate for Health and Social Affairs, the City of Oslo, the Ministry of Health and Care Services and the Ministry of Labour and Social Inclusion aware of the problem. Prior to the general election in 2005, representatives of what were then the opposition parties made it clear that they would deal with this situation. At the time of writing, in February 2006, the situation is still that foreign prostitutes who become pregnant have to earn the cost of an abortion through prostitution, borrow the money or travel to another country in order to attempt to get the abortion done there. Some women try to induce an abortion themselves, with all of the complications that this can entail. Fortunately there are now signs that both central and local government authorities are working actively on the problem with the aim of finding a rapid solution.
Drugs and health
The use of drugs is the factor that most clearly illustrates the differences between our user groups. There is little illegal drug use amongst foreign women, who are the largest group of users, although we are seeing a slight increase. Their needs are mainly related to sexual and reproductive health, in addition to general health
- 44 - problems. They have few entitlements to health care in Norway. Norwegian women without drug problems also mainly need help with problems relating to sexual and reproductive health, but in the case of Norwegian women with drug problems, the situation is more complicated. As previously stated, the number of appointments with drug addicts has gone down, whilst the number of clients who are drug addicts has remained relatively stable. There are several reasons for this. We have noticed an improvement in the health of many drug addicts as a result of improved access to low-threshold health services and LAR (rehabilitation with the help of prescription drugs), which means that they need our help less frequently. We also know that the increase in the number of our clients has resulted in longer waiting times, which affects users with drug problems worst, as they often lack the patience for waiting.
The improvement in the health of drug addicts is gratifying, but it remains important to provide a good service to the ones who are working as prostitutes. They face very complicated mental health, somatic and drug-related problems. It is particularly the health problems related to the injection of drugs, such as wounds and infections, that have become less of a problem. Malnutrition, poor dental health and psychiatric problems remain a widespread problem. One positive development is the growth in services for drug addicts and people with psychiatric problems. However, some people who are in need of these kinds of services fall through the system or are unable to make use of existing services. In terms of sexual and reproductive health, differences in patterns of use between drug addicts and other users have diminished, and there is an ongoing need for services for drug addicts within these areas.
Projects
Project to establish contacts
From the autumn of 2004 until June 2005 we worked to establish contact with Eastern European women selling sex in the indoor market. The main aim of the project was to establish contacts with Eastern European women who sell sexual services from flats in Oslo, to inform them about Pro Sentret and the services it offers, as well to provide them with help and support.
This group of prostitutes is relatively invisible, and it is difficult to reach them through our normal outreach work, as we do not know where they operate from. A Norwegian social worker and a Russian cultural mediator established contact by systematically phoning women who advertise in trade magazines and on the Internet.
The majority of the women were very keen to receive information, and if they were unable to come to Pro Sentret we told them that an outreach team could visit them.
The Eastern European women who advertise in magazines or on the Internet came, in order of numbers, from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Albania. Most of the Russian-speaking women we spoke to had either heard of Pro Sentret from other people or had already visited us. However, we found that they know very
- 45 - little about the services that we offer apart from our health care services. Both the women who were already aware of us and the ones who found out about us through the project passed on the information that they received to other women. Several have subsequently become frequent users of our centre. This shows that it was an effective way of reaching out to groups of users who would otherwise have remained hidden.
Job application course
Since several of the women from the Baltic states have shown an interest in finding ordinary work in Norway after their countries became part of the EU, Pro Sentret invited representatives of AETAT to come and inform us about the transition rules for new EU member states. In the wake of this, we arranged a course at AETAT in September. The aim of the course was to teach the women how to apply for jobs and to inform them of the relevant rules. Unfortunately it was poorly attended. However, we know that interest in getting normal jobs in Norway is increasing, and so we will run a project in 2006 that aims to offer ordinary employment.
