FOREIGN PROSTITUTION IN OSLO
Pro Sentret’s knowledge and experiences
Av Bjørg Norli
Oslo 2006 OSLO KOMMUNE
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 - CONTENT
1. Introduction page 4
2. Theory and methodology page 11
3. Eastern Europe page 21 Russia, the Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova page 21 The Baltic states page 26 Albania page 29 Romania page 36 Bulgaria page 39
4. Nigeria page 42
5. The road ahead page 52
6. References page 65
- 3 - 1 INTRODUCTION
According to Ringdal (1997), prostitution is not universal, and is not present in all societies. Nor is it equally extensive everywhere and at all times. In areas undergoing urbanisation, migration and economic upheaval, prostitution has a tendency to increase. In societies without these social characteristics prostitution is therefore, if not entirely absent, at least relatively rare. Nevertheless, people selling sexual services have always had a solid customer base (ibid.). Norway would typically belong in the latter category. And it is in fact true that relatively few Norwegian women and men sell sexual services. In recent years an ever-increasing number of foreign women have entered the Norwegian prostitution market. They come from areas affected by precisely the kinds of social characteristics described above. In this report, Pro Sentret will seek to collate the information that it has about foreign prostitution in Oslo.
Pro Sentret has worked with the prostitution market since 1983, and has therefore 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. Pro Sentret has noticed that the increase in the number of foreign prostitutes has in turn resulted in an increase in the level of organised prostitution.
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. Broadly speaking, prostitution can be divided into street prostitution and prostitution in the indoor market. In the case of street prostitution, contact is made between the buyer and seller in a public space, generally within a limited geographical area. The service may be performed outdoors, in the customer’s car, at a hotel or in the customer’s home. The indoor market is more diversified, consisting of various arenas, such as massage parlours, flats, mobile prostitution and prostitution based at hotels, restaurants, bars and clubs. In the indoor market, contact between buyers and sellers is generally made through advertisements.
It is hard to get systematic information about the number of women and men selling sexual services, as 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 for fluctuations within a relatively short period of time.
- 4 - 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. There were twelve of them. During the following two years, we recorded a similarly low number of foreign women working on the streets. 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. 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 completely outcompeted everyone else, and they are undoubtedly now by far the largest group. 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 cities such as Bergen and Stavanger.
The indoor market probably 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. 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 Thais and Dominicans 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.
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
- 5 - The above table 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 sexual services, 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. 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 showing the proportions of Norwegian and foreign users for 2000. 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 1064 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 13 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 Ecuador 1 Latvia 7 Italy 1 Sierra 1 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 Total 150 433 59 371 37
Right since foreign women entered 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. 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%.
- 6 - 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. The number of Russian and Albanian women has fallen slightly, as has the number of Polish women.
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 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. No-one can match the strong 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 a a ia ia a p ia d a n e i i n s ri e n n ri la n n a s a a a e i R a to u u g R l a n lb s l h m o ig h a th R u c o P N T c A E i B e i L z R in C m o D
2003 2004 2005
- 7 - 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, such as Thailand, the Dominican Republic and Nordic and other Western European countries.
Thailand For many years, Thai women have been part of the prostitute community in Norway, and throughout this period they have been the largest single group. 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 trafficking (Kristvik 2005). The report concludes that these women are selling sexual services of their own accord. That 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 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. Advertising is done on the Internet and through the magazines, and sometimes customers are obtained at certain bars and restaurants. Other women work in cooperatives, which can provide a number of advantages. It is a particular benefit that there are several of them to carry out risk assessments where necessary. It also means that they have each other’s company, and can share practical tasks. However, there is a risk of internal rivalry within a cooperative, particularly if there is a shortage of customers.
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. A lot of effort has therefore been put in to provide for the family in various ways. It is not uncommon for marriage to a Norwegian man to be a route out of poverty, and a way of making 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.
- 8 - 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 don’t talk openly about prostitution, but it is not our impression that the women are particularly stigmatised or rejected.
I 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 working in the Norwegian prostitution market, only outnumbered by Thai women. The Dominican women selling sexual services 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. It is not our impression that the women from the Dominican Republic have come to Norway through organised operations. 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 to sell sexual services 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.
The Nordic countries and the rest of Western Europe It has also 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.
Changes for Pro Sentret Since 1983, Pro Sentret has been involved with the Norwegian prostitution market. For the majority of these years, our work has focused on street prostitution and the women who sell sexual services in that arena. Traditionally the majority of them were Norwegian women with drug problems. Pro Sentret’s services, work and approaches were based on the needs of this target group. It was women with drug problems, and their personal circumstances and needs that shaped our understanding of prostitution and of what we needed to do for the various people involved in prostitution.
- 9 - 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 enable us to deal with these women and their particular requirements. The hiring of cultural mediators, extended health services, psychosocial support, practical assistance and a drop-in centre/ café for foreign women as well has resulted in Pro Sentret establishing good relationships with most groups of foreign women working as prostitutes in Oslo. 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.
Aims By collecting and systematically presenting Pro Sentret’s experiences of and knowledge about foreign women working as prostitutes in Oslo, we hope to improve our understanding of this field.
Subsidiary goals Pro Sentret will pass on this knowledge to all relevant organisations working in the field, thereby helping to raise their skills.
Limitations Through our work, both as a national centre of expertise on the issue of prostitution and as a provider of welfare and health care services, we have gained a good understanding of prostitution and the people involved in it. In spite of this, we have chosen to limit the scope of this report to our knowledge about foreign women working as prostitutes in Oslo. This is because that is the arena we are closest to, and that we are most familiar with through our everyday work. The majority of our users operate here, and quite a few of the foreign women selling sexual services elsewhere in Norway have been in Oslo at one time or other.
The foreign women working as prostitutes can broadly speaking be divided into two main categories: women who have permanent residency in Norway and women who, for various reasons, are staying in Norway on a temporary basis. The majority of the women in these two groups will have had very different paths into Norway and introductions to prostitution, and their personal situations and living conditions here, as well as their routes out of prostitution, will also differ. The residency status of the women in Norway is often a deciding factor in all of these matters.
At this stage we have chosen to only collect and systematically present Pro Sentret’s unwritten knowledge about women from the Baltic states, Russia, Belarus, the Ukraine, Moldova, Bulgaria, Romania and Albania, as well as Nigeria.
- 10 -
2 THEORY AND METHODOLOGY
This is not a scientific study of the foreign women working as prostitutes in Oslo. We are not attempting to offer a deeper understanding of the interplay between different people and factors in this section of the prostitute community, or to provide insight into underlying conditions and processes. The search for causes does not, therefore, play a central role in this report. This does not mean that we have not attempted to be systematic and accurate in our collection of experiences and knowledge in this field; quite the contrary. Below we will set out how we have proceeded and the reasons for our approach, and reflect on some of the important terminology in this field. First we will present some of the existing research done on these issues.
Existing research Traditionally three different groups have been the subjects of research-based knowledge about prostitution in Norway: street prostitutes with drug problems, prostitutes at massage parlours and prostitutes working from flats. Research on women involved in street prostitution has in general only looked at women with drug problems who sell sexual services. Similarly, studies of the indoor market have usually only surveyed Norwegian women. When looking at existing studies of women working in prostitution that appear to reveal differences between the three groups in terms of recruitment, starting age, risk and personal circumstances, you have to bear in mind that they have been based on responses from skewed samples of the target groups.
Street prostitution takes place in the public eye, and has therefore been easily accessible. There has therefore always been a relatively good understanding of this community. Studies show that many women are recruited into street prostitution through a combination of contacts in the prostitute community and social problems, often related to family, friends and education (Høigård & Finstad 1985, Müller- Nielssen 1996, Skilbrei 1998). The same studies reveal that many women who sell sexual services on the streets had their first experiences of prostitution as teenagers, and that their day-to-day lives are often affected by serious drug problems.
Prostitution in the indoor market is often called “the hidden prostitution”, as it is less visible than street prostitution and therefore less accessible to public scrutiny. However, the prostitution in this market is not particularly hidden. The variety of services offered by indoor prostitutes can easily be found through advertisements in magazines and on the Internet. The average starting age of women working in the indoor market is their late 20s, as some of them start as prostitutes late in life (Skilbrei 1998, Müller-Nilssen 1996). The decision to start working as a prostitute has generally been taken after careful consideration, and the women themselves contact relevant fora for selling sexual services (ibid.). Drug abuse is also a factor in the indoor market, but it does not generally involve the injection of drugs.
- 11 - Foreign women working as prostitutes in Norway have largely been excluded from research into prostitution in this country. This is in spite of the fact that foreign women have been involved in the Norwegian prostitution market for several decades. In 1998, Morten Müller-Nilssen carried out a survey on behalf of PION (the prostitutes’ pressure group in Norway). The sample consisted of 64 women of foreign origin who all sold sexual services at massage parlours or from flats. The vast majority of these women migrated to Norway as a result of marrying a Norwegian man. At the time the survey was carried out, the women had been in Norway for between two and twelve years. Several of them were divorced from their Norwegian husbands and many of them had children in Norway. The majority of the foreign women started selling sexual services because they needed money, and they stated that they had done so of their own free will. Once they had made a decision, some of the women got in touch with the prostitute community randomly, whilst the majority stated that they were introduced to it by friends or family. This indicates that many of the women were already familiar with the prostitute community when the financial difficulties arose and they made their decisions. In addition to providing for themselves and any family here in Norway, many of the foreign women sent money to their families in their countries of origin.
The findings of the above study are supported by a more recent study of Thai women in the prostitution market in Oslo (Kristvik 2005). The vast majority came to Norway on account of having a Norwegian husband. Many of the women have children in their home country for whom they have to provide, as well as parents and siblings who they are supporting. They are under great financial pressure. Language barriers and a lack of formal qualifications largely prevent the women from participating in the labour market and society, which results in them living in isolation. When they come into financial difficulties, prostitution is often their solution to the problem. These women do not come to Norway in order to sell sexual services. In her report, Ellen Kristvik concludes that the women enter prostitution voluntarily, and that they organise their work themselves, either individually or in cooperation with others. She did not find any clear evidence of human trafficking either. Neither the way in which the women came to Norway, nor their entry into prostitution, involves organised groups. This was also the conclusion reached by Eljarbø and Eek (2004) in a project investigating the degree to which the arrival of Thai women in Norway was the result of organised operations. After reviewing visa applications to Norway at the embassy in Bangkok, they were unable to find any evidence that there is much organised human trafficking from Thailand to Norway.
The presence of foreign women on the Norwegian prostitution market hit the headlines with the arrival of Russian women to the northern county of Finnmark after the border opened at the end of the 1990s. The Russian women’s sale of sexual services to Norwegian men resulted in a moral panic that spread right from the small local communities directly affected to the government quarter in Oslo. By analysing almost 200 reports and articles in the Norwegian media, Dag Stenvoll (2002) identified a range of discourses about the Russian prostitution. The range of discourses is important because it tells us what the problem is thought to be, and how it should be solved. Dag Stenvoll found that organised crime, disease, the risk of infection, bullying and stigmatisation were all important aspects of how the presence of the Russian prostitutes in Finnmark was interpreted.
- 12 - When prostitution is viewed as being criminal, disturbing and disease-related, it is left to institutions such as the police, legal system and health and immigration authorities to deal with the problem (ibid.). In the end the Norwegian authorities did in fact find a loophole in the Communicable Diseases Control Act that allowed them to implement measures to limit the phenomenon. In order to re-establish a sense of control in the worst affected local communities, further and more specific measures were needed. In the report Grenseløs verdighet [“Unbounded dignity”] (2002), Britt Kramvig and Kirsten Stien describe both the Russian women’s and the Norwegian men’s understanding and experiences of the cross-border sex trade. The report also summarises the preventive measures that were implemented in Tana Municipality, as well as pointing out the measures that still need to be implemented.
The first Eastern European women turned up on the streets of Oslo at the end of the 1990s. Over the course of just a few years they became a significant proportion of the prostitutes on the streets and in the indoor market. Marianne Sætre (2000) carried out a project for the intelligence branch of the Oslo Police Force which aimed to reveal whether there was any cross-border sex trade in Oslo, and if so, how it was organised. After interviewing 21 women from ten different countries involved in various parts of the prostitution market, she concluded that there was clear evidence that women were being tricked into Norway for prostitution, and that this was being done by organised groups. She did not find serious examples of human trafficking.
Since then, the number of foreign prostitutes working in Norway has increased significantly. In 2003 the Norwegian authorities launched a plan of action to combat the trafficking of women and children, thereby putting human trafficking high up on the agenda. In 2004 Anette Brunovskis and Guri Tyldum of FAFO carried out a study of foreign women working as prostitutes in Oslo and of human trafficking. The study had a dual purpose. Firstly, they wanted to quantify the number of women selling sexual services and the distribution of women from different countries in the various prostitution arenas. Secondly, they attempted to investigate the mechanisms at work in the trafficking of women for prostitution.
The most striking conclusion of this study wasn’t the number of women they arrived at, but the fact that the majority of the foreign women selling sexual services in Oslo were Norwegian citizens or had some kind of long-term residency in the country. Only a third were in Norway on a temporary basis. Furthermore they found that four out of five of the foreign women had first worked as a prostitute in Norway, and in fact more than a year after they came to the country. Like Kristvik (2002), Brunovskis and Tyldum concluded that the majority of the foreign women working as prostitutes in Norway did not come to the country in order to sell sexual services. Rather, prostitution had been a solution to financial difficulties that they had faced here. However in Kristvik’s report, the majority of the women had experience of prostitution before they came to Norway, which the respondents in the Brunovskis and Tyldum study said they didn’t have. Like Ellen Kristvik, Pro Sentret finds that many of the foreign prostitutes with permanent residency in Norway have some kind of link to prostitution before they came to the country.
With regard to the trafficking of women for prostitution, Brunovskis and Tyldum (2004) concluded that few of the women had been taken from their home countries against their will.
- 13 - The majority of the women had chosen to leave home of their own accord, and some of them knew that they were going into prostitution. For many of them this choice was based on a desire to improve their own lives and the lives of their families. Nevertheless, many of the women find that they lose control over their own lives. They are not free to decide how long they will sell sexual services for, where and when they will work or what kinds of services they will offer. The women’s prostitution is to a large extent organised by a third party, but he or she does not necessarily use physical force to control the women. Equally often it is threats and manipulation that keeps the women in prostitution. Brunovskis and Tyldum concluded that ability of the woman to escape from a situation like that is often just as dependent on her interpretation of the situation as on the actual physical barriers.
The above study concluded that a third of the women working as prostitutes in Oslo were Norwegian, a third were Asian and a third were from Eastern and Central Europe. This situation changed dramatically in 2004. That year, Nigerian women arrived in large numbers and established a presence on the Norwegian street prostitution market. This primarily occurred in Oslo, but over the course of 2005 Nigerian women also found their way to Bergen and Stavanger. Jørgen Carling (2005) of PRIO wrote a report on immigration, human trafficking and human smuggling from Nigeria to Europe. In his report he concluded that the combination of the strong emigration contract between the woman and the people who are going to organise her journey to Europe and the self-perpetuating organisation, which gives the women mobility within the human trafficking network, together provide a strong incentive for the woman to put up with serious exploitation. Returning empty-handed to Nigeria is not an option. Both of these issues help to prevent the women from breaking out as they affect the ability of the women to earn their own money.
In our opinion there is a real need for more research-based information about foreign women who sell sexual services in Norway. We know too little about these women’s lives before they emigrated, the reasons for their migration and their route into prostitution, and we also know too little about their lives as prostitutes in the foreign country and how they may see themselves getting out of prostitution.