Legal advice and other rights
It has been important to inform many of the foreign women who do not have long- term Norwegian residence or work permits about their rights. The rights of an Estonian citizen are considerably different from those of a Nigerian woman with residency in Italy. A woman from Albania who has been the victim of human trafficking has different rights again. Legal Advice for Women (JURK) have been here on a weekly basis and have spoken both to Norwegian and foreign women. In particular, they have been able to provide assistance to Thai women on issues such as marital problems, divorce, child custody and questions of residency. They have also cooperated closely with Pro Sentret’s social workers. Statistics
Pro Sentret 2005 Result Result Result Result Result 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 Annual summary
TOTAL NO. OF USERS 1527 1404 1336 1300 847 of whom foreign 1064 885 644 400 161 as a % 70 % 63 % 48 % 32 % 19 %
- 46 - Appendices:
Cultural mediation at Pro Sentret By Ganimete Ramadani and Irina Polyakova
Talk at the Norwegian prostitution network conference, September 2005
Background
Tampep is an EU network that promotes health care and rights for migrant sex workers in Europe. Tampep introduced cultural mediation as a methodology for providing health care and welfare services to this group of people. We have implemented this methodology, and we would first like to say a little bit about our definition of a cultural mediator, much of which is taken from Tampep’s definition.
Definition
A cultural mediator is someone who has the same cultural background as the target group and who speaks their language, but who also understands the cultural context and language of the host country.
The cultural mediator should understand the traditions, codes and norms that the target group refer to and act on the basis of, whilst also knowing the norms and system in the host country and being able to navigate them.
The strength of the cultural mediator is that she occupies a cross-cultural position: she knows what it means to be an outsider, having been a migrant herself or having an immigrant background.
The cultural mediator’s contribution is to pass on and explain culturally sensitive messages between the foreign women working as prostitutes and the social and health workers. The person should be able to detect culturally based areas of tension and difficulty between the groups, and be able to offer cross-cultural proposals for solutions. For example, in the course of a health appointment a nurse may ask about details relating to the sale of sex, how long the person has been selling sex, etc. Many of the foreign women find it embarrassing to face these types of questions from a nurse, and see them as being irrelevant. Often they ask the cultural mediators “Why does she want to know about that?”
Recognition is another purpose of the communication. It is important to make it possible for immigrants and refugees to participate in their new societies by viewing them as experts on their own resources and making them responsible for their own choices, rather than making choices on behalf of them.
The cultural mediator has to build a bridge between the professionals working with the foreign women involved in prostitution and the women themselves. As part of a team, cultural mediators are advisers and assistants to the social and health workers
- 47 - and to the women, and they should be given a neutral, autonomous and defined position, both within the team and in relation to the target group. This is the theory, but in practice it is hard to see clear divides between the roles. The cultural mediators are often trusted, and it is to them the women must often turn if they have experienced something that they want to talk about. In practice the cultural mediators also perform social work.
The cultural mediators therefore play a central role in the communications between the welfare services and the women themselves, in the provision of information and in the dialogue with the target group on prostitution related issues. These may include health problems, prostitution practices, mental health issues, etc. It is important to raise the awareness of the women and to strengthen their position, both as prostitutes and as immigrants.
The challenges faced include cultural differences, language barriers and the marginalisation of the women.
Italy is a good example of a country that uses cultural mediators as a way of working with foreign women. There, the cultural mediators work hard to promote understanding between Italian and for example Nigerian culture. It may take time to explain to Nigerian women what seeing a psychologist involves, for example, and what a psychologist can do for individuals. Receiving psychological support is neither normal nor accepted amongst the Nigerian population. In Italy the cultural mediators work closely with psychologists. The cultural mediators are also always present when the women have to deal with various public services and authorities. This includes hospitals, the police, social security offices, etc. Sometimes they do not need to play an active role, and just need to be present. In some cases the women refuse to cooperate with the cultural mediators because they believe that they are spying on them, in which case you have to find an alternative way of helping them as much as possible.
Pro Sentret’s use of cultural mediators
Our aim has been to provide foreign women who sell sexual services in Oslo with good welfare and health services, and to increase contact with foreign women involved in prostitution, in order to ensure that Pro Sentret always has an in-depth understanding of the communities of foreign prostitutes and is therefore in a position to provide adequate support. There is no doubt that the cultural mediators have been the key to reaching the foreign women. Many of them would probably not have come to Pro Sentret were it not for the cultural mediators.
Pro Sentret’s strategy has been to innovate in terms of the way the centre approaches this area, thereby building up relationships with the foreign women on the basis of their needs. The cultural mediators are therefore involved in all measures aimed at the foreign women.