Choice of approach The way in which you choose to implement a project is highly dependent on the aims of the project and the kind of information you are looking for. Factors such as time and resources also affect how you approach the whole issue. The aim of this project has been to collate and write down the knowledge that Pro Sentret has about the selected groups of foreign women working as prostitutes. Through our work with the prostitute community, our contact with the various people involved in prostitution, our work at a structural level and our contact with various partners in Norway and overseas, Pro Sentret has over the past few years built up a great deal of experience and knowledge about the foreign women who sell sexual services in Oslo. Most of this knowledge is stored in the heads of our employees, who work with the foreign women and questions relating to their living conditions on a day-to-day basis. As long as the knowledge remains there, it cannot easily be passed on to other people. In order for this to happen, it must be expressed in such a way that other people can share it. Through this report, Pro Sentret wishes to turn our unspoken knowledge into information, which can in turn increase the knowledge of people who read the report.
- 14 - The report builds on information and knowledge about foreign women working as prostitutes in Oslo that has been gathered in the course of Pro Sentret’s work. The material is therefore not based on systematically collected empirical data, but rather on case records, minutes of meetings, oral reports and working documents written as part of our day-to-day work. In addition to this, we have interviewed employees and individual users from the relevant areas. We have also interviewed our partners and other people who know this community. Insight into other people’s understandings of the community helps to qualify Pro Sentret’s own knowledge. Unless otherwise mentioned, existing literature on foreign women working as prostitutes in Oslo will not be included in the report.
This project neither had the time nor the resources to carry out in-depth interviews with employees, partners or users. We therefore chose to use semi-structured interviews in order to gather knowledge. This method makes it possible to collect information about a specified area, whilst limiting the scope of information to the areas in which one is actually interested, as everyone is asked the same questions in a predetermined way. The interview guidelines that we prepared were similar to a questionnaire, and were more detailed than the ones often used for in-depth interviews. The same interview guidelines were used for employees, partners and users. They were divided into five main sections:
1. The backgrounds of the women 2. How they get to Western Europe and their lives there 3. How they get to Norway and their lives here 4. Prostitution in general and specifically in Norway 5. The present and the future
The aim of this report was to collate and systematically present Pro Sentret’s knowledge about foreign women working as prostitutes in Oslo. We have not been able to include all aspects of these women’s life stories. At this stage we have therefore concentrated on gathering as many facts as possible. This means that we asked closed questions, allowing little room for individuals to express their thoughts, feelings, observations and personal opinions. We were only after concrete information about what happened, and how, on the women’s journeys from their home countries to Western Europe/ Norway, and about their lives here.
Terminology Below we will explain some of the most important terminology in this field.
Foreign prostitution By foreign prostitution we mean prostitution carried out by people of foreign origin. The prostitution may take place in the indoor market, on the streets or as a mobile activity. Foreign prostitution is not a particularly concise term; quite the contrary. It is broad and ambiguous, as it covers both women of foreign origin with permanent residency in Norway, and women who are staying here on a temporary basis. This means that the term foreign prostitution covers women who have been adopted, women who are or have been married to Norwegian men, women who belong to ethnic minorities and women who visit Norway as tourists or who are temporarily here for other reasons (Randers-Pehrson 1998). It is not illegal for foreign citizens to sell sexual services in Norway.
- 15 - Migration Migration is an important term both in relation to foreign prostitution in general and human trafficking specifically, as both involve an element of migration (Jolly & Reeves 2005). When foreign women leave their home countries they become emigrants, and when the enter Europe they become immigrants. Migration refers to the fact that a person moves from one place to another. The reason for migration taking place is often related to general social issues, such as economic, political and social conditions where the migrant comes from, as well as personal situations such as social relationships and obligations, group identities or individual desires (ibid.).
Migration-related prostitution The concept of migration-related prostitution illustrates that migration can be closely linked to prostitution, and demonstrates that the prostitution market is one of many areas in which migrants work (Renland 2002). Some of them migrate precisely in order to sell sexual services at their destinations, whilst for others, for a variety of reasons, prostitution becomes an option after arrival.
Pimping Pimping is promoting other people’s prostitution or renting out premises for the purpose of prostitution. Unambiguously offering, arranging or asking for sexual services is also covered by the term. In other words pimping involves someone, directly or indirectly, making money out of other people’s prostitution. This is illegal in Norway, even if the prostitution is voluntary; cf. Section 202 of the Norwegian Penal Code. This legislation is aimed at anyone controlling and exploiting women who sell sexual services. It is not intended to affect people who are supported by the woman, such as a husband or boyfriend, provided that exploitation is not involved.
Human trafficking Human trafficking involves inducing someone into or exploiting them through prostitution, for example. In order for it to be considered human trafficking, the exploitation or inducement must have occurred through force or threats, abuse of another person’s vulnerability or other improper conduct, unless the aggrieved party is a minor. Human trafficking is illegal in Norway; cf. Section 224 of the Norwegian Penal Code. Arranging or in any other way aiding and abetting inducement or exploitation, is just as punishable as actually being responsible for the inducement or exploitation.
The concept of human trafficking Our reason for wanting to spend a bit of time on the concept of human trafficking is that the term covers many issues that are interpreted and used in different ways by the various people involved in the field. The lack of a common understanding of how to interpret and define the concept of human trafficking is of great significance to the development of our knowledge as well as to the practical work on combating the trafficking. This is because any measures that are implemented will be based on the understanding one has of human trafficking as a phenomenon.
- 16 - In December 2000, the international community agreed on a common definition of human trafficking. The definition is recorded in Article 3 of the Palermo Protocol1and reads as follows: a) “trafficking in persons”: recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.
The Palermo Protocol’s definition is an important contribution to the work on reaching international agreement on how to interpret the concept of human trafficking. As we have seen, the term human trafficking covers three main components: resettlement and exploitation; threats, force and inducement; and abuse of a position of vulnerability. Tyldum, Tveit and Brunovskis (2005) reviewed existing European research on the trafficking of women for prostitution. They concluded that there is a great deal of variation in how the above components are interpreted and used. It is particularly the concepts of exploitation, especially in relation to prostitution, and position of vulnerability that pose challenges and allow for many different interpretations.
Resettlement involves recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring and receipt of people who are the victims of human trafficking. Resettlement does not need to involve the crossing of international borders in order for human trafficking to have taken place. In other words, people can be trafficked within their home countries.
As we have pointed out, exploitation is the key to our understanding of human trafficking. In order to distinguish between human trafficking and other migration- related prostitution, we need to understand what exploitation involves. Currently there is too little focus on the question of exploitation. Instead, the main focus is on resettlement and force. This means that the focus is on the process that led someone into an exploitative situation, rather than on the exploitation itself (Tyldum, Tveit & Brunovskis 2005). There is a particular focus on how the person ended up in prostitution, i.e. whether through force or by their own volition. This often leads to a distinction being made between worthy and unworthy victims, with the former being the ones who were forced into prostitution, and the latter being the ones who worked as prostitutes prior to being trafficked, the ones who knew that they were going to sell sexual services in the destination country and the ones who wish to continue working as prostitutes but without the exploitation and coercion. This distinction between worthy and unworthy victims helps to divert the focus away from the criminal actions of the facilitators and on to the women’s morality. The women end up having to prove their innocence, whilst the traffickers are let off (ibid.). In order to overcome these difficulties, one has to understand what exploitation involves in terms of prostitution. Brunovskis and Tyldum (2004) and Kelly (2001) found that it included the following:
1 Full title: “Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.”
- 17 - • The women being forced into prostitution • The women being unable to decide for themselves when to leave prostitution • The women being unable to set their own working conditions • The women being unable to decide for themselves who they will have as customers and what type of services they will perform • The women having limited freedom of movement • The women being unable to keep any of their money
In other words, any form of limitation on the freedom of action of the women or on their physical and mental well-being means that human trafficking has taken place if the types of coercion described above have been used, regardless of how the women ended up in that situation.
Threats, force, inducement or abuse of a position of vulnerability must have occurred in order for a situation to be deemed human trafficking. This involves a person obtaining control over another person through threats of violence, violence or other forms of coercion, inducement, abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability. It is the term “position of vulnerability” that poses a particular challenge here. There is no agreement on how it should be interpreted. The UN’s own interpretation2 is that abuse of a position of vulnerability is a situation in which the person has no other genuine and acceptable options than to accept the exploitation. The challenge here is to decide to what extent the person can be the victim of exploitation if the person him- or herself claims that the situation is acceptable.
To what extent can one as an adult freely choose one’s own situation in life? What degree of misery can one genuinely consent to? To what extent do people in vulnerable positions have the power to consent and to make autonomous choices? There are no clear answers to this. However, it follows from Article 3b of the Palermo Protocol that “the consent of a victim of trafficking in persons to the intended exploitation set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article shall be irrelevant where any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) have been used”. If it can be proven that coercion has been used, the facilitators can be prosecuted regardless of whether the person has accepted the exploitation.
Furthermore, it follows from subparagraph (c) that recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation shall be considered “trafficking in persons” even if this does not involve any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article”. This means that if the aggrieved party is under the age of 18, human trafficking has taken place regardless of whether coercion has been used.
Why human trafficking can take place In order to fully understand the concept of human trafficking you need to have a clear understanding of its definition, know the relevant terminology and be aware of the challenges associated with the definition and terminology. You also need an insight into the circumstances that make human trafficking, and in particular the trafficking of women, possible. The following push and pull factors help to make human trafficking possible (ILO 2003).
2 In Travaux préparatoires, the preparatory works to the Palermo Protocol.
- 18 - Push factors • Discrimination based on gender and ethnicity • Feminisation of poverty and migration • Increasing materialism and the desire for a better life • High levels of toleration and acceptance of violence against women • Ineffective legislation that is inadequately enforced • Lack of concern about breaches of human rights
Pull factors • The growth of the informal labour market • Human trafficking being associated with low risks and high rewards • Absence of effective legislation and inadequate enforcement of what there is • Discriminatory socio-cultural practices relating to women and their living conditions • Lack of concern about breaches of human rights
The women of the world still carry a great deal of responsibility for their families and their welfare. Women’s inadequate access to education, work and productive resources, combined with a lack of influence on decision-making processes, has led to a large proportion of the female population of the world belonging to the poorest and most vulnerable groups in society. This is particularly true of women from developing nations and from areas that have undergone major social upheaval over the past decades. In other words, the feminisation of poverty is primarily due to imbalances between women’s and men’s circumstances and opportunities for development. One consequence of this marginalisation is that an ever-increasing number of women try to escape from poverty through migration. Migration becomes a strategy for improving your own life and that of your family (ILO 2003). Women are particularly vulnerable throughout all of the stages of the migration process, due to their weak position in the family and in society. They often lack access to adequate and accurate information about the migration process and about working and living abroad. They need this information in order to make qualified and realistic choices. Women often make use of illegal channels of migration precisely because they lack information, do not have access or the opportunity to use legal channels of migration, and lack the financial resources to pay what it costs to migrate legally. This makes women particularly vulnerable to exploitation by recruitment agents and organised traffickers (ibid.).
The weak position of women in many societies and cultures, as well as within their own families, also makes them vulnerable to exploitation. In certain situations girls and women are considered a burden on the family, not least financially. As part of the family’s survival strategy they may therefore be sold to human traffickers for the purpose of forced marriage, prostitution, housework, etc. without much thought of their rights or future lives.
In the destination countries the exploitation continues, with women migrants often ending up in 3D jobs - dirty, degrading and dangerous - generally in the informal economy. This labour market is limited, with the jobs mainly consist of women- dominated occupations and work traditionally associated with the role of women, and there is a high risk of coercion and exploitation. The sex industry and prostitution are part of this market.
- 19 - The growth of the informal labour market, little respect for employee rights and a lack of unionisation amongst workers is encouraging employers to look for cheap labour that can easily be exploited (ILO 2003).
Countries of origin, transit countries and destination countries all lack effective legislation against human trafficking. Where legislation does exist, it is enforced sparingly. This results in human trafficking being associated with low risks and high rewards. It is also worth noting that a lack of respect for human rights, and in particular women’s rights, is both a push and a pull factor. The inadequate focus on women’s rights in source countries makes the women vulnerable in their home countries for the reasons set out above. The inadequate focus on women’s human rights in destination countries helps to make the support and protection offered and the measures that are implemented insufficient to prevent exploitation from occurring.
- 20 -
3 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. This became particularly clear in the northern county of Finnmark, where many Russian women sold sexual services in small, rural communities that were completely unequipped to deal with the situation. The blatant prostitution resulted in some strong reactions in the region, most of which were based on fear and to some extent moral panic. Fear of organised crime, fear of infection with sexually transmitted diseases, fear of the bullying and stigmatisation of Russian women and fear of moral and social collapse3. A number of initiatives were implemented at a local, regional and national level in order to deal with the problem of Russian women crossing the border in Finnmark in order to sell sexual services to Norwegian men4.
Russia, the Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova Women from these countries have been a part of our domestic prostitute community since foreign prostitutes started coming to Norway. The cross-border prostitution in Finnmark put these women in the spotlight. These days Pro Sentret encounters relatively few women from Russia, the Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova in our work with the prostitution market in Oslo.
The backgrounds of the women The women from this region are generally between the ages of 20 and 35 when they leave their home countries. The majority of the women are also in this age range when they arrive in Norway. Most of them grew up in small towns and villages. The majority were living in their home countries when they came to Norway, but a few have residency elsewhere in Western Europe, particularly in Italy.
The majority of the women who are over the age of 25 probably had a stable and good childhood in the soviet era. In the 1990s they found that everything rapidly took a turn for the worse. Unemployment, family problems, the loss of family members and economic turbulence became part of everyday life for many of them. As adults they found that almost everything was difficult and that they were unable to provide for themselves and their families.
3 By analysing reports and articles in the Norwegian media between 1990 and 2001, Dag Stenvoll identified five distinct discourses about the Russian prostitution. These are four of those five. 4 For a summary and review of the measures that have been implemented in order to prevent prostitution in Tana, please see Britt Kramvig and Kirsten Stien: Grenseløs verdighet? [“Unbounded dignity?”]
- 21 -
I come from Russia. Our lives were good during the soviet era. After the collapse of the Soviet Union we lived in poverty, with just enough money for food, but not for clothes. After hearing rumours that it was possible to earn money abroad, I decided to leave home. I was 22 years old. I stayed in several European countries before coming to Norway. W ith the money I earn, I can provide for my children, my mother, my sister and her children.
The women often come from broken homes, and lived with their mothers, or less commonly with their fathers. Around half of the women, and particularly the ones over 24-25 years old, have their own children. Some of the women are divorced themselves, and live alone with their children. In addition to providing for their own children, they are often responsible for providing for their parents, siblings and their siblings’ families.
Most of the women have completed nine years of compulsory education. Only a few have further education. The majority of the women who Pro Sentret has been in contact with were at one time in ordinary employment in their home countries, generally in typical female occupations with low wages. Some of the women have experience of prostitution from their home countries or from other countries in Western Europe.
How they get to Western Europe and their lives there Many of the women get the idea of travelling to Western Europe from advertisements in daily newspapers referring to employment opportunities abroad. The advertisements offer work that does not require any specific qualifications, you just have to be young and attractive. In Pro Sentret’s experience the majority of the women from Russia, Belarus, the Ukraine and Moldova were aware that the work being offered through these advertisements was prostitution, but that on arrival they were cheated regarding the terms of employment. Some are also tricked in terms of the work they are expecting to do. Pro Sentret has been told that for a period there were so many young women travelling out with these agencies that even Aeroflot started warning the women about the dangers of using these companies.
I was given a Greek visa and tickets by a “travel agency” advertising for people to work abroad, and was told to bring 350 Euros to a boss who would meet me on arrival. The boss would arrange the job and work permits. W e signed a contract before I left. It said something about getting a normal job paying 400-500 Euros a month. I had to pay 1000 Euros to the agency for this. I borrowed this money from my family. I travelled with a girl who I got to know at the “travel agency”. She had been there before and was going to accompany me to the boss. Nobody told me that I would be working as a prostitute. The girl tricked me. It was her job to bring me to the pimp, and she was paid for doing that.
Other women are recruited by acquaintances who have already worked as prostitutes in a Western European country and who tell them how easy it is to earn a lot of money here. Women who recruit other women are often paid to do so, which means that they do not always provide accurate information to the women they are recruiting. It is therefore not unusual that women who enter prostitution in this way end up in a worse situation than they had been led to believe, both in terms of accommodation, working conditions, financial agreements and personal freedom.
- 22 - All of the women from this region with whom Pro Sentret has been in contact wanted to go to Western Europe themselves, and jumped at the chance when either acquaintances or advertisers gave them the possibility of going. Prostitution has often been part of these women’s plans for their journey to Western Europe.
Most of the women get their own passports, but they need help getting hold of other necessary documents, as well as information about the best route. The women’s agreements with the traffickers generally involve all of the logistics of the journey being organised for them: the route, tickets, necessary documents, etc. Some of them pay a small amount for this up front, whilst others pay nothing. All of the women become indebted to the facilitators, and have to repay the debt through prostitution. The debt varies depending on where the women come from and the extent to which the traffickers have to arrange their papers, tickets, route and so on. The precise amount of debt is rarely stated, and the women don’t ask. Instead of specifying an amount that is owed by the women, the facilitators inform the women how long they will have to work for them in order to repay the debt. This can be anything from a week to months. During this period he receives everything the women earn. They are only allowed to keep money for food, clothes and other necessities. The women feel that they have to pay off a large amount of debt, and many of them feel that it takes a long time before they have finished paying it off, and thus before they can start earning their own money. Pro Sentret has also met women who have slightly different repayment arrangements with their facilitators, but they are in the minority. In these situations the facilitators have informed the women how much they owe. It is often a large amount of money. The women are allowed to keep 1000 Euros a month, and the excess is used to pay off their debt.
Some of the women who we have met, were tricked into believing that they would get normal work in Western Europe. In our experience the women who on their arrival still do not know that they are going to be selling sexual services will also have been thoroughly cheated about the cost of the assistance they have been given. They pay over the odds for tickets, travel documents and so on.
Many of the women from Russia, Belarus, the Ukraine and Moldova travel by boat, car or plane to their destinations in Western Europe, which are generally in countries such as Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Germany. It is rumoured that it is easy to pay the employees at these countries’ embassies and consulates to issue the necessary documents. A large number of Russian women, in particular, have been to Cyprus, as this is one of the few places Russians can travel without a visa. Sometimes the women travel alone, whilst other times they travel in groups. If a woman has been recruited by an acquaintance, that person tends to accompany her. The women are rarely stopped by the authorities in other countries during their journeys from their home countries to Western Europe. All of the women have valid passports and papers, which means that the border crossings on the way to their destinations go without a hitch. Whether the women are allowed to keep their travel documents and passports after arrival depends on the extent to which they are trusted by the organisers.
- 23 - I travelled by bus to W estern Europe. W hen I arrived, I was met by a Russian lady. She was married to a Spaniard. I lived with them. It was her husband and a friend of his in another town who provided customers for me. I also had to have sex with their friends. They promised to pay me, but they took most of the money themselves.
The women are always met by someone from the network that has organised their journey along the way and/ or on arrival. These people can be Albanians, Italians or Russians with residency in the countries to which the women have travelled. They are generally men, but sometimes they are couples. On rare occasions it is just a woman. The person who receives the woman arranges accommodation. It is not unusual for the women to live with the person who meets them and who also acts as their facilitator. The prostitution business that the women enter is highly organised. The facilitators arrange everything surrounding the women’s sale of sexual services. He tells them about prostitution in that country, where they should go and what they should charge. He is also responsible for the women repaying their debt, by collecting the money that the women earn through prostitution.
From what we have been told by the women, it is our impression that the “traditional” facilitator who uses violence, threats and coercion in order to get the women to do what he wants, is becoming consigned to history. The women do not suffer much violence. These days it is more a case of psychological pressure and emotional ties being used to keep the women in prostitution. The women, meanwhile, are becoming more willing to take the risk of leaving their facilitator if they feel that the situation is unbearable.
In Greece the women always work indoors. In Italy they work both indoors and on the streets. In these countries the women are often very strictly controlled, and they live in prison-like conditions. They have little control over their own situations. This applies to freedom of movement, working hours, workloads, access to customers, services to be performed and so on. In these situations the women are very much at the mercy of the people organising the business. The women are not able to decide to stop selling sexual services whenever they want to either.
The aim of the women is to earn as much money as possible during the time that they are in Western Europe to sell sexual services. This means that their days generally consist of four activities. The women sleep, eat, do some shopping and sell sexual services. They rarely prioritise any other activities, even if they do have the freedom of movement to do other things.
How they get to Norway and their lives here With the women from Russia, Belarus, the Ukraine and Moldova, it is often their facilitator or a friend who suggests that they should go to Norway. The women can also come here through the same agencies as organise travel to other countries in Western Europe. If the woman is aware that she is going to work as a prostitute, the organiser covers all of her expenses. She on her part incurs debt. She either finds out how much she owes or how long she will have to work unpaid in order to repay the debt. The woman is also told how to get here, and where and how prostitution takes place in this country.
- 24 - If the woman comes to Norway with a boyfriend, he organises travel, accommodation and a telephone, as well as where and how the prostitution will take place.
The women almost always travel to Norway by bus. There are fewer checks on buses, which makes it easier for them to travel in and out of different European countries. Pro Sentret rarely hears that women have had problems at border crossings on their way to Norway.
Regardless of where the women are coming from, they are met on arrival in Norway. The prostitution business is highly organised, so that by the time they arrive everything is ready for them. The get a place to live, a mobile phone, information about where and how to advertise and are told where they should work.
I travelled by bus from my home town to M oscow, and then on from there by bus to Hamburg. There I was met by an Albanian who took me to Oslo. In Oslo the police came on to the bus and checked me. I said that I was a tourist and that was fine. On arrival I was met by another Albanian who took me to the boss, who was also Albanian. He took my passport. The agreement was that I would get half of what I earned. In addition I had to repay a debt, but I was not told how much it was until I arrived. The boss organised the prostitution. Each day I could earn 6000 Norwegian kroner. After a week I gave him around 40,000 kroner. Then he said that the debt had been repaid. I worked 11-12 hours on the streets each day. I had to give everything that I earned to the boss. He took most of it, even after the debt had been repaid.
The women are only in Norway for one reason, and that is to earn money. This means that they work as much as they can each day. The women sell sexual services both from flats and on the streets. They are expected to work as much as possible. The more they work, the greater the likelihood of them being able to take a decent amount of money with them when they leave Norway. Regardless of the arrangement that the women have in terms of how their income will be shared, they work a lot in the hope that the facilitator may give them a bit extra, send money home to their families or buy them things. And regardless of the agreement that the women have with their facilitators regarding the repayment of their debt and sharing of future income, they are often cheated when they get to Norway and end up with less money than they had expected.
The women do not decide their own working hours – their facilitator does – but if they get ill they are generally allowed some time off. The women do not object to this much. They come from a culture where obeying orders is valued and instilled from a young age. This means that it often appears that the women are not very independent. Their inherent respect for men and authorities makes it easier for them to put up with the situation. The boss rarely goes anywhere near the women. In general it is a friend of the facilitator who keeps an eye on them when they are working. Sometimes it is one of the women themselves who is given this task.
Prostitution in general and specifically in Norway It is our impression that most of the women are working as prostitutes because they view it as a way to improve their lives, which often involve serious financial problems. They are well-informed in terms of what is legal and what is illegal regarding prostitution in Norway.
- 25 - They know that pimping is illegal, and that this also covers advertising, renting out premises and so on. It is the facilitators who inform the women about these things.
Most of the women have heard about human trafficking and know what it involves if it is explained to them. The women state that they do not feel that they have been the victims of human trafficking. It is also our experience that the women would be unlikely to tell us if they had been through something like that. They would find it humiliating. They do, however, tell stories about how they sometimes have struggled to get out of situations in which they were threatened and coerced. Many of them also tell us that they know of other women who are or have been the victims of human trafficking. Only a small minority are aware of the Norwegian authorities’ offer of assistance and protection to such victims.
In terms of prostitution in Norway specifically, the women say that it is better paid than in many other places in Western Europe, in spite of the fact that prices are now falling rapidly.
What the women know about Norway and Norwegian society The women are aware of their status in Norway, and are familiar with the conditions that it entails. The ones who have applied for asylum know that they have done so, but in our experience they know little about the asylum system itself. The women’s facilitators use the asylum system as a strategy to allow the women to stay in the country for a longer period of time.
The women have a limited relationship with the Norwegian authorities. Apart from meeting organisations providing assistance to prostitutes, the police are the only people they generally encounter. They are regularly stopped by the police to have their documents checked. Women who have been humiliated or turned away by the police have no trust in them. Naturally enough, this is also true of the ones who are staying here illegally.
The present and the future The women say that they feel that their own circumstances, and day-to-day life here in Norway, are fine. Their lives are tough, but they have a clear sense of having chosen their paths themselves. Some say that prostitution is an acceptable way of making quick money. None of the women say that they are going to stop working as a prostitute in the immediate future. Many of them have a plan for what they can achieve through prostitution financially, but they are often vague and lack a clear timeframe.
The Baltic states Baltic women have, like women from Russia, Belarus, the Ukraine and Moldova, been working in the Norwegian prostitution market right since the first foreign women arrived on our domestic prostitution market. Throughout this period the three Baltic states, and particularly Lithuania and Estonia, have provided a lot of women both to street prostitution and the indoor market.
- 26 - The backgrounds of the women The women from the Baltic states are also generally between the ages of 20 and 35 when they leave their home countries, and they are also in this age range when they arrive in Norway for the first time. They have generally grown up in cities or in the suburbs. Most of them live in their home countries when they come to Norway. Only a few of them have residency elsewhere in Europe.
The women often come from broken homes, and lived with their mothers, or less commonly with their fathers. Around half of the women over the age of 25 have their own children and are single mothers. It tends to be other members of their families who look after their children while the mothers are abroad. Through prostitution the women are able to provide for their own children, their parents, their siblings and their siblings’ families.
In terms of education the majority of the women from the Baltic states have completed nine years of compulsory education. Only a few have further education. Most of the women who Pro Sentret has encountered have worked in their home countries prior to coming to Norway. As they tend to have little education, they were generally employed in typical female occupations with low wages. Some of them have also sold sexual services in their home countries.
The changes that occurred in the Baltic states in connection with them gaining their independence from the Soviet Union meant that many of the women saw a stable childhood get significantly worse. Unemployment, family problems, economic turbulence and the loss of family members became part of everyday life for many of them, and they had few ways of providing for themselves and their families.
W hen my mother and my step-father died, my father took me in, but we had nowhere to live. Russians couldn’t get proper jobs in those days, so my father worked and lived with some people as a kind of jack-of-all-trades. M y father had to sign a document giving up his parental rights, and I was put in a children’s home. It was a very good children’s home with only two people in each room, but the environment was very bad. I had a child at the age of 18, and now I am a single mother.
How they get to Western Europe and their lives there The majority of the Baltic women with whom Pro Sentret is in contact are not resident in another Western European country, and have come directly from their home countries to Norway. We do not therefore know anything about Baltic women’s routes to other countries in Western Europe and their lives there.
How they get to Norway and their lives here The women come directly from the Baltic states to Norway. In general they are recruited by a friend who has already worked as a prostitute here. Women who work in brothels in their home countries are also sometimes recommended by the owner of the brothel to go to Norway in order to sell sexual services.
As EU citizens there are no restrictions on Baltic women in terms of travelling to other European countries. They have straightforward access to the whole Schengen area without needing any papers.
- 27 - Baltic women do not, therefore, in principle need any help getting to Norway. And in fact most of the women organise everything themselves, including travel documents, routes and tickets. The only help some of them need is assistance with finding a place to live, as well as advice on where and how to sell their sexual services. Sometimes the women travel with other women who already have experience, and sometimes they are met by someone in Norway who tells them about how prostitution works here. The women set their own hours and their own conditions in terms of numbers of customers and the types of services they offer. They also have freedom of movement. The women move freely in the prostitute community and have a network of contacts who can arrange most things. In our experience their “organisations” virtually always consists of one person in their home countries and one person in Norway.
Previously I sold sexual services from a flat in Lithuania. I travelled to Norway to earn enough money to buy myself a flat at home. I reckon that I will travel back and forth for about a year in order to save enough money for this. In order to get to Norway I got in touch with two different organisers. One of them offered me work from a flat, and the other one offered me work on the streets. I chose the second one because I trusted her most. W hen I got to Norway I was met by another woman here. Each day I pay her 1,500 Norwegian kroner.
Baltic women sell sexual services in the indoor market or on the streets. Although the women can easily travel here by themselves, the majority of them have a facilitator who arranges their prostitution, regardless of whether it is done indoors or on the streets. Before the women leave their home countries they are given thorough information about how to travel, and are told where they are going to live, the address, keys, a telephone, etc. The women are free to decide how long they want to stay in Norway. In order to make use of the facilitator’s facilities, Estonian women pay a fixed amount per day. This used to be 1,500 kroner, but over the past year it has been reduced to 1,000. In other words, the women pay a lot of money for a bit of information, a telephone and accommodation. If they are unable to pay 1,000 kroner per day, the shortfall becomes debt, which the women have to pay off during their next stay in Norway. Lithuanian women working from flats often pay 2/3 of their income per customer to their facilitator. The women hand over the money when they get back home. If they do not pay, they are threatened with violence, or are told that their families will be informed what they do in Norway.
Pro Sentret is finding that increasing numbers of women from the Baltic states are cutting their ties to their facilitators and starting to work for themselves. This is often a choice that needs to mature before a decision is taken. After some time, generally between six months and two years, the woman decides to travel to Norway on her own without any form of assistance from facilitators. Instead she uses her own contacts in the community in order to establish herself. Her contacts are often people she has got to know during previous stays in the country. Sometimes these women are contacted by their former facilitators in an attempt to force them back into the fold through threats against the women themselves or against their families.
I keep being contacted by a former facilitator. He wants me to meet other women who he is sending to Norway to work. I have said to him that I don’t want to do anything illegal, but he threatens me by saying that he will cause trouble for my family.
- 28 - Prostitution in general and specifically in Norway Around half of the women with whom we come into contact have a financial goal before they travel to Norway to sell sexual services. These women generally want to settle down in their own countries. There is also a group of young girls without any dependents who move to Norway for a period of time and earn enough to get by on through prostitution. There is not much structure to the approach of these women, and they do not appear to have any financial goals for their prostitution, nor a timeframe for how long they will sell sexual services.
Women from the Baltic states are familiar with the term human trafficking. Most of them have seen the film about Lilja, or have at least heard about her story. These women do not identify with her, her situation or her fate. Personally they feel that they have a businesslike relationship with their facilitator. They do not complain much about this relationship, which is based on mutual trust and knowledge about one another.
The present and the future Many of the Baltic women say that life as a prostitute is fine. This does not mean that they believe that the sale of sexual services is an ideal solution to a difficult life, but they have come to terms with it. Once they have taken the plunge into prostitution, the earning potential is good enough to go a long way towards compensating for the disadvantages of prostitution. When the women talk about the present and the future, financial issues are very much to the fore. Pro Sentret’s impression is that relatively few women from the Baltic states have a clear financial plan for their time as prostitutes. Their timeframes are also vague. Some say that they want to earn money to settle down in their home countries, whilst others want to settle down abroad. What they have in common is that they have general ideas about the future, but few specific plans. However, all of them say that they would like to get out of prostitution sooner or later, have a family and find a normal job.