We have employed Russian, Albanian, Thai and Nigerian cultural mediators. We have also had a Dominican cultural mediator at the centre. Irina, who is Russian herself, is responsible for the Russian speakers, who may come from Russia, Belarus, the Baltic states or Moldova. Ganimete, an ethnic Albanian who also speaks
- 48 - Bulgarian, has covered Southeastern Europe. In 2005 we also took on another Albanian cultural mediator who also speaks Italian, in order for us to reach the Romanians who do not speak English and the Nigerians who have lived in Italy for a long time.
One of the challenges has been to integrate the cultural mediators into our teamwork at the centre. This has not been entirely easy in terms of allocating roles and responsibilities. As previously stated, the idea was for the cultural mediators to build bridges, but in practice they have also become social workers. It is not always possible to pass on a problem to someone else. It is also important to note that some foreign women do not want to use cultural mediators, precisely because they come from the same country. These women find it easier to go directly to a social worker with a problem, because it is less personal to speak to someone from a different country about prostitution.
In the same way that Nigerian cultural mediators in Italy need to explain who psychologists are and what they can do for their clients, in Norway we need to explain to our clients who and what social workers and welfare services are. The women who come to use us are not familiar with these concepts or what they mean. Here the cultural mediators’ knowledge of the Norwegian welfare system is important, and they also have to explain the Norwegian culture to the foreign women. In other words, cultural mediation is a two-way process.
When a woman comes to the centre we start out cautiously. She may be in a vulnerable position due to possible relationships with pimps and criminal gangs, in addition to which she is a migrant with an uncertain future in Europe. Our approach is based on our knowledge of prostitution, human trafficking and violence. We need to individually assess the situation of each woman when we get to know her, and that requires great sensitivity on our part. The women are for instance entitled to anonymity when they use our services. The help must also be provided on the women’s own terms.
Cultural differences
Our culture provides a framework for how we view the world and for the choices that we make. Our culture is affected by the society in which we live, at the same time as our culture influences society. Culture consists of traditions, clothing, language, rituals, behaviour and ways of thinking. We learn about culture through a long process the structure of which is social. Humans act on the basis of their cultures and are influenced by them, but they also create their new forms of expression and meanings. Cultures therefore have a historical aspect, as well as being relative and diverse. Human behaviour cannot exist independently of cultural influence.
Perhaps imagining the hypothetical situation of a woman from the Norwegian countryside in 1960 who suddenly leaps through time and space to work as a street prostitute in modern Oslo, can help us to understand the situation of the foreign women and the differences that they encounter. In order to explain these differences, and to ensure that they receive good health care and welfare services, it is important to have an intermediary to whom the women can relate. Culture is also affected by other factors such as geography, religion, relationships between the sexes, the form
- 49 - of government, etc. There may also be large cultural differences within a country. We do not generally encounter well-informed women from good backgrounds; the people we meet come from the lower classes, from rural areas, have difficult family backgrounds, etc.
Women who come from very traditional, collective societies have stronger family ties and feel a greater obligation to provide for their families and relatives. This is common to the women from Africa, Asia and Southeastern Europe. However, the ones who come from countries that are closer to Western Europe have fewer family obligations and are more individualistic. Women from the Baltic states or Hungary find it easier to fit in here.
You don’t have to come from Albania or Africa in order to collide with Norwegian culture. Norwegian Sámi people who are given psychiatric care may be misunderstood and pathologised if they hear voices. Spiritual helpers are a natural part of their culture and understanding of nature. This means that western psychiatry and Sámi traditions are two universes that do not always sit comfortably with one another. We face the same kinds of problems and dilemmas at Pro Sentret when we deal with people from diverse, non-western cultures. Beliefs in spirits, good omens, the evil eye or the evil mouth, astrology, witchcraft, spiritualism and occultism are some of the things that we have to find a way of relating to. In Norway there are also some people who believe in these kinds of things, but they are very much in the minority. The women may also have their own views on what their physical ailments are, and on the types of medicine they want to use. Often they may want something particular that a Norwegian doctor cannot easily prescribe. For example, the use of antibiotics is very restricted in Norway, and unlike in Russia you need a doctor’s prescription. People’s cultural backgrounds, religions or personal philosophies, values and experiences all colour their understanding of life and death, sickness and health. In all cultures birth, sickness and death have psychosocial meanings that are specific to the culture. The way in which people feel and express the symptoms of illness is dependent on their personal experiences and on their cultural and personal beliefs regarding physiology, sickness and treatment. A foreign girl may say to a doctor that she thinks that she is going to die soon because she is in pain, or that she will commit suicide because it hurts so much, but in reality she would never do this and she knows that she isn’t going to die. It is just a way of expressing pain and despair.