I travel to Norway in order to sell sexual services. I stay here for a week, and then I go home and stay there for a month. Over the past two years the prices for prostitution in Norway have fallen by 70%. In spite of that, I still earn a lot of money here compared with an ordinary job back home. On average I earn about 2,000 Norwegian kroner from prostitution per day. That is a bit more than a monthly salary in Estonia.
Albania Albania was one of the first countries in Southeastern Europe to be represented in the Norwegian prostitution market, going right back to when the foreign women started coming here at the end of the 90s. In recent years we have noticed that fewer and fewer Albanians are making their way to our domestic prostitution market. In 2005 we encountered 38 Albanian women, as opposed to 43 in 2003 and 64 in 2004.
The backgrounds of the women The Albanian women can be divided into two groups: the older ones and the younger ones. The youngest ones are generally in the age range 20-23, whilst the oldest ones are a few years older. The youngest ones are in the age range 16-18 when they leave Albania, whilst the oldest ones are again a few years older. The Albanian women are relatively young when they arrive in Norway.
- 29 - The majority of them come from the south of Albania. They grew up in the countryside or in small villages and towns. The women are only rarely resident in another European country when they arrive in Norway, but they have generally passed through one or more countries in Western Europe, such as Greece or Italy, before getting here.
The women’s family backgrounds vary a bit, but the majority have either grown up in a nuclear family or in a nuclear family living with grandparents. The Albanian women in the youngest group rarely have their own children. The older women sometimes have their own children, and more rarely they have a husband. In other words they are generally single mothers. In addition to providing for their own children, they often also provide for their parents, and give financial support to siblings. There are often many people benefiting from the women’s earnings as prostitutes.
Education is free in Albania, but individuals have to pay for living expenses, accommodation and educational material themselves. There is no grant system for students. Not many of the Albanian women who we meet have further education. The majority have done eight years of compulsory schooling, and some of them have completed a further four years of secondary education. Only a small minority of the Albanian women who Pro Sentret encounters have had paid work in their home country prior to ending up in prostitution, perhaps with the exception of working on their parents’ farms. This is mainly due to the young age of the women. They often leave Albania before they become a part of the labour force.
Many of the Albanian women come from poor backgrounds. Most of them have experienced family problems. Their families are often in financial difficulties on account of the unemployment, death or illness of one or more of the family members. Although corporal punishment is a usual part of an Albanian upbringing, the women we meet have often been the victims of violence and abuse over and above this.
I was married to a man in Albania who drank and abused me. M y parents were unable to accept that I divorced him, and didn’t want anything more to do with me. I didn’t feel safe in Albania, as my ex-husband was threatening me and wanted to get at me. I therefore decided to travel abroad. First I travelled to Italy in a rubber dinghy and lived there. Then I decided to travel to Norway in order to apply for asylum. I left the asylum centre when I realised that I would be sent back to Albania if I were rejected. Not living there makes it easier for me to travel to another country by myself if I get turned down. There were other people at the asylum centre who told me about the possibility of working in street prostitution.
How they get to Western Europe and their lives there The older and the younger women are recruited to travel to Western Europe in different ways, and the organisation of their journeys is also different for the two groups. The way in which they come to a Western European country affects their status there.
The older women The older women are often recruited by acquaintances who have some kind of experience or knowledge of prostitution in Western Europe. These acquaintances often provide the women with information about prostitution and how to go about getting into a Western European country.
- 30 - On the back of this information the women choose prostitution as a solution to the problems that they often face in their lives. They therefore tell us that they are selling sexual services of their own volition. However, in order to migrate the Albanian women need help, as it cannot be done legally. The women get in touch with, or are put in touch with, people who can arrange their passage out of Albanian and into Western Europe. They are generally people smugglers. They arrange all of the logistics involved in leaving Albania and travelling to a Western European country. Of course the women have to pay for these services. The cost is generally somewhere in the region of 2,000-5,000 Euros. The services consist of obtaining the necessary paperwork for leaving Albania and entry into Italy or Greece. In order to pay for these services the women have to borrow money. If they had had that amount of money themselves, the women would in all probability not have been in a situation in which they would have chosen prostitution as a solution. The women borrow money from friends or acquaintances, loan sharks or from the network that they are using. It varies how they have to repay the debt. Some of them save up and pay in instalments, whilst others pay on an ongoing basis. If they do not repay the debt within a fixed deadline, the amount increases. The women know this, and they feel that the deadline they are given is realistic. Our impression is that there are few problems or frustrations associated with the debt. The women know what they have gone into and are aware of the repayment terms. They are also aware that if the debt is not repaid as agreed, there will be sanctions against them. They know what the sanctions are.
Although the women have a clear understanding of their position in relation to their debt and of the terms they have agreed to, they may still struggle to earn enough money. There is currently less money to be made in prostitution in Norway. The women therefore often borrow money from other people in order to repay the initial debt, thereby getting into further debt, sometimes with even more stringent repayment terms. This can lead to the women ending up in a vicious circle of debt and prostitution, from which it can be difficult to escape.
Before leaving home, the women are told what the journey will involve and what will happen when they arrive. However, they travel alone. When they get to their destinations they are generally met by someone. The people who meet them are either family or friends, or people who they have put the women in touch with. Such people are often Albanian facilitators. The people who meet the women arrange where they will work, accommodation, a telephone, etc. There may be one person who arranges everything, or several different people who each arrange different things. Whether it is acquaintances or other people who assist the women depends on their networks of contacts at their destinations. They may get help and advice from acquaintances or from people they have been put in touch with for arranging prostitution and potentially protection. Apart from this they arrange most things themselves, and are allowed to keep their own money. They do, however, have to repay their debts and pay for information provided by the people who have assisted them. The women rarely have a regular pimp where they work as a prostitute. The women mainly sell sexual services on the streets. If they work indoors, they have to pay part of what they earn to the owner of the bar. The women have a large degree of control over their working hours and conditions. They are also free to choose the customers they want to serve, and the services they want to perform.
- 31 - The women can leave prostitution when they themselves want to. However, their debts will constrain when they are able to do this.
The younger women
I married at the age of 17. M y husband took me to Greece and told me that I had to work as a prostitute there. For two years I sold sexual services to regular customers, before I divorced my husband. I have heard that he has married and sold other girls as well.
The journeys of the youngest women from Albania to a country in Western Europe take place on completely different terms. In general they travel to Greece or to Italy with their boyfriends, believing that they are going to settle down there and work for a better future together. Traditionally Albanian women do not have long-term relationships with men prior to marrying. This is particularly true of women from rural areas who have only completed compulsory education. In order to marry a girl, a man has to contact her family and present himself and what he has to offer his future wife and her family. Together with the girl, the family decides whether to accept the man’s offer. If the women come from dysfunctional families, they make this decision themselves. Men who want to get hold of a woman to sell sexual services for them make use of this tradition. They seek out young, vulnerable girls, and befriend them over a period of 6 to 12 months. The woman will in due course consider the man to be her boyfriend, and she will have no reservations about travelling with him to Greece or to Italy. Most Albanians have friends and/ or family in these countries, so there is nothing strange or suspicious about going there. At this stage the woman will have no idea about her boyfriend’s hidden agenda. He arranges all of the practicalities for the journey itself, such as travel documents, visas, tickets and so on. They probably use the same channels as people wanting to travel out themselves do, and have to pay for these services. This means that the man has invested his money in the woman.
The woman travels to Western Europe with her boyfriend in the belief that they are going to settle down there. She does not know that prostitution is awaiting her. She has therefore not reached any agreement with her boyfriend about travel, work and so on before leaving Albania. He has arranged all of the practicalities at their destination, so that it is easy for them to settle in on arrival. To start with everything appears to be fine. Then things start to get worse: they have no work, and their financial situation deteriorates. At this stage the boyfriend begins to put pressure on the woman to make a contribution. Violence and threats are often involved. Gradually he breaks down the woman’s resistance, and in the meantime he has made her completely dependent on him. He uses the traditional gender roles in which the man dominates the woman to keep her under control. This is exacerbated by the fact that she has no-one else to turn to. He uses manipulation and emotional blackmail to convince the woman that prostitution is the road to go down, and that it will rapidly solve all of their problems. Once the woman has taken the plunge into prostitution, she is completely at the mercy of the man and has no way back. If the woman resists after she has started working as a prostitute, the violence will increase. It is also normal for the man to threaten to tell her family that she is prostituting herself. These factors, combined with emotional blackmail and promises of a better future, keep the woman in prostitution. In spite of the situation, the woman holds on to the fact that she has a boyfriend and that they are in fact going to create a life together.
- 32 - The woman believes that she is selling sexual services purely on a temporary basis, in order to achieve this.
The women mainly sell sexual services on the streets. It is largely their boyfriends who decide their working hours and conditions, their customers and they are not free to stop working as a prostitute. They are allowed time off if they are ill, or if something else happens that makes it difficult for them to sell sexual services. However, their boyfriends manipulate them back out into prostitution as soon as possible.
The young women have their boyfriends as their pimps, although that is not what they see them as. They are generally a couple. Albanian women would not accept him having other girlfriends. Sometimes the boyfriend is a pimp for other women of other nationalities, but for those women he is simply that: a pimp. Everything the woman earns goes to her boyfriend. As a man, he is responsible for managing the finances. This does not seem strange to the woman. She pays the money she earns into their joint finances. The boyfriend may be generous about buying things for her, and may also send money home to her family. This makes the woman feel that the man is taking care of her and her needs, which strengthens her relationship to him.
The Albanian girls who I know are in Europe with their boyfriends or husbands. They didn’t know that they were going to work as prostitutes, but were subsequently manipulated into doing it. All of the money they earn goes into their joint finances with the man. Her insurance that her husband will not leave her once he has saved some money through her prostitution is that both of the families have a relationship to one another as in-laws, and if he were to do that it would have consequences.
The journey from Albania to Greece or to Italy is short, as they are neighbouring countries. The practicalities of the journey depend on whether or not the woman in question has the necessary paperwork. The ones without any papers are generally smuggled over to Italy by boat. The ones who can get hold of papers cross the borders in the normal way in a car. It is not unusual to bribe border guards in Albania, Italy and Greece. Most women who leave Albania these days do so of their own volition. In other words, increasing numbers are making a conscious decision and do not feel coerced at any stage of the process. This does not mean that they are comfortable with prostitution. For these women, as for so many other women in prostitution, the sale of sexual services is a solution to a difficult situation. It is a choice that is often made in the absence of good alternatives.
How they get to Norway and their lives here The women have been in Western Europe for anything from three months to two years when they arrive in Norway. In general they have been in several countries, such as Italy, Greece, Germany and the Netherlands. Their recruitment to Norway is roughly identical to the recruitment that takes place when they originally leave Albania.
The older women The women are told by an acquaintance, or by the prostitute community in which they are already operating, that there is good money to made from selling sexual services in Norway, and they decide to come here.
- 33 - As there is no problem travelling around within the Schengen area once you have gained access to it, the women rarely make a separate agreement with a third party in relation to the journey to Norway itself. Some women pay a person to arrange for someone to meet them and to provide them with the information they need in order to start working as a prostitute in Norway. If they have borrowed money for this, it will naturally need to be repaid. The women often have explicit agreements about this. The women organise their journeys themselves through a normal travel agency, and they tend to travel alone or with a friend. The oldest women say that they are working for themselves. They tend to live in a hotel, or less frequently in a flat or with friends. Sometimes the women commute between Norway and Albania, but they generally commute between Norway and Greece or Italy. They repay their debts and provide for themselves and any family they have. The oldest women are in a position to choose their own working hours, but nevertheless they work hard.
M y friend had a cousin who had worked in Norway and had earned loads of money. So then I decided to come here. I took a flight from Greece to Norway. From the hotel I took a taxi to the central station, because I had been told that the area for street prostitution was near there, but a bit further up the street. I looked around and spotted some girls in miniskirts, and that is how I found it. I started working and got to know lots of the other girls there. They told me where I should get hold of condoms, how I could rent a room in the area and where Pro Sentret was.
The younger women The youngest women travel to Norway together with their boyfriends, but for the same reason as the older women, i.e. they have heard that there is good money to be made from selling sexual services here. Their boyfriend organises the whole journey and their stay in Norway. He often uses contacts that he has in this country. Once they are here, he can leave the woman to a friend who will look after her and arrange her prostitution in Norway. He himself travels back to the country in which they originally were resident, which is generally Italy or Greece. The women still have no agreement, but they do what they have been told to do by their boyfriends. They sell sexual services and pay him. Even if her boyfriend is not in Norway, the woman will feel that she has a close relationship to him. She feels under obligation to him, and will continue working as a prostitute even if he is not present. In other words they are not in a situation in which they are free to leave prostitution whenever they want to. Meanwhile, the boyfriend keeps her in prostitution in Norway using the same tools - manipulation, emotional blackmail and threats – as he always has.
The journey to Norway is straightforward and short for both the older and the younger women. It is done in the normal way by car or by plane. In Norway the women mainly sell sexual services on the streets. A very few work in the indoor market. Both for the oldest and for the youngest women the purpose of their stay in Norway is to earn money. So they work as much as they can. With regard to freedom of movement and any limitations on it, their situation in Norway is the same as in other European countries. Their freedom to do other things is mainly limited by their need to earn money, often a lot of money, in a relatively short space of time.
- 34 - Prostitution in general and specifically in Norway The older women chose prostitution because they wanted to solve a financial problem with the quick money that they thought they could make out of prostitution. Often they are introduced to prostitution by friends or acquaintances. The women do not necessarily have a clear timeframe for when they want to stop selling sexual services. They do have a clear sense that their prostitution is a temporary measure. In general they have a financial goal: saving money for a house, a car or for creating a job for themselves by setting up their own business. The plan is to stop working as a prostitute once the goal has been reached. The profits they make from prostitution allow them to create a better life for themselves than the one they came from.
The majority of the women come to Norway as tourists, but it is not uncommon for them to apply for asylum in order to extend their stay here. It is not our impression that they have any clear understanding of the asylum system, or what seeking asylum involves. The women are only interested in using it to extend their legal stay in Norway. In terms of prostitution in Norway, the women know that it is legal to sell sexual services on the streets. They also know that pimping is illegal. Some of them buy information about Norway and about the situation here before coming, whilst many pick up the things they need to know about Norway from the prostitute community.
The women who have been manipulated into prostitution by their boyfriends also know that it is legal to sell sex on the streets in Oslo, and that pimping is illegal. Although they view their boyfriends as being precisely that, i.e. boyfriends, they also understand that what they are doing is pimping. This makes them cautious about telling anyone about their relationships to them.
On the issue of human trafficking, most of both the oldest and the youngest girls have heard about Lilja and seen programmes about human trafficking on TV. They do not identify with this. The women do not feel that they are or have been in a situation that is identical or similar to Lilja's situation. Even when they are told what human trafficking is and the various forms it can take, and are informed of the Norwegian authorities’ offer to women who have been the victims of it, they still do not consider themselves to have been trafficked.
Regarding the peculiarities of prostitution in Norway, several of them mention that many of the customers here are drunk. Norwegians are also perceived to be cold and distant, but kind and civilised. It used to be possible to make good money here. Recently, this has changed somewhat. Greater competition has led to lower profits. Many of the women are also struck by the fact that there are, in their experience, very many drug addicts in Norway.
What the women know about Norway and Norwegian society The women know the basis on which they are staying in Norway. The youngest women are either here as tourists or have been told that they are going to apply for asylum. This is also the case for the oldest women. On the basis of this, they also know how long they are allowed to stay in the country.
- 35 - The present and the future Many of the Albanian women feel that their lives are bad. This is generally related to the fact that their opportunities are so limited that they have little chance of providing for themselves through ordinary work. Serious financial difficulties mean that prostitution often appears to be the only option for many of them, in spite of the fact that it is a bad option.
The women who have come to Western Europe by themselves tend to have a clear financial goal for their prostitution. They see themselves leaving prostitution behind within the foreseeable future. Generally the money that they put aside is intended to secure them and any family they have a better future. Their future aspirations involve education, work and a family.
When the younger women talk about their hopes for the future, they often speak of what they thought was going to be the situation when the left Albania for a life in Europe. Life with their boyfriends, revolving around ordinary work and children. Although it is their boyfriends who have manipulated these women into prostitution, the majority of them still hope and believe that they will create a better life together. When their lives as prostitutes will end, and their happy family lives will start, is by definition uncertain for these women.
Romania Women from Romania are a relatively new addition to the Norwegian prostitution market. In spite of this, they are one of the fastest growing groups. The Romanian women, along with the women from Bulgaria, are the group with whom Pro Sentret has least contact. For this reason, we do not have in-depth knowledge about these women and their lives, neither here in Norway nor in their home country.
The backgrounds of the women The Romanian women are definitely the youngest group of prostitutes in Norway. They are between the ages of 18 and 23. In spite of their young age, many of the women have experience of prostitution prior to coming to Norway. Many of them have clearly started selling sexual services while they were minors.
The women come both from rural areas and big cities in Romania. They are ethnic Romanians. Pro Sentret has not met any Roma women from Romania. In our experience the majority are resident in Romania, but many of them have been in other Western European countries prior to Norway. It appears that some of these women have a kind of commuting lifestyle to and from Western European countries with Romania as their base.
They are young, and are rarely educated beyond compulsory schooling. Their young age when they come to Norway also means that few of them have experience of ordinary work in Romania. In spite of their young age, several of the women have their own children. Beyond this we know little about their family backgrounds. They provide for family members through prostitution, but their families are not generally aware that they are selling sexual services.
- 36 - How they get to Western Europe and their lives there We know very little about these women’s routes into and lives in other European countries.
How they get to Norway and their lives here The women clearly come to Norway as part of an organised operation, but we know little about how they are recruited. What we do know is that they rarely come alone to this country; generally they come in small groups. The women themselves say that they have come to Norway to live with other Romanian women who are already here. They clearly already know each other, and some of them are related. The women come as a group and they also act as a group, both in the area where they work and in their dealings with us. The only exceptions are a couple of older women who are clearly not part of the same group as the other women.
The fact that the women live in flats and houses rather than in hostels, have Norwegian telephones when they arrive here and even cars in some cases, provides strong evidence that they are part of an organised operation and that their arrival here is carefully planned. It is not, however, Pro Sentret’s impression that the facilitators accompany the women on their journey here.
The women mainly come on flights from Romania. They do not need a visa to come to Norway, so it is a straightforward journey that does not require a great deal of organisation. It is not particularly expensive to come here either. It is our impression that the women mainly come directly from Romania to Norway. Many of them have experience of prostitution in other European countries, such as Germany, Italy and Greece, prior to coming here. Most of them also emphasise that they have not worked as prostitutes in their home country.
The Romanian women give the impression of acting independently, but their prostitution appears to be highly organised. They work a lot and stay out late. They speak to people with cars in the area where they work who are clearly not customers. They are also frequently on the phone to someone while they are working the streets. We have also seen them hand over money to one or more people while they are there. All of this provides evidence that someone is facilitating and organising their prostitution.
The Romanian women always stand around in groups, and it appears that one of the women in the group is responsible for all of them. The majority of them have poor English skills, so to a certain extent they need someone to deal with the practicalities on the street. The women soon work out who we are. We assume that they were told about Pro Sentret and our activities before their arrival here.
The women behave in a sexually provocative way, particularly with men. They have a very direct approach, and behave in a way that gives the impression that they are in total control of the situation. The women are nevertheless cooperative. They come to Pro Sentret and accept our services, but it is difficult to get close to them. They stay in control by not allowing us to get too close to them.
We have thus far had little success in reaching the stage with these women where we can begin to discuss how their prostitution is organised and who their pimps are.
- 37 - The women have neither confirmed nor denied to us that they are part of an organised network.
Pro Sentret knows that the Romanian women often have boyfriends who have accompanied them to Norway. They tell us very little about these relationships. We are therefore not in a position to say whether these men are only the women’s boyfriends or whether, as with the Albanian women’s boyfriends, they are also responsible for organising the prostitution.
The Romanian women sell sexual services on the streets; they arrive early and stay late. They do not, as far as we know, take customers home with them. Pro Sentret does not know whether any of them advertise and work in the indoor market. It is our impression that initially the women are instructed to work at particular times, and they appear to have limited opportunity to influence this themselves. Over the course of time it appears that their working hours become less rigid. In terms of the customers they accept and the kinds of services they offer, it is our understanding that the women are largely free to decide this for themselves.
I went to Italy to work as a maid in a family. I didn’t earn much, but I was able to survive on my pay. In Italy I met a man who said that he could get me a job in Norway. I accepted, and he helped me to get here. Here I was forced to prostitute myself, and I had to give everything I earned to that man. He threatened to kill me or my family if I wouldn’t do as he said. I told everything to a customer and he advised me to go to the police. I have done that, and now I just want to go back to Romania.
Prostitution in general and specifically in Norway Pro Sentret does not have any clear idea why prostitution became an option for these women. We simply know too little about them. They don't tell us much about themselves and their backgrounds. The women are very familiar with prostitution by the time they come to Norway, and they have a wide range of experience, which suggests that they started in prostitution at a young age. It is our impression that the women know that they will be selling sexual services here. The women know what is legal and what is illegal in Norway in terms of prostitution. They know that it is legal to sell sexual services here, and that you do not need a work permit in order to operate as a prostitute. The women also know that their age is important, and that you have to be over the age of 18 in order to work as a prostitute.
In our experience, as we have said, the women are reluctant to talk about whether they are part of an organised network, but they know that pimping is illegal. The issue of human trafficking does not really mean a lot to the women. They do not in any way see themselves as being the victims of such operations.
On the question of prostitution in Norway, the women complain that there is little to do. There are too few customers and there is too much competition, which means that they do not earn much.
What the women know about Norway and Norwegian society The Romanian women are a tight-knit group who stick together. It appears that they have little contact with and knowledge of society in general. They know that Norway is a democracy, and they say that they feel that it is very safe here.
- 38 - They also know that the police in Norway are not corrupt. They trust the Norwegian police, and would be willing to phone them if necessary. They are also familiar with their own status in Norway and the conditions that apply to it.
The present and the future They are “proud” women who are not ashamed of what they are doing, and they do not want to be condemned or pitied. They are selling sexual services of their own volition. Although the women come across as cheerful and contented, they do not appear to be at all happy with the situation in which they find themselves. One should therefore be careful with interpreting their image to mean that they are indifferent to or unaffected by their lifestyles and the fact that they sell sexual services.
They are grateful for help offered by Pro Sentret, particularly the health care services we provide, but they also appreciate having the opportunity to talk about their day, what they have experienced, issues relating to prostitution and so on. It is our impression that it is important to the women to talk about these things.
It appears that the women to a large extent spend what they earn. They do not speak much about plans for the future or about what they will do with the money that they earn from prostitution, other than using it to buy consumer goods. This may be because of their young age, and many of them reveal a number of desires and needs of a more material nature. Some of them say they that would like to spend the money they save from selling sexual services on getting an education.
In spite of the lack of specific plans, many of them can see themselves leaving prostitution behind. The want financial stability, and see themselves having to provide for children. Currently it is often the father who is responsible for the day-to-day care of any children.
Bulgaria As is the case with the women from Romania, Pro Sentret has limited contact with the Bulgarian women, in spite of the fact that they now comprise the third largest group of foreign women working as prostitutes in Oslo. Pro Sentret has limited knowledge about these women's lives before and after they entered prostitution. The Bulgarian women can be split into two separate groups: Roma women and ethnic Bulgarians.
Roma These women are over the age of 25, and come from difficult backgrounds involving poverty, no education, crime and violence. Many of them are single mothers, have experienced illness and bereavement, and have serious family problems. For these women prostitution is a coping strategy in the face of a difficult life. Some of the women have experience of prostitution from Bulgaria, while others don't. Some travel of their own volition, others are induced and manipulated, and yet others are sold by their families. They have all been introduced to prostitution by a third party. These women come to Norway through a highly organised system, and they all know that prostitution is awaiting them.
- 39 - Most of them come directly from Bulgaria to Norway either by plane or by car. Some of them have experience of prostitution in other European countries, such as Germany. On arrival in Norway they are met by someone here who helps them with the practicalities of staying in Norway, and helps them to get started as prostitutes.
All of the women work on the streets, and in our experience they pay around 50% of what they earn to their pimps. They have to do that for as long as they remain in prostitution. In general the women work for three months before travelling back to Bulgaria. It is not unusual for them to come back to Norway several times. It is Pro Sentret’s impression that the women, in spite of the fact that their stay and their prostitution is highly organised, are free to leave whenever they want to.
I used to work on the streets for an Albanian pimp. He wasn’t nice and he took 50% of what I earned. All of the Bulgarian girls working in street prostitution have pimps, either from Albania or from Bulgaria.
Ethnic Bulgarians These women come to Norway without any kind of facilitators. Some of the women may buy information about where and how prostitution is organised in this country. As long as Bulgarian women don’t need visas to get into Norway, it is easy for them to organise their travel and stay themselves.
Generally the women have been introduced to prostitution by acquaintances, often by someone who has experience of prostitution or knows someone who does. It is Pro Sentret’s impression that they have some education, with the majority at least having completed secondary school. The women state that it is mainly the lack of economic opportunities and their family responsibilities, combined with a desire not just to survive, but to live well, that makes prostitution an attractive option.
A friend of mine worked as a prostitute in Germany. W hen she came back I saw that she had a lot of money. I realised that with my wages I would always struggle to pay the bills. After thinking long and hard about it, I decided to do the same thing as my friend. It was my idea to come here. I searched under prostitution in Norway on the Internet and found that it was possible to work here. I booked a ticket and a hotel and took a flight from Sofia to Oslo. I work for myself and keep everything that I earn. M y aim is to save as much as possible so that I can open a hotel in Bulgaria.
Common to both of the groups The women are aware of their status in Norway, and of the conditions associated with it. The women get stopped by the police here in Norway. This is generally to check their papers, but the police also ask them about the purpose of their stay in Norway, as well as questions relating to prostitution, such as why they are selling sexual services and questions about facilitators and pimps. The women probably trust the Norwegian police more than the corresponding authorities in their home country, who they do not trust at all.
The women express dissatisfaction with their own lives. None of them are happy to be in the situation they find themselves in. They complain to us about how cold it is in Norway, and about the stress of not earning as much money as they had expected. This is a big problem for many of them.
- 40 - The women have to work the streets for many hours, but they still don’t earn much. Pro Sentret hears a great deal of frustration about this on the part of the women, and about the fact that the goal they have set for leaving prostitution has to be delayed.
The women think a lot about their families in their home country. It is tiring having to live a double life. Their families do not know that they sell sexual services abroad. Prostitution is highly taboo, and is associated with a lot of guilt and shame. On the other hand their families are used to getting money from the women, which is something that they use to justify the prostitution to themselves. There is a kind of mutual dependency between the women and their families. However, their double lives are a serious mental burden.
The women care about their own health, and are keen to use our health care services. Many of them are also very body conscious, and use a lot of time and money on improving it, often through plastic surgery. They see a beautiful body as a competitive advantage, and therefore sell sexual services so that they can afford to have plastic surgery. Most of them, however, have clear future plans. For most of them, the plan is to “sacrifice themselves” for a period, so that they can subsequently enjoy a good life.
The women are of the opinion that it is only they, and they alone, who can find solutions to any problems that occur in their lives. They have no concept of the authorities or other providers of welfare services being able to affect change. Only the woman herself can bring about change and improve her own life.
- 41 - 4 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 124. The flow of Nigerian women continued unabated in 2005. Last year, Pro Sentret was in contact with 393 different women from Nigeria.
The backgrounds of the women The youngest woman we have met is 18 years old, and the eldest is 53. Their average age is 29.1. In other words, the Nigerian women who come to Norway are not particularly young. Most of the women left Nigeria long before they came here, 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. The vast majority of the Nigerian women come from Edo province, and Benin City in particular, and they belong to the Edo ethnic group. Pro Sentret has also encountered women who come from Delta State and women who are from the Yoruba or Ibo ethnic groups.
We have also met a few women who say that they have come directly from Nigeria to Norway, but the majority of the women we meet have residency in another country in Western Europe, most commonly Italy or Spain. Others have come from countries such as Austria, the Netherlands, Germany and Greece. The majority of the Nigerian women are resident in Western Europe as so-called third country nationals.
M y father has four wives and 22 children. I am almost in the middle. I grew up in poverty, with inadequate food and clothing. The family had to work on a farm in order to get food. Now I provide for my grand-parents, my parents and some of my siblings.
The vast majority of the women from Nigeria come from extended families. Often their fathers have several wives, and they have very 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 Europe 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. Some of the women we have met do not have close relatives in Nigeria for a variety of reasons. It is not uncommon for them to have lost their parents at a relatively young age. They grew up with most distant relatives or in foster families. These women rarely have to provide for anyone in their home country.
Some of the Nigerian women are illiterate, but the majority have been to school. Most of them have completed compulsory education, which consists of 12 years of primary and secondary school. A few have started university courses. It varies whether the Nigerian women have had work in their home country.
- 42 - The ones who did work before leaving Nigeria were mainly employed in typical low- wage occupations. Some of them say that they worked at a factory, on a farm or as a hairdresser. It is also common for them to have helped their families by selling fruit and vegetables, or other goods, on the street or on markets.
Many of the Nigerian women who we meet are legally resident in Italy or Spain. They have been in Western Europe for anything from six months up to many years. Here the majority of the women have had short-term or long-term ordinary work. The women say that they are mainly employed on short-term contracts in typical low- wage occupations. They work at factories, in the health and welfare sector, as maids and as cleaners. These women are on the margins of the labour market, and are vulnerable to change. Many of them have experience of losing their job. Unemployment often puts them in a difficult financial position, as only a small minority are in a position to claim unemployment benefits of any kind.
I have lived in Italy for six years. Initially I came on a tourist visa, but I didn’t go home. As I was there illegally I couldn’t work, so I sold sex on the streets. I was given residency and work permits at a time when everyone living illegally in Italy was given them. At that point I started working in a factory. Unfortunately the factory was closed down and I lost my job. Some other Nigerian women told me that it was easy to make money in Norway. That’s why I cam here.
The women rarely tell us about their childhoods in Nigeria. Even when they are asked directly they are reluctant to provide information. We therefore know little about this area. The women who talk to us about it 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. To a lesser extent we also hear about women who were the victims of violence and abuse.
How they get to Western Europe and their lives there The Nigerian women have different explanations for how going to Europe become an option for them. A few of them had the idea of travelling to Western Europe themselves, but they are the exceptions. The vast majority are in various ways recruited by other people to travel to Western Europe. It is generally people the women know who introduce them to the idea. This may be their family, their friends or neighbours. Sometimes the women are also recruited by other women who have been in Western Europe and have earned good money. They return to Nigeria precisely in order to recruit new women who are then sent to Western Europe through the same network as they originally used. The recruiters are paid for this work.