The women have to deal with cultural differences in their first encounter with the Norwegian authorities in the shape of the border police and customs service. One woman from Estonia told us, for example, that the customs official found a small piece of paper containing fish-scale rolled up in her purse, and asked her what it was. She answered that it was fish-scale, and that she had taken it with her because it brings riches. The customs official didn’t understand what she was on about, but let her go through. Perhaps the official didn’t know that in Norway you traditionally put four-leaf clover under your pillow. Another girl, this time from Russia, had pockets full of sunflower seeds in her jacket when she was searched on the Norwegian border. The customs official was very suspicious as to why she had birdseed with her, and for an hour the poor Russian girl tried to explain that in Russia people eat sunflower seeds. In his world only birds eat them. In other words, we are confronted by the new culture as soon as step inside another country.
- 50 - Cultural differences relating to gender, sexuality and contraception.
There are also a number of challenges relating to sexuality and contraception. We have tried hard to promote other forms of contraception in addition to condoms. Many of the women think that they will not be able to have children later in life if they go on the pill. Many Albanians, for instance, believe that if you try hard to avoid having children, then you will not get them when you want them in the future. In Nigerian culture fertility is synonymous with being a worthy woman. Some Nigerian women check that they are fertile by getting pregnant and then having an abortion. When a Ukrainian girl says that she does not want to use any hormonal contraceptives and particularly not the pill, the doctor or nurse will not necessarily understand why she is so adamant about this unless he or she is aware of the current debate on contraception in her home country. The role of the cultural mediator here is to explain to the doctor that in the country the woman comes from, young women are discouraged from using the pill by doctors and other people, because it is said to have negative side-effects and to affect fertility. In this case we can discuss what western medical research says about this, and see whether the woman changes her mind and believes what we say.
Institutional differences
Often the women come from countries with authoritarian regimes, which means that they have a completely different attitude towards the authorities than we do in democratic Norway. This makes it difficult to promote the institutions here, and to convince the women that the people like us who work there only want to help them. For some of them it is impossible to imagine a form of government that is not corrupt, in the same way that it is difficult for us to imagine that corruption is widespread in Norway, although we know that it is in certain industries. We must remember that in some countries even a duty of confidentiality can be bought. Another notable factor is that the women also experience considerable corruption when they arrive in the West, particularly in Italy and Greece, which further undermines their confidence in the authorities. If they find themselves in difficult situations, they are particularly suspicious of the police and the authorities responsible for dealing with documents such as passports or other forms of identification. We often find that foreign prostitutes who are the victims of violence don’t want to report the incidents to the police for fear of it harming their asylum applications or leading to them being registered as prostitutes, which they want to avoid. Initially it is difficult to explain to them what kind of institution Pro Sentret is. The very fact that the government helps drug addicts and prostitutes surprises the women who we meet. Once when a girl was on the phone to someone I overheard her say: “I am at Pro Sentret.... that’s the place where they’re fond of us”.
Use of terminology
At the core of cultural mediation there is the question of how one provides information. A nurse may provide information in line with standard nursing procedure without the patient understanding it. The women often lack a conceptual framework for things that are self-evident to us. How can you understand what a viral infection is if you have no idea what a virus is? It is also natural for people who are struggling to understand someone to say “yes, yes” to everything that is incomprehensible to
- 51 - them. Whereas Norwegian culture means that a nurse will tell a patient that it would be good if they come for an examination, an Eastern European a nurse would say: Come for an examination! These two expressions mean the same thing. They both indicate that the patient should be examined and that you care. For them it is more usual to use commands, but there can also be love in the use of the imperative. This is related to how they have been brought up in their home countries. The use of commands is also common amongst the Nigerian women. The role and position of the authorities for Nigerians is completely different from here. Using commands completely contradicts the ethics of Norwegian social workers. Norwegian patients or users would feel that it was rude, authoritarian and unacceptable.