There are also people who actively seek out women in order to recruit them to travel to Western Europe. Typically they hunt for young women who have left their villages and gone to the cities in search of work. There are also “employment agencies and tour operators” in Benin City that specialise in recruiting young women to travel to Western Europe. The women come here for a chat, more or less like an ordinary job interview. The facilitators asses, on the basis of the interviewed woman’s looks, body and appearance, whether she has the potential to earn money. If she passes muster, they will arrange her journey to Western Europe.
- 43 - Regardless of how the women were recruited, they share the fact that they had a genuine desire to leave their home country in favour of what they thought would be better economic opportunities in Western Europe. None of the women Pro Sentret has met were trafficked to Europe against their will. The women also share the fact that all of them have some kind of family responsibilities. Their journey to Western Europe is motivated by a need to secure their family financially. This is why they accept the offer of help to get to a Western European country.
For the vast majority of Nigerians it is virtually impossible to migrate to Western Europe legally. The women need the help of others in order to go on this journey. This is where the market for “good helpers” arises. The people who organise the journey arrange the necessary travel documents, such as passports and visas, decide the route and book spaces on and pay for the necessary means of transport. The women rarely have the money themselves to cover the expenses this entails. There is also the facilitator’s commission to pay.
It is our impression that the women realise that they will incur debt for the practical assistance they receive. The size of this debt is rarely stated before the women leave their home country. It is only when they reach their destinations that they find out how much they owe their facilitators. This is also when they find out what reprisals they can expect if they do not repay what they owe. According to Pro Sentret’s sources, the price the women have to pay to be taken to Western Europe is somewhere in the region of 30-40,000 Euros or US Dollars.
On TV I had seen beautiful pictures from Europe. A friend told me about a man who helps people to get into Europe. He asked whether I had a passport, and since I didn’t have one he arranged one for me. M y parents were against me going - particularly my father. He knew where most Nigerian girls end up in Europe. So when I was ready to go, I told my parents that I was going with my boyfriend, as I was allowed to do that. From Lagos I took a flight to London, and I applied for asylum in the UK. As soon as I had the chance, I phoned my sponsor, which was what I had been told to do in Nigeria. He said that I wasn’t going to England, I was going to Italy. I was actually allowed to stay in England and was given a flat. It makes me sad when I think that I had the chance to stay there. But I had to follow his instructions, as that was part of the agreement. He also said that if I didn’t do it something bad would happen to my family.
The women are vague in their descriptions of their journeys from Nigeria to Western Europe. They do not share many details of the journey with us. This is probably partly because they don't want to tell us about it, and partly because they don’t actually know where they went. Unsurprisingly, the routes that have been described to us vary. Many of them tell us that the journey primarily went by land and by sea. They are transported northwards from West Africa by car or lorry. Sometimes the women tell us that they had to walk, particularly through the desert. From North Africa they travel to Spain by boat. Some of them also travel overland to another African country and then fly to Western Europe. Yet others fly directly from Nigeria to their destination, which is generally Spain or Italy. We also hear about women who reach Spain, apply for asylum there and then travel on to Italy by train.
- 44 - The women are also reluctant to tell us how the journey was organised. What we do know is that their journeys to Western Europe are organised in a variety of ways. Some women travel alone or with other women on the same mission, right from their home country to their destination. Others are accompanied on all or part of the journey. If they are only accompanied for part of the journey, it is common for them to be accompanied as far as the final leg, i.e. the leg that will take them into Western Europe. Both women and men may accompany them, but it isn't necessarily the same person who accompanies them the whole way. The job of these people is to ensure that the women reach their destinations. They are not primarily there to stop the women running away, because as we have said, the women want to travel to Western Europe. The person accompanying them is mainly there to organise the logistics of the journey. In so far as the women and the people accompanying them are stopped by the authorities in other countries along their journey, this rarely causes a problem as in general they have the proper papers. Generally the person accompanying the women has their papers. Most of them receive their papers themselves at some point, but we have also met women who have never seen their own passports.
Our knowledge about the agreements and terms that the women sign up to before leaving for Western Europe is limited, as few of them tell us about this in any detail. The information that we do have suggests that the agreements between the women and the facilitators deal with where they are going, who they are going to travel with, what they are going to do at their destinations, including prostitution and other work, and how long they will stay in Western Europe. They also agree what type of assistance the women will get from the people organising the journey, and the women have to promise that they will not tell anyone about the help they have been given, nor from whom they have received it.
Some women tell us that they have participated in “juju”. This involves the people organising the journey carrying out various rituals in order to bind the women to the agreements. Often the facilitator will take samples of the woman’s nails, pubic hair and hair, and store them in a small packet that can later be used against the woman. We have also met women who have participated in voodoo rituals. According to what we have been told, these rituals are considerably more dramatic and often involve the slaughter of animals. The extent to which the women believe in these rituals varies. For some of the women these rituals are so powerful that they are virtually unable to talk about their own situation. For others they are virtually meaningless. In our experience, the longer the women have been in Europe the less they believe in these rituals. Here it is important to mention that we have also met Nigerian women who reject all of the stories about juju and what it will do to the affected women. They more or less say that these are stories that the Nigerian women tell when they are in a difficult situation, i.e. when they encounter representatives of various organisations and authorities or the police. They do this in order to give themselves a chance of getting residency. This particularly applies to Nigerian women in Italy.
As previously stated, the women only find out how indebted they are to the facilitators once they get to Western Europe. The amount has to be repaid in its entirety, and only once the debt has been cleared can the woman earn money for herself and her family.
- 45 - Repayment takes place in different ways depending on how the prostitution is organised and to what extent the woman enjoys the trust of the people for whom she is working. The women who are trusted most pay once in a while, while the ones who are trusted least pay every day. The women themselves are generally only allowed to keep enough money for the essentials. In general the women pay someone who lives in the same place as they live in Western Europe, but sometimes the person who receives the money is in Nigeria. In such cases the woman regularly sends money to that person. If the woman does not pay, or does not pay enough, she is threatened by the facilitators. The threats generally consist of saying that something will happen to her family, often a little sister, or that something will happen to her home village.
The women often find that the facilitators break their side of the bargain. This can happen in various ways. Some of the women are cheated in terms of the type of employment that is awaiting them in Western Europe. Some of them have been promised residency and work permits and ordinary work, but end up in prostitution. Most of them realised that they were going to sell sexual services when they got to Western Europe. Other breaches of the agreement include the facilitators demanding more money from the women than they had agreed, meaning that they have to stay longer than they had expected, the accommodation being inadequate or the facilitators demanding sex with the women. Once the women are in Western Europe, there is little they can do to protect themselves against this type of breach of agreement.
Back in Nigeria I worked on a market. One woman told me that she could help me get to Germany, where I would be able to get a job. W e agreed that I would buy a car for her and give her 500,000 Naira after I had started earning money. This was to pay her for helping to get me to Germany. W e signed an agreement on this, and she took nail, pubic hair and hair samples from me to use for "juju" if I didn't keep my side of the bargain. I came to Europe by boat and the woman accompanied me the whole way. Instead of getting to Germany, I ended up in Italy and was told to earn money from prostitution. The woman also said that she wanted 50,000 Euros in addition to what we had already agreed. I didn’t know what to do, and so I obeyed her. I sold sex on the streets. The woman came each day and took all of the money I earned. She threatened to hit me if she didn’t get the money.
As stated above, Italy and Spain are the main destinations for the Nigerian women’s journeys to Western Europe. Before leaving their home country, the women are not told much about what will happen when they arrive. On their arrival there is always someone to meet them who is responsible for “looking after” the women. This may be a woman or a man. The person shows the women where they will be living, which is often together with other women in the same situation and with similar agreements to them. They are also told where they will work, how the prostitution is organised, how much they should charge and everything else they need to know in order to sell sexual services. At this stage the women are also told how much debt they have incurred and how they have to repay it. Occasionally the women also have to take part in juju rituals at this point. Sometimes it is other women who have been working as prostitutes for a while, rather than the facilitator, who show the woman the ropes. Some women have their passports/ travel documents confiscated on arrival, and only get them back once they have repaid their debt. Others are allowed to keep them.
- 46 - In Italy the women mainly work along the main roads, but we also know that in addition to selling sexual services there, some women have to serve customers from the flat in which they live. These were often “posh white” customers, who were also allowed to buy services without a condom. The extent to which they are allowed to control their own work in terms the hours they do, the number of customers they serve and the types of service they provide often depends on the degree of trust that they enjoy. Newly arrived women are watched over more carefully than women who have been in the game for a while. They have little freedom to do things by themselves. They are accompanied to the area where they are to sell sexual services and are picked up afterwards. The women are not allowed to go out shopping on their own either. As they gain greater trust they are given greater freedom, although someone in the community is always watching over them. This can include other women who are also working as prostitutes, for example.
The facilitators of the prostitution do not explicitly decide how much the women should work, how many customers they should take and what type of services they should provide, but their constant need for money – lots of money – influences their course of action. The women are not free to stop selling sexual services whenever they want to. Only once they have cleared their debts can they in theory leave prostitution behind. Depending on the size of their debts, this can take several years. The women have a pimp/ facilitator/ madam throughout the period it takes to clear their debts. Once they have done this, they are free to sell sexual services for their own profit if they want to. Both women and men facilitate the Nigerian women’s prostitution in Western Europe. Sometimes there are several people in the same network, but our impression is that most of the Nigerian women deal with the same person throughout the time it takes to repay their debts. Whether or not the facilitators have several women to look after depends slightly on the size of the network. Some have several women, whilst others may only have one or two. The majority of the Nigerian women who Pro Sentret has encountered live and work with other Nigerian women in Italy or Spain. The role of the people facilitating the prostitution in Italy and Spain is precisely that, facilitation. They teach new women the tricks of the trade, look after them to ensure they do what they are supposed to do and receive their money. With regard to payment, some of the women pay almost everything they earn to the facilitators, whilst others are allowed to keep more of the money. They have to cover the cost of their necessities themselves. This payment regime lasts right until the woman has cleared her debt. The women are therefore dependent on earning as much money as possible. This will allow them to clear their debts quickly and start earning money for themselves and their families. Their days therefore consist of four main things: sleeping, eating, shopping and selling sexual services.
There were several of us living in the madam’s flat, which we were not allowed to leave. She told us that if we left the flat the police might discover us and send us back to Nigeria, in which case we wouldn’t be able to repay our debt. W e weren’t allowed to phone our families either, as they would just beg for money. I didn’t get to keep any of what I earned. In a month I might earn 1,500 Euros, for example. Of that I paid 300 Euros in rent, 100 Euros for heating, gas and water, 80 Euros for food and, oh yes, I even had to pay 50 Euros to answer phone calls to me. The rest of what I earned went towards paying off my debt. It took one year and four months to clear my debt. I was lucky – I know some people who used two years.
- 47 - It is a fact that many of the Nigerian women who Pro Sentret meets are legally resident in Italy or Spain. This entitles them to take ordinary jobs, and many of the women tell us when they come to Norway that they do not sell sexual services in their country of residence; in that country they have, or have had, ordinary jobs. The women do not say much about how they gained residency in these countries. We know that both Italy and Spain offer amnesties and residency to illegal immigrants at regular intervals. Some of the women obtained residency like that. It is not unimaginable that some of them have gained legal residency through marriage, and through section 18 of the Italian immigration act. None of the women with whom we have been in contact have confirmed this.
Some of them say that Caritas helped them out of prostitution. They also explain that they have lived in sheltered accommodation, that they have been on programmes and that they in due course were given work permits and ordinary jobs. The work the women get is often in low-wage jobs, such as work in factories, in the health and welfare sector or as a maid. Their employment contracts are also very short-term, sometimes running as little as three months. Many of the Nigerian women have ended up back in prostitution after losing their jobs.
How they get to Norway and their lives here In terms of how they got to Norway, the women’s stories also vary, ranging across a broad spectrum in terms of the degree of inducement, threats and coercion. The Nigerian women rarely come directly from Nigeria to Norway. When they do, it is often through the more serious forms of human trafficking.
In order to help my family I decided to go to W estern Europe. I was 22 years old. I used my savings to travel to Benin City together with a friend. There we met someone who arranged onward transport for us. First we went by bus to Lagos, then we carried on by car and finally we walked through the desert. Then we arrived at a kind of meeting point where there were many, many people. A man came there who said that he could take me to Europe and get me a job there. As I didn’t have any money I would pay him back after I had started working. The man performed juju on me by taking samples of my hair and nails, and said that we now had an agreement. The journey continued by boat and car. Finally we arrived in Norway. The man took me to a house. I didn’t know that I would have to sell sex until the man had arranged customers. They phoned him and then they came to this house. Each night that happened. I wasn’t allowed to keep any of the money that the customers paid. The man said that I couldn’t stop when I had paid what I owed him, but I don’t know how much that was.
The women with residency in Europe are generally 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 of the women are aware of the fact that they are being recruited into prostitution. We have also met women who have been promised other kinds of work in Norway.
Many of the women fly to Norway, whilst others take buses and some say they came by boat. This probably refers to one of the ferries between Denmark and Norway. Women with residency in Italy frequently travel by train to France, and then on by bus to Norway.
- 48 - Buses are often preferred over other means of transport because they are checked less often at border crossings. The women have not told us about any particular incidents during these journeys, which generally run entirely smoothly.
Pro Sentret has often heard variations on the following theme regarding how the journey to Norway is organised. The person who recruits the woman tells her that she cannot travel to Norway by herself because she doesn’t know the way, the rules on entering and leaving Norway nor where to work and how to get somewhere to live. This woman, and it is generally women who do the recruiting, has been to Norway herself and offers her knowledge about travelling to and living and working in Norway in return for payment. Often she also offers to accompany the woman to Norway and to show her the ropes here. The women order and pay for the tickets and any necessary paperwork themselves. Few women say that they have been stopped by the authorities of other countries on their journey from Spain or Italy to Norway.
I had a friend who told me about the good money to be made in Norway. For 2,000 Euros she would arrange my journey here for me.
As previously stated, the Nigerian women buy information about Norway, about getting here and about how things work here, and they also buy help with getting set up in Oslo. They pay between 1000 and 2000 Euros for this. Some of the women use their saving to cover this expense, others borrow money in Italy either from friends or acquaintances or from the bank, and yet others borrow money from the same person they buy the information from. Only the women who borrow money from the person organising their journey will be in debt to them when they arrive in Norway.
Once the woman is in Norway, has been installed where she is going to live, has been shown the area for street prostitution and has been given an introduction to how prostitution works in Norway, the woman who accompanied here returns to Italy. The woman remains here by herself. The operation is primarily run from Italy. The women who facilitate for and accompany other women generally work with Nigerian residents in Norway, who help them to arrange accommodation for the women coming to Norway. The resident Nigerians often charge the women a lot and threaten to call the police if they do not pay.
I rented my flat from a Nigerian woman who lived in Oslo. W hen I wanted to travel back to Italy after a short time she refused to let me go, and said that I had to stay here for at least six months. She said that if I did not do as she told, she would contact the police, who would put me in jail. I believed her and became scared. In addition to normal rent, she demanded that I pay for using the bed, TV and so on.
Apart from the ones who are in debt, the women generally work for themselves. They do not, therefore, face any restrictions in terms of freedom of movement, working hours, types of customers, services offered and so on. Being in complete control over their own day-to-day lives, the women can choose their own working hours, buy they earn far less than they had imagined they would. Their accommodation, food and other necessities are also expensive. Many of them therefore feel that they have lost money by coming to Norway.