Why not just use an interpreter?
Interpreters are restricted by the fact that they are not supposed to get involved. They are simply supposed to translate the words into their equivalents in the other language. Interpretation is not always sufficient to create mutual understanding, particularly when providing social support. Interpreters are not familiar with the context when they arrive for a job. Here are some of the ethical rules that govern interpretation, but which cultural mediators do not need to comply with:
- Interpreters have a duty of confidentiality, which we do not have within the services provided by the centre. - Interpreters are not allowed to perform other tasks than interpretation during a job. - Interpreters must be impartial and must not allow their own attitudes or opinions to affect their work. - Interpreters must interpret the contents of everything that is said, without withholding, adding or changing anything.
Both interpreters and cultural mediators will encounter various challenges relating to interpretation. Major disparities in language typology and/ or significant differences between social structures will create additional challenges during interpretation, as it often means that there is little overlap between the two languages’ symbolic reference points.
Thai women
It is not a coincidence that Thailand is known as “the land of smile”. Thai women who work in Norway bring their cultural identities with them, and are very keen to be helpful, polite and cheerful. Their modest way of dealing with other people is in stark contrast to women from Eastern Europe or Africa. However, behind their smiles they can be strong, competent and business oriented women.
The widespread perception that women enjoy a high status in South-East Asian societies is linked to their role in the financial affairs of the home. Women manage and control the family finances, and hand out pocket money to their husbands, rather than receiving money from them. Generally women have financial responsibility and have to provide for their families. This means that the Thai women working as prostitutes in Norway are responsible for paying housing costs, school fees and other expenses that their families incur in their home countries.
- 52 - It is not new that these women appear to be isolated from Norwegian society. Although they have been or are married to Norwegian men, they often lack fundamental knowledge about the Norwegian system, do not always speak fluent Norwegian and can be very dependent on their husbands. This also makes them very dependent on their own networks, and they create their own little Thailand in which they can continue to live according to their traditions.
Women from Russia and the Baltic states
The Russian-speaking women whom we encounter at Pro Sentret come from various parts of the former Soviet Union. This means that their situations are often very different from one another. Girls from Moldova and girls from the Baltic states have different backgrounds and rights in terms of residency in Norway and opportunities for going abroad. The ones with Moldovan, Ukrainian or Russian passports need visas to get into Norway and other countries, whilst the Baltic states have become members of the EU, which means that their citizens are free to travel to Western Europe in search of jobs. Besides which it has always been easier to get into Norway from countries such as Poland, the Baltic states or the Czech Republic than from the Ukraine or Russia. The further south that the women come from, and the poorer their country of origin, the fewer their opportunities in Norway. We have also noticed that girls coming from Russia, Moldova and the Ukraine have stricter pimps and worse conditions in terms of how much they have to work and how much of their money that they can keep. So the inequalities between the women and their legal or illegal status affects the way in which we provide our services at Pro Sentret.
The majority of the Russian-speaking women come from the Baltic states, and in general they have genuine passports and names. These women have generally been to other European countries, and they have internalised Western values to a greater extent. Many of them speak English and want to learn Norwegian. On account of the enlargement of the EU, they are free to apply for jobs in Norway and settle here. What they need is information about their rights and opportunities, help getting on Norwegian courses and assistance with contacting AETAT and any potential employers in order to look for work. Ethnic Russians from the Baltic states are overrepresented in the prostitute community in Oslo, which is partly due to their minority status and lack of opportunities in their home countries. The women are between the ages of 20 and 30. The ones who have families at home, commute to Norway for a few weeks at a time, and then go home for a few months. Other women who do not have children or husbands choose to stay here for longer periods. The women have a business relationship with their pimps that involves them having to pay a fixed amount each day, and being allowed to keep the rest of what they earn. If they do not have enough money the debt is carried forward to the next day. Sometimes the women have to work the streets simply to repay their pimps. If they do not keep their side of the bargain, they know that they may be punished at home by criminal acquaintances of the pimp. These women can, however, move freely around while they are in Norway, and can come and go as they please.
Unlike the Baltic girls, the Russians, Ukrainians and Moldovans are in a more complicated position. They come from small towns or regions with struggling economies. Some of them also have children or parents for whom they have to provide. In general these women have applied for asylum in Norway, and while they
- 53 - are waiting for a response they work as street prostitutes. Most of them are rejected and have to return, but a few are allowed to stay through marriage. When they leave Norway they tend to find a way of getting into another European country in order to work there, as they don’t feel that there are any jobs available to them where they come from. This group of women is highly dependent on criminal networks in order to get into Europe, and this puts them in a particularly vulnerable position. They are usually young and naive. They also face the threats of their pimps who control them 24 hours a day. Sometimes we see that a girl has been hit, but if we ask her about it she says that it was a customer. On the same day her friends will tell us that it was her pimp who hit her because she had earned too little money. The girls themselves call their pimps their boyfriends.
The majority of the prostitutes who we meet are not educated beyond the compulsory or upper secondary level. Even if they do have any vocational training, they are only able to get poorly paid jobs. Many of them do not have good relationships with their parents or other family members, and the fact that they are neither supported by the government in their home countries nor by their families seems to influence their decision to become prostitutes.
Women from Albania and Southeastern Europe
The Albanian women are in their early twenties, come from rural areas and are rarely educated beyond compulsory schooling. Many of them dropped out of upper secondary education. They come from a patriarchal and male dominated society. Few of the Albanian women have someone to whom they pay a percentage of their earnings and with whom they only have a professional relationship. Most of them have boyfriends with whom they have joint finances. This means that all of the profits go to their joint finances. But this is not always the case. Some of them work for themselves after having broken their ties to a former boyfriend or pimp. In addition to informing them of their rights in Norway if they have been the victims of human trafficking and providing help, it is important to raise their self-awareness as women and to build their confidence.
Many of the Albanians apply for asylum on arrival, but some also come to Norway as tourists as they have residency in Greece or Italy. The longer they have spent in the West, the more independent they are, both in terms of controlling their own work and knowing about Western society.
The family is a very important institution in Albania, and family ties are closer and come with a stronger sense of duty than is the case here. Social groups are important in Albania, whereas in Norway the individualisation of society is more of an ideal. This means that there are different sets of obligations to family members. Here parents have a greater degree of responsibility for their children than the children have for their parents. If an Albanian family is facing financial problems, it is your duty to provide for both your parents and siblings if you are able to do so. It is important to bear this in mind when trying to understand these women. It is easy to say “you could go back and start working in the factory”...but often it is not just a question of the woman and her life, it is also a question of her whole family.
- 54 - Nigerian women
As everyone knows, there has recently been a surge in the number of Nigerian women working as prostitutes in Oslo. Generally they come to Norway via Italy or Spain.
We know from reports about Nigerian women that they enter into agreements with the traffickers in their home country. The agreements generally involve the women promising to pay back the debt that they have incurred, as well as promising not to inform on their facilitators and madams. The agreements are sometimes linked to beliefs and spirituality (voodoo), but the extent to which women feel that they are bound by these promises, and that the promises have power over them, depends on the individuals and their beliefs. The threats generally consist of promises of death, difficulties and hardship for the women and their families.
Some of the articles in the Samtiden journal [3-2005] deal with prostitution. In the article Jeg er Gina [“I am Gina”], after the Norwegian journalist casts doubt on the efficacy of voodoo, Gina says: “I am from Africa. You don’t know Africa, Martin”.
The women therefore need close monitoring and support in order to leave prostitution, on account of the threats that they face and their state of mind. In Italy there is an organisation that provides them with psychological support. This is difficult and provides a number of challenges, as seeing a psychologist is neither normal not accepted amongst the population of Nigeria. They mainly believe in traditional forms of help, and it is therefore difficult to convince the women that they could benefit from seeing a psychologist. The cultural mediators try to build trust and to explain what a consultation with a psychologist involves, and how it can help individuals. We also experience this in relation to social workers. If we offer help in the form of a conversation, they only ask: Can she get me a job?
Many of the women have been trafficked out of Nigeria by family members, who they are also therefore in debt to. The Nigerian women have a duty to help their families, and if a family sends a daughter to work in Europe they expect a steady stream of money to come back, because Europe is a place of riches... And if none of the family members have a job in Nigeria, they don't ask too many questions about how the money is being earned. It is, perhaps, difficult for Norwegians to imagine a situation like that.