- 49 - For this reason, the women often express disappointment with their stays in Norway, saying that there isn’t good money to be made here. They feel that they have been hoodwinked, as they were given inaccurate information about how much money you could earn here. Many of the women regret that they came to Norway, but feel that it is difficult to return home empty-handed. They often wonder whether there is somewhere else they can go in order to earn more money than here.
Although the goal of travelling to Norway is to earn as much money as possible, several of the Nigerian women say that they don’t work every day. According to the women, their days consist of sleeping, eating, shopping a bit and selling sexual services. Some of them plait hair at home during the day to make some extra money. Others are looking for other job opportunities, but as third country nationals the women are not entitled to work permits in Norway.
Prostitution in general and specifically in Norway For the vast majority of the women, prostitution is a solution to the difficulties they face in life - in general financial difficulties. The ones who know that they are going to sell sexual services when they arrive in Norway generally already know someone who is or has been a prostitute here. Some of them have been tricked into coming to Norway with promises of other types of work, but end up in prostitution when they get here.
Pro Sentret’s staff have slightly varying impressions of the extent to which the women are aware of the rules that apply to prostitution and human trafficking in Norway. Some people are under the impression that the women have been told about what is legal and illegal in Norway in terms of prostitution before they leave Italy. Others think that the women seem uninformed about the rules relating to prostitution in Norway, that they don’t seem particularly interested in them, but that they are of the opinion that prostitution is legal for them too. They pick up knowledge about prostitution and pimping from other people in the prostitute community.
It is our impression that the women are not very familiar with the phenomenon of human trafficking. They have no concept of this, and often don’t understand the problem. When we talk about human trafficking with the women from Nigeria, few of them identify themselves as victims of it, and they cannot relate the issue to their own situations, neither when they came to Western Europe for the first time, nor when they came to Norway. There may be exceptions, but the majority of the women feel that they are here to earn money in order to help their families in Nigeria.
The fact that their journeys to Western Europe involve facilitators who earn large amounts of money out of their desire to leave Nigeria is not something that the women tend to view as exploitative or strange. It is just the way things are. Since the women do not see themselves as being, or having been, the victims of human trafficking, they also feel that existing support measures and protection is not relevant to them. Most of them are therefore not aware of these schemes.
W hen I worked for a madam on the streets in Italy, a social worker would always come and ask: W hy don’t you go to the police? They can help you with this and that. I didn’t want to go to the police. I wanted to repay my debt and release myself like that. And I wanted to make sure my family was safe.
- 50 - In terms of staying in Norway, the women say that in general they feel safer here than in other parts of Western Europe. For example, they experience less violence at the hands of customers here. They also probably have a sense that if they do get into difficulties it is possible to get help.
What the women know about Norway and Norwegian society There are also divided opinions amongst Pro Sentret’s staff as to how much the women know about their own status in Norway. Some of the staff think that the women are not very aware of their own status here. They are not familiar with the Schengen agreement. They say that they are here on a temporary basis, but that reflects their intention to only stay here for a short time rather than their understanding of the rules, and is not because they have been told that they can only stay here for three months. Other members of staff have the impression that the women know their status in Norway, and that they were told about it before they came here. They know that they need to have the right paperwork and so on. They have also been told that if they are stopped and they don’t have the right paperwork, they can apply for asylum.
The Nigerian women know that the police are checking people’s documents when they stop prostitutes. Many of them find this a nuisance, and they think that the police are annoying. They are not afraid of the police, but they are fundamentally sceptical of them, and for that reason they do not contact them if they have any problems. Many of them have negative experiences of the police not taking them seriously.
The present and the future Many of the women have a pragmatic relationship to prostitution. Their situations in life mean that they have to earn money in order to help their families, and prostitution is the way in which they can do that. They are therefore forced to sell sexual services. The women say that their families expect them to send a great deal of money home. They therefore feel that they have no alternatives. In spite of this they have a very relaxed attitude to the situation here, and take a pragmatic view of most things. They seem to be very self-aware and have a good understanding of their position. Most of the women dislike having to sell sex. Some are a bit fatalistic on the basis of their backgrounds: they’re poor Africans, so what alternatives do they have? They are sad and dejected about their own situations in life. The women do not go out and about much, but occasionally they go shopping. They socialise with its other by making food, watching TV and so on.
Apart from Norway being dark, cold and lonely, and having strange food, the women say that it is a good country. They experience compassion and respect here both from customers and other people. Several of them have therefore expressed a desire to stay in Norway.5 What the women need is someone to talk to about their situations. Many of them feel that they cannot trust other women in the prostitute community. Many of them also ask about job opportunities here, including in the informal sector. Their day-to-day lives here would be improved by cheaper and better accommodation.
5 This changed dramatically during the early summer of 2006. After several overly negative articles about Nigerian prostitutes in the press, they now experience severe discrimination, hassle, etc.
- 51 -
5 THE ROAD AHEAD
In the previous two chapters, we have set out our knowledge about who the foreign women are, how they got into prostitution and their living conditions, both in Norway and any other countries in Western Europe. Below we will summarise what the women have in common regardless of nationality, and set out what Pro Sentret believes that this information can and should be used for.
The backgrounds of the women The majority of the foreign women are young when they leave their home countries for the first time; some are minors, but most say they were between the ages of 18 and 25. Their young age when they left is one of the reasons that the majority of the women only have compulsory schooling, and that few of them have worked in their home countries, with the exception of work directly related to their families’ farming and so on.
Their family situations vary according to their nationalities, with some coming from extended families, some from nuclear families and yet others from broken families. When the women describe their own childhoods, they often say that they grew up in needy conditions, but not in extreme poverty. The vast majority of women have people who they have to provide for in their home countries. This can be their own children, siblings, parents or other family members. There are often many people in their home countries who are dependent on the income that the women earn from selling sexual services.
The fact that the women are young when they leave their home countries poses a major challenge, not least in terms of implementing preventive measures. However, it is not migration per se that it is important to prevent. On the contrary. Migration can create new opportunities for individuals to improve their lives, help to change discriminatory and repressive social practices and provide a positive contribution to both the country of origin and country of destination (Holly and Reeves 2005). But, at the same time, migration can make individuals particularly vulnerable on account of their unclear residency status, and they can easily be exploited in the labour market and experience social isolation, exclusion and discrimination (ibid.).
It is certainly the case that the reasons for migration and human trafficking overlap a great deal. In order to devise good and effective measures to prevent young women from seeing migration as the only solution to the difficulties they face in life, you need to know the reasons why the women believe leaving their home countries is their best option. As previously stated, the decision to migrate is often made on the basis of a combination of financial, social and political factors. The huge disparities between the living standards in different countries also encourage migration, particularly in combination with the chance to earn considerably more than in ones home country.
- 52 - Issues such as discrimination on the basis of gender and ethnicity, persecution and marginalisation are also of crucial importance. Our goal should be for everyone, regardless of gender and ethnicity, to be able to meet their needs, realise their potential and live in freedom in their home countries, in order to ensure that migration becomes a choice and is not seen as a necessity. It is therefore essential to change the structural conditions that cause women and men to migrate. Living standards in general, and the living standards of women in particular, must be improved through enhancing the social, health and education sectors and the ability of individuals to provide for themselves in their home countries. Social and cultural practices that discriminate against certain groups must be opposed, and measures to counteract discrimination and marginalisation must be enacted both in countries of origin and countries of destination. Through their contact with the typical countries of origin, the Norwegian authorities must assure themselves that any financial cooperation and aid does not have a negative impact on the population’s living standards, and that conversely it enhances the ability of vulnerable groups to create a decent basis for their existence.
How they get to Western Europe and their lives there Even if a number of measures are implemented to improve the living standards of individuals in their home countries, the desire to migrate will nevertheless remain. Over the past few decades, women migrating on their own have made up an ever increasing proportion of the migratory population. This is largely due to an increasing feminisation of poverty, combined with heavy family responsibilities and social and cultural practices that discriminate against women in the countries of origin (ILO 2003, European Commission 2004). The conditions that are causing ever increasing numbers of women to migrate also help to make them vulnerable to exploitation during the migration process.
The majority of the foreign women with whom Pro Sentret has been in contact are recruited by other people to leave their home countries in favour of a life in Western Europe. Few of them come up with the idea themselves. However, virtually all of the women did have a genuine desire to travel to Western Europe. Often the person who recruits the woman is somebody she knows: a friend, a neighbour, a family member of even her boyfriend. These people put the women in touch with the people who will organise their journey. An agreement is then signed, a debt is generally incurred and the woman is given the necessary assistance on her journey from her home country to Western Europe. Few women come to Western Europe through legal channels of migration.
In order to reduce the risk of women becoming the victims of human trafficking once they have made a decision to leave their home countries, it is important to implement measures that help the women during the migration process itself, so that they can make qualified and realistic decisions about working and living abroad, and find and make use of legal and safe channels of migration. Education and access to information are the keys here. Women in many parts of the world have less access to education than men. In addition to reducing their ability to obtain qualified, paid work, this also means that women have inadequate access to accurate information. By safeguarding women’s rights and opportunities to education, you strengthen their hand both in terms of the migration process itself, and in terms of their life as an immigrant in a foreign country.
- 53 - Information and knowledge about recruitment agents and migration channels in their home countries, and about the labour market and job opportunities abroad, would make women less vulnerable to exploitation. Women with education are also more likely to contact the authorities who are supposed to help them if they end up in a difficult situation abroad (ILO 2003). Safeguarding women’s rights and opportunities to education and access to information is therefore a major plank in the work to prevent women from becoming the victims of human trafficking.
The majority of the women are met by someone when they get to their destinations in Western Europe. Their stay there is already carefully organised with the necessary paperwork, accommodation, telephone and information about where and how they will be working as a prostitute. In other words, the majority of the women realise that they will be selling sexual services initially in order to repay their debts, and subsequently to earn money for themselves and for their families. Some of the women, however, are tricked into thinking that they will get ordinary jobs, either by the person who recruits them or by the people arranging their journey.
For the majority of these women, prostitution is their only potential source of income when they get to Western Europe. There are several reasons for this. The majority of the women have only attended compulsory schooling, which makes it hard for them to get qualified work in their destination countries. Besides, many of them are staying in Western Europe illegally, which cuts them off from the ordinary labour market. The sale of sexual services is also considerably more remunerative than work in the informal labour market. Women who have migrated through illegal channels will for the reasons set out above be in debt, and they know that their debts have to be cleared before they can earn money for themselves. For many of them it is therefore natural to choose the activity which provides the greatest return in the shortest amount of time. For most of them this is prostitution. The women who have been tricked by promises of ordinary jobs also generally end up in prostitution because it is profitable and low-risk for the facilitators.
Women who want to migrate to Western Europe have little chance of succeeding through ordinary immigration channels. The majority of Western European countries have relatively strict immigration policies, which means that it is difficult to get work and residency permits for most women from typical countries of origin. In general these permits are only given to people with specific qualifications, and virtually none of the women have those qualifications. In addition to it being difficult to get into Western Europe, it is difficult for many of the women to leave their own home countries. This can be due to sexually discriminatory travel regulations that are based on cultural and social traditions (ILO 2003). In an attempt to prevent human trafficking, certain countries have introduced stricter entry and exit rules, and often these affect the mobility of women in particular. This is counterproductive. Even stricter entry and exit rules and greater border controls only help to turn illegal channels of migration into the only option for people wanting to travel abroad (ibid). Western European authorities could reduce the risks women face from illegal migration operations and human trafficking by providing greater opportunity for legal economic migration for people with a range of different qualifications and for unskilled labour. Destination countries must also implement measures to safeguard the rights of migrants in society in general and in the labour market in particular, in order to prevent discrimination, exploitation and social isolation.
- 54 - International cooperation is important here, in order to ensure that there is greater success in investigating and prosecuting people who facilitate illegal migration operations and/or human trafficking.
With the current situation, human trafficking and people smuggling are lucrative and low-risk businesses. In combination with a strong desire to migrate in a number of countries, this opens up a large market for national and international organised crime involving the illegal movement of people. Measures must be introduced to reduce the profitability and increase the risk of such activities. Bearing in mind that human smuggling and human trafficking generally occur across several national borders, close and good international cooperation is essential to bringing about positive change in this area.
The women’s stays in Western Europe are governed by the fact that they need to earn a lot of money. Their lives mainly involve working as much as possible. In the case of the majority of the women, their day-to-day lives are to some extent organised by a third party. The degree of personal freedom that they enjoy depends on the level of trust they have built up with their facilitator; initially it may be limited. All of the women pay some of what they earn to other people. The amounts involved and the method of payment is dependent on the individual agreement.
Once the women are working as prostitutes in Western Europe, measures to improve their living conditions must be based on their requirements for help and support, as defined by themselves. Although the majority of the women will have been brought into the country and become involved in prostitution in a way that includes a greater or lesser degree of threats and coercion, it cannot be taken for granted that they want to or can break out of prostitution. The various authorities’ offers of help and protection to these women must recognise this fact. Measures that are implemented must above all be based on the fact that the women are entitled to have their fundamental human rights safeguarded. Measures to provide protection and support must also be sufficiently varied and differentiated to cover everyone’s requirements, regardless of where they are in the process of breaking out of prostitution.
How they get to Norway and their lives here Broadly speaking there are two groups of foreign women who find their ways on to the prostitution market in Oslo. One of the groups is women who travel directly from their home country to Norway. For these women, Norway is their destination, and they do not stay in other Western European countries along the way. This does not necessarily mean that they have not worked as prostitutes in other Western European countries, because in some cases they have, but they are not resident there. The other group consists of women who had a different country in Western Europe as their initial destination, and who find their way here in due course. Women from both of these groups are generally told about the possibility of selling sexual services in Norway by acquaintances who have already been here, by other members of the prostitute community or by their facilitators. The women are largely responsible for arranging their journeys themselves, but it is also common to receive help and support from a facilitator. At the very least, the women often pay for someone to receive them in Norway, so that they can settle in and start working in prostitution quickly and easily. Everyday life as a prostitute in Norway is similar to the women’s experiences from other countries in Western Europe.
- 55 - The aim is to earn as much money as possible. Selling sexual services is therefore their main focus. The women’s stays here are organised to a varying extent; most of them pay something to a third party and many of them have some or other limitations on their personal freedoms.
There is absolutely no doubt that Oslo and Norway have become attractive to many foreign women selling sexual services. There is also absolutely no doubt that many of these women come to Norway as part of some kind of organised operation. Even women from countries that do not require a visa to enter Norway, or indeed women from EU countries, largely come here as part of an organised operation. This does not mean that they have been the victims of human trafficking, but rather that they come here with the help of one or more facilitators. The degree of exploitation and coercion varies, but the women repay the facilitators through the sale of sexual services. This is very different from how the prostitution market was traditionally set up in Norway, and poses new challenges both to the authorities and to the organisations that work specifically with this group of people. These challenges exist in several areas: how do we prevent women being brought into Norway for prostitution, what help and support do we offer the women who are already here and how should we carry out any repatriation? It is also a challenge for the police, the public prosecutor and the courts to investigate, prosecute and sentence people who exploit women through prostitution.
Preventive work In terms of preventive work, the Norwegian authorities should implement measures that help to reduce the migratory pressures in countries of origin, in line with what has been described above. These are primarily measures to improve the living standards of individuals, and of women in particular, in their home countries, in terms of allowing them to realise their potential through education and work, experience social and financial security, and live in the absence of violence, persecution and discrimination. In all of their work with other countries, the Norwegian authorities must ensure that the agreements they enter into and the aid they provide are not detrimental to the living standards of the population in general, and of women in particular, and do not help to cement and maintain cultural and social traditions that make certain groups vulnerable to discrimination and marginalisation. This also applies to the preventive work needed in order to make women less vulnerable during the migration process and to reduce the risk of them becoming the victims of human trafficking.