Nigerian society is traditional and male dominated, with the extended family being the most important social group. Many of the Nigerian women are illiterate or have very poor reading and writing skills, having dropped out of compulsory education on account of their families’ poverty. This makes them vulnerable to their traffickers, as it is easier to exploit them in terms of the amount of money that they owe and have to repay.
Conflicts between Norwegian and foreign prostitutes
One aspect of this is that the Norwegian and foreign women are competitors in the prostitution market, but really everyone is competing against everyone else regardless of nationality in an attempt to earn the amount that they have set as a
- 55 - target. There are various cultural differences that occasionally cause misunderstandings when the different groups are together. For example, the Norwegian girls think that it is rude of the foreigners not to smile or say hello when they come to the centre. But this wouldn’t be considered rude in the Baltic states or in Nigeria. There it is not normal to smile at someone you do not know. They also get annoyed about the foreign girls speaking too loudly, which they feel is rude. But for some of the foreign girls letting go of their inhibitions and getting passionately involved in the conversation or discussion is precisely a sign that they are in good company. As you can see, we have a lot to learn about each other, and as people become better acquainted, mutual tolerance increases significantly.
What are our specific tasks?
The cultural mediators are always present for appointments with doctors. They are with the women while they are waiting, and come in with them to the doctor, nurse or social worker as required or requested. There is always a bit of waiting time, which means that the cultural mediators have time to get to know the women and their backgrounds. We use this time to tell them about their rights, about health care and welfare services and about Norway in general in their own languages, both orally and by handing out leaflets.
The cultural mediators also accompany the women to appointments elsewhere than Pro Sentret, such as abortions at Ullevål hospital. We come as interpreters and to support them through a difficult situation. We also participate at meetings at Pro Sentret, exchanging experiences with the other staff. We are responsible for documenting what we observe and are told, and we are also prepared to help in acute situations such as when women leave their pimps or need acute legal or medical assistance. We accompany the women to the social security office or casualty department when necessary, often together with a social worker. Cultural mediators also take part in outreach work, meeting the women in their own arenas together with a social worker or nurse, either on the streets or in parlours or flats.
Cultural mediation as a methodology
Cultural mediation as a methodology has played an important role in allowing us to reach out to our user groups. Cultural mediation is the key to understanding and providing appropriate help, and we recommend other welfare and health care organisations to use this method. The increasing proportion of foreign women in prostitution forced Pro Sentret to innovate, and in today’s multicultural Norway other institutions and organisations should follow suit. The vast majority of people will have greater trust in an organisation that employs someone from the same background as them, and it will help to give them a different impression of Norway.
- 56 - The Pro Centre is:
A national resource centre for all matters related to prostitution In this capacity the centre provides counselling, information and research material nation-wide on: • child, male and female prostitution • the supposed effects of prostitution on individuals and society • methods in social work aimed at helping people in prostitution
Furthermore we take an interest in different aspects of prostitution such as: • the sex-marked • legal issues • policies • ideologies and ethics • international issues
A health and social service centre for men and women in prostitution Our main aim is to provide help, support and advice to women and men in prostitution.
Individual social work We offer counselling, support and therapy for individuals, couples and groups. We try to provide sex-workers with the resources they need to enable them to take better care of themselves and experience alternatives to prostitution. The drop-in centre We have a low-threshold drop-in centre, where we encourage participation from the visitors. We have a strong focus on health issues and hold a harm reduction profile. Outreach-work We do outreach-work in the prostitution areas. We focus on health education, preventive work, information about rights and young people in prostitution. Projects Since the Pro Centre started in 1983 we have seen it as important to open up for projects of many kinds, either to examine or explore an area of prostitution or to elaborate certain methodology. Health service We provide a wide range of sexual and reproductive health services, and addiction-related health care.
We work for • a society free of oppression because of gender, beliefs or race • a society where sexuality is defined by personal choice, free of coercion and • restraint • a society free of stigmatisation, condemnation and discrimination of sex workers
OSLO KOMMUNE
Tollbugaten 24 / N-0157 Oslo / Norway Tlf. +47 23 10 02 00 / Fax: +47 22 41 05 44 E-mail: [email protected] www.prosentret.no - 57 -