In Pro Sentret’s opinion the Norwegian authorities face challenges in terms of our relatively restrictive immigration policy in this country and the willingness to take preventive measures seriously. The reality is that a lack of financial security and a shortage of ways of making a living are the main factors in people’s desire to move abroad. For many of them, migration is seen as the only remaining option. As stated previously, restrictive immigration policies help to ensure that many of them have to make use of illegal channels in order to leave their home countries and come to Norway. If the Norwegian authorities wish to take this problem seriously, they should consider giving people from the most common countries of origin the chance to become legal economic migrants to Norway. Although immigration to Norway has in theory been stopped, people with particular skills can obtain work and residence permits here.
- 56 - The majority of the women with whom Pro Sentret is in contact do not have these types of qualifications. The possibility of offering, if nothing else, temporary work and residence permits to people without particular skills must therefore be considered. There are sections of the Norwegian labour market in which demand for labour is high. Not only that, this demand is concentrated in sectors that have traditionally employed unskilled female workers, such as the health and welfare sector. A stint in Norway doing a normal job would for many of the women be sufficient to give them the financial leg-up that they require.
Since the first group of foreign women found their way on to the Norwegian prostitution market, a large proportion of the women have come from Eastern Europe. After the enlargement of the EU in May 2004, these women have had the opportunity to get ordinary jobs in this country. Many women from these countries are still brought to Norway for prostitution, or come here by themselves in order to sell sexual services. The reason for this is the opportunity to earn a lot of money in a relatively short space of time. In spite of this, Pro Sentret is increasingly finding that some women say that they would like ordinary jobs. Their lack of qualifications, language difficulties, inadequate knowledge of how the Norwegian labour market works and the Norwegian transition rules for new EU citizens make it difficult for these women to get a job. Pro Sentret therefore believes that the Norwegian authorities should make a particular effort in relation to this group, especially in terms of providing Norwegian lessons, helping them to get qualifications and assisting them with the job application process. The transition rules should also be reassessed. The fact that the women are unable to start working until they receive a work permit, in contrast to the situation for other EU citizens, makes employers even more sceptical about employing them, partly because it may take a long time for the application to be processed. Norway has a genuine need for labour, and the women have a genuine desire to break out of prostitution and to obtain ordinary jobs. We believe that the Norwegian authorities should facilitate this.
Support for women who have been the victims of human trafficking Norway has ratified the UN convention on transnational organised crime and the associated protocol on the prevention, combating and prosecution of human trafficking, as well as the Council of Europe’s Convention on Action against Trafficking Human Beings. These agreements, and a number of other international conventions ratified by Norway, oblige the Norwegian authorities to provide support and protection to the victims of human trafficking. The government’s plan of action on human trafficking sets out the authorities’ activities in this field. Pro Sentret is of the opinion that the measures implemented by the Norwegian authorities have been rather unsuccessful both in terms of investigating and prosecuting human traffickers, and in terms of providing support and protection to their victims. Like a number of international organisations,6 we believe that the best way in which Norway can meet its relevant obligations under international law is by placing human rights considerations at the heart of all measures that it implements. Furthermore, there must be recognition that breaking out of human trafficking is a long and time- consuming process, and that predictability, security and alternative options are essential if the women are to get to the stage where they can share their stories with the authorities.
6 Amnesty International, the EU’s Expert Group on Trafficking in Human Beings, Anti-Slavery International, OSSE.
- 57 - Our knowledge about the foreign women selling sexual services in Norway provides clear evidence that many of them have come here for prostitution as part of some kind of organised operation. The Norwegian authorities therefore face a major challenge in trying to identify potential victims of human trafficking. They have, and must accept, independent responsibility for this being done. Identifying victims is complicated and time-consuming.
For a variety of reasons, few of the women who have been the victims of human trafficking want to tell the authorities about it. Their relationships with the traffickers is 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 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.
We believe that the Norwegian authorities provide this space by enshrining in law the right to a period of reflection of six months for potential victims of human trafficking. This right should be unconditional on the part of the authorities. 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 prostitute community 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. It must be possible to extend the period of reflection if necessary.
The purpose of the period of reflection is primarily to provide the woman with the time and opportunity to reorientate her life, so that she can make an informed decision about whether she wants to report a crime, help with any court case, sue for compensation or return to her home country. The period of reflection also gives the Norwegian authorities time to find out whether or not the person has in fact been the victim of human trafficking. Pro Sentret believes that it is important for the right to a period of reflection not to be subject to individual assessment in each case, and that it should be enshrined in law; cf. Article 13.1 of the Council of Europe’s Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. In order to encourage people to get in touch with the authorities, report crimes and appear as witnesses, it is essential for them to know in advance that they have right to support and protection that is enshrined in law. This is the only way to assure them that they will be given help. A legal right to support and protection would also increase the women’s confidence in the state. This would in turn increase the probability of women making an informed decision about assisting the authorities with investigating and prosecuting people involved in human trafficking.
- 58 - 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 in law the right to a further stay of six months, 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 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. Here we should underline the important of establishing a differentiated service for women who choose to break out of prostitution. As we have seen in the previous chapters, these women have diverse backgrounds and different possibilities for finding new directions in life. For this reason they cannot all be forced into a uniform system of support and protection. On the contrary, the service must be sufficiently differentiated to meet all the women on their own terms, as defined by themselves.
Of the women who are identified as the victims of human trafficking, there will always be some who are not granted residency in Norway, and some will want to return to their home countries. The ones who are returning home must be allowed to do this in a secure and predictable way. This requires considerably more effort on the part of the Norwegian authorities than simply paying for flights to their home countries. The Norwegian authorities must help the countries of origin to provide differentiated services to look after the women on arrival home if she wants help. The women must be offered individual support over a period of time, with a focus on improving their life chances and opportunities in their home countries. Only by giving the women alternative options can you reduce the risk of them again ending up in position where they are at risk of human trafficking.
Support for other foreign women involved in prostitution Pro Sentret believes that the Norwegian authorities also have a responsibility for the foreign women working as prostitutes who for various reasons do not want to or cannot escape from prostitution. The majority of the foreign women currently selling sexual services in Norway fall into this category, which does not mean that they have not been the victims of organised pimping or human trafficking. The fact that they have not been identified as the victims of such activities does not make them less vulnerable, and they definitely need support in a number of areas.
This group of women is in Norway with a variety of immigration statuses. Some of them are EU citizens, others are legally here as third party nationals, some are here temporarily as tourist and yet others are staying here illegally with forged papers or without any legal documents at all. Their statuses to some extent determine their rights in this country. For many of them their rights are limited to help and support in emergencies.
- 59 - Pro Sentret is of the opinion that the Norwegian authorities must provide all foreign women working as prostitutes with satisfactory welfare arrangements regardless of their status here. Above all this should include free of charge access to health care, including specialist care. Generally speaking, health is very important to women working as prostitutes, and Pro Sentret’s experience is that the women are very concerned about looking after their own health. They are a group of people who in a number of areas are more vulnerable than the general population, and they are therefore in need of a specially designed health service that meets their specific requirements. In addition to providing support to a vulnerable group of people, improving their access to health care would help to increase our understanding of these women and of their health, which is also important from a public health point of view.
We also believe that the Norwegian authorities should offer psychosocial support services to this group. What we know about the women’s lives as prostitutes suggests that most of them find life difficult, and would like to find alternative options. As previously stated, breaking out of prostitution is often a long and time-consuming process in which predictability, security and alternative options are the key ingredients. Psychosocial support could help to improve the ability of individuals to cope with the challenges they face on a day-to-day basis, and also motivate and help them to discover the alternative options in life that they need in order to decide to get out of their current situations.
Like women who have been the victims of human trafficking, other foreign women working in prostitution must be offered a secure return to their home countries if that is what they want. International cooperation between national authorities, GOs and NGOs is essential to providing satisfactory and diverse assistance to foreign women involved in prostitution on their return home.
The Norwegian authorities also have a role to play in investigating, prosecuting and sentencing people involved in human trafficking and organised prostitution. This work is often time and resource intensive, and frequently requires international cooperation. This kind of cooperation has been initiated, and should be continued. Furthermore, the police in particular face the challenge of getting to know the community better. If they are able to establish a positive relationship with the foreign women who sell sexual services in Oslo, they are considerably more likely to find out what is going on in the community and to gain the cooperation of the women. Nevertheless, the police and the public prosecutor should strive to investigate these cases in such a way that they are not entirely dependent on the witness statements of the women.
Prostitution in general and specifically in Norway For the majority of the foreign women, prostitution provides a solution to a difficult situation in life, where they have few options and poor prospects. The need to provide for their families combined with few opportunities to earn money in their home countries mean that the women turn their gaze towards Western Europe. This makes them vulnerable to exploitation. Nevertheless, many of them have clear financial goals for their work as a prostitute.
- 60 - To repeat what we have said earlier, Pro Sentret wants to emphasise that through their international work the Norwegian authorities must help to create opportunities for these women that give them alternative options than prostitution.
With respect to the women’s knowledge about prostitution in Norway, it varies. Most of the women know what is legal and what is illegal in terms of the sale of sexual services and activities related to this. We have a clear impression that the women acquire this knowledge in a variety of ways, and that this in part depends on how and why they came to Norway. The ones who travel to Norway by themselves find out for themselves what rules apply in this area. It is also our impression that many of the women have been told about the most important rules by their facilitators. Most of them therefore realise that selling and buying sexual services is also legal for foreign citizens, but that pimping is illegal.
Only a small minority of the women have any in-depth understanding of what human trafficking involves, and none of them view themselves as being the victims of it. Some of them have heard about it, but cannot see how it relates to them.
Like so many other people, they primarily associate human trafficking with situations that involve serious threats, violence and coercion and situations in which women are forced to sell sexual services against their wills under exacerbating circumstances. Everyone working in this field must try to communicate the nuances and the various aspects of human trafficking in such a way that they become recognisable to women who have been exploited in a vulnerable position, but who do not themselves see the situation in those terms.
What the women know about Norway and Norwegian society Virtually all of the women with whom Pro Sentret has been in contact know that they are in Norway. In our experience, the majority of the foreign women know little about Norway and Norwegian society. They do, however, find Norway a safe and good place to stay, where they are less at risk of violence than in other places, both from customers and from other people. They also say that Norwegian men are largely speaking polite and treat them with respect.
Foreign women working as prostitutes are marginalised and often socially isolated, and they know little about their rights in Norwegian society. Social isolation helps to keep the women vulnerable. The women are not in a position to question any information they may get from their facilitators, who may provide deliberately inaccurate information in order to increase the women’s dependence on them. Marginalisation and stigmatisation confirms the women’s view of their own situation as being their own responsibility. It is virtually out of the question to get help from the authorities or other organisations.
Few of the foreign women who Pro Sentret encounters have information or knowledge about the existing support available in Norway, neither for women working as prostitutes in general nor for women who have been the victims of human trafficking in particular. It is largely due to our outreach work in the prostitute community that we are able to spread the word about our services, as well as to inform prostitutes about the authorities’ offer of support and protection to the victims of human trafficking.
- 61 - The present and the future The women see their current situations as being anything from completely fine down to bad. Very few of the foreign women who sell sexual services in Oslo feel that prostitution is a good way to earn money. Some are more accepting of the situation than others. Most of the women see themselves leaving prostitution at some point in the future. However, the timeframe for this varies greatly.
Through our work in the prostitution community we make contact with foreign women who for various reasons and under a variety of conditions are selling sexual services in Oslo. The services that we currently provide are of great importance to these women and to our ability to get to know them and their living conditions. This work must be maintained and enhanced so that we can reach more women. Only through direct contact with the women are we able to provide them with help and support when they face difficulties in life, and to inform them about and motivate them to find other paths in life than prostitution.
Challenges for Pro Sentret Pro Sentret is the national centre of expertise on the subject of prostitution, in addition to providing welfare services to women and men who have been involved in prostitution. A domestic prostitution market in which the proportion of foreign women continues to rise, poses new challenges in terms of both of these roles.
With respect to our services to the people selling sexual services, the main challenge is probably to establish contact with as many women as possible, both in the indoor market and on the streets. The number of women street prostitutes in particular has risen so much that our current resources do not allow us to establish contact with everyone during the course of our outreach work. There are simply too many of them. This is a highly unsatisfactory situation. Pro Sentret knows that the foreign women need the services that we have to offer. Fortunately in practice the women also inform each other.
After establishing contact with the women, our challenge is to be able to meet their individual requirements. At Pro Sentret it is the women themselves who define their own situations in life and what kind of help they need. We do not under any circumstances want to claim that we are in a position to tell the women what is best for them. Through cooperation and dialogue with the women we inform them about and motivate them to find alternative options to prostitution. In our experience, a desire for change and willingness to bring it about must come from the person in question. No-one can be forced to discover other alternatives for how they should act in life.
In parallel with providing ongoing information and motivational support, Pro Sentret faces the challenge of meeting the various women’s needs here and now. This can include health care, psychosocial support, contacting other organisations in Norway and following this up, strengthening the women and increasing their skills, providing information about existing services available here and in their home countries and establishing contact with such services, as well as being a place where the women can come unconditionally and without facing questions about their present lifestyles.
- 62 - In all of the client-based work that it does, Pro Sentret faces a constant challenge of being flexible in the face of new groups of foreign women and meeting their specific requirements for help.
With respect to Pro Sentret’s role as a centre of expertise, it is a constant challenge to keep track of and understand developments in the market. As previously stated, the market is changing rapidly. Groups of women come and go in different arenas. They are here for shorter or longer periods of time, and sell sexual services by themselves or as part of an organised network. Through our contact with various people involved in prostitution, we have a relatively good idea of the changes that occur, particularly in the Oslo region, but also in the rest of the country.
Pro Sentret also cooperates extensively with organisations and bodies in other countries. This is something that must be maintained and continued, especially in view of the arrival of new nationalities in the prostitute community in Oslo. For us it is essential to the job we do that we know about the foreign women and about prostitution in their cultural contexts. This cultural information is needed in order to understand where the women are coming from and thereby to deal with them in a way that invites their trust and respect. The use of cultural mediation is therefore an important part of Pro Sentret’s work with the foreign women. Having good contacts in countries of origin also improves our ability to provide help to women who want to make use of the support available to them on their arrival home.
Cooperation with the Norwegian authorities, bodies and organisations is also an important part of our work, and we participate in a number of fora where prostitution and human trafficking are on the agenda. It is important for Pro Sentret to participate at these events, in order to disseminate information and knowledge about the field. We are very actively involved in this area, and put ourselves forwards in contexts where we believe that our insight could be beneficial. We also invite people who we believe are in need of our knowledge to Pro Sentret, in order to inform them about our work and to share the knowledge that we have about the prostitution market in Oslo. The greater the focus on foreign prostitution and human trafficking, the more important our task becomes, as this is a field in which “truths” that only have a marginal relationship with reality can quickly become established as facts.
Conclusion 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. Although we may be able to detect trends and tendencies in terms of the organised movement of foreign women from the same areas, almost every woman who has come to Norway like this has a unique story to tell. 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.
- 63 - 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. These services must be available to all of the foreign women working as prostitutes regardless of whether they have been the victims of human trafficking and have been identified as such. That is the only way to avoid giving the impression that some of them are worthy victims whilst others are unworthy, and to prevent the creation of a first class and a second class of foreign women who sell sexual services in Norway. We must recognise that everyone has good reasons for reaching the decisions that they do, and we must respect the choices that they make.
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Müller-Nilssen, Morten 1998: Prostitusjon på bortebane. Rapport om kvinner med utenlandsk bakgrunn som selger seksuelle tjenester i Oslo. PION, Oslo.
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- 66 - 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] - 67 - www.prosentret.no