Reykjavík Grapevine - 14.08.2009, Page 12

12
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 12 — 2009
Articles | Social concerns
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May 6, 2009. 12:28 pm.
It’s humiliating, being solicited for
sex. The range of emotions felt is
broad; each and every one verging on
crushing the psyche and effectively
scrambling any attempt at rationalising
what happened—angry, embarrassed,
insulted, humiliated, disgusted,
objectified, belittled, broken, nauseous.
In large cities, cities where people
are comfortable in their anonymity,
faceless bodies ducking and weaving
among similarly featureless beings,
girls are out on the streets. The goods
are on display, the purpose is known;
it’s all so commonplace. In a city like
Reykjavík, a city in which you see the
same faces everywhere and ‘know’
everybody, though not really, the sex
trade is out of sight unless confronted
with it abruptly on a sunny Wednesday
afternoon on Vatnsstigur observing
the reestablishment of a free shop with
a sizeable group of other interested
bystanders.
That is how I became painfully
aware of the underground sex-trade in
this city. A man in his mid-twenties,
dark Southern European features and
a thick, unsightly unibrow, wearing
too-tight high-waisted jeans and a skin-
hugging white t-shirt, asked me to be his
girlfriend. For ten minutes. Wallet in
hand.
Strip Clubs
Prostitution doesn’t happen out in the
open here. “It is underground and can
hardly become more underground,”
explains Kristín Ástgeirsdóttir, director
of the Centre for Gender Equality in
Akureyri. “It has been very difficult in
Iceland to prove that prostitution goes on
even though the police know that it goes
on and the women working in shelters.
We know it’s going on but it has been
very difficult to prove.”
In an International Abolitionist
Federation (IAF) report on prostitution
in the Nordic countries published in
2001, Guðrún Jónsdóttir, Manager of
Stígamót, the Icelandic counselling
and information centre for survivors
of sexual violence, wrote about the
role that strip clubs played in Iceland’s
hidden sex trade. She wrote: “The public
in Iceland believes that the clubs ‘only’
offer striptease, which is absolutely
incorrect. What actually happens at the
clubs is that the customers buy privacy
with the women, which is much closer
to prostitution than striptease is. The
women’s income comes from the lap
dance, and they must compete with
one another for the customers. They
therefore have to offer something special
or ‘extra’ to get some salary. This ‘extra’
is often traditional prostitution.”
And whom, exactly, were the women
working in Iceland’s strip clubs?
Jónsdóttir explained: “In Iceland with
only 270,000 [circa 2001] inhabitants it
would be impossible to run such places
with Icelandic women. Customers
would risk buying their neighbour’s
daughters, and to be caught by their
families. Therefore the international
trafficking in women that stay for a short
period of time is essential to secure the
anonymity of Icelandic men.”
Trafficking
“There are pimps or traffickers that
are here and abroad and they come
from agencies in their home countries
or a third country and then they’re
trafficked to Iceland,” says Fríða Rós
Valdimarsdóttir, a specialist in the field
of human trafficking who has written
Iceland’s first comprehensive report on
the topic, published this month by the
Icelandic Red Cross. “We’ve had cases
of women who work in hotels; they’re
just here for prostitution. They come for
a short time, as travellers or tourists, so
they’re never really illegal in the country.
“It’s highly organised, that kind
of prostitution, it’s highly organised.
There’s also been a case in the news of
women who have moved here as wives
of Icelandic citizens and then they sold
them as prostitutes.”
For the report Valdimarsdóttir
conducted interviews with 19 specialists
on the topic of trafficking in Iceland
and abroad, from police officers and
government officials to NGO employees.
Among other findings, Valdimarsdóttir
found that the majority of women being
trafficked to Iceland for the sex-trade
originated in Eastern Europe, though
others come here from South-East Asia,
Africa and South America as well.
While there is no quick fix to a
problem that is so underground that it is
all but invisible —though it does exist—
Valdimarsdóttir notes that, aside from
legislation and stricter monitoring of the
situation, education is a key defence. “It
is related to supply and demand. If the
buyers know what they’re buying and
are aware of the situation of the person
they’re buying, it’s less likely they will
buy a person. If we stop the buying even
a little bit then we stop the trafficking,
or trafficking at least decreases if the
buyers are aware of it.”
Ástgeirsdóttir would agree with
the importance of education in putting
a stop to such horrors as human sex
trafficking. She emphasises that “we
need to do more about educating the
public,” specifically men. “He’s the one
who can choose; usually the prostitute
has no choice.”
Be like a Swede, not like a pimp
Prostitution had always been illegal in
Iceland. In fact, it was unheard of on
any organised level until the mid-90’s
when strip clubs began to pop up, mostly
around Reykjavík, providing locations
for money to be exchanged for sex in a
controlled environment.
Then, in 2007, Alþingi passed a law
making the selling and buying of sex
legal. However, it remained illegal for
a third party (a pimp, for example) to
profit from the sale of another person.
Coincidentally, at the same time strip
shows were banned unless the club
received special permission from the
local police and a regulating body, such
as the health department or safety
authorities. Private dances, behind
closed doors, were banned regardless of
extraneous permissions granted.
The reasoning behind this legislation
was to lessen the fear of women in the
sex trade from coming forward—the
law prior to 2007 stated that women
engaging in prostitution would be
imprisoned for up to two years—and
to combat trafficking, as the illegality
of stripping and private dances would
make Iceland less appealing for foreign
women looking to work in the industry
here.
This didn’t stop the trafficking
problem and may have even made it
worse.
April 21, 2009, parliament passed
a law making it illegal to solicit sex,
punishable by a fine or a year in prison
(two years if the victim is under 18). This
is not to say that women offering sex for
money are engaging in illegal actions,
but those who purchase their services
and any third party benefiting from
them are acting illegally and subject to
appropriate punishment.
The criminalization of the buying
(and benefiting from) sex and the
decriminalization of selling sex
is largely regarded as the Swedish
approach to prostitution legislation,
as the Scandinavian country was the
first to implement the common-sense
approach in 1999, and has since seen
a vast improvement in the sex-trade
situation in the country. Since passing
said legislation street prostitution in
Stockholm has decreased by two thirds
and the trafficking of women and
children for the purpose of sex into
the country has all but disappeared,
with only 200 to 400 people entering
Sweden for such purposes annually
in comparison to the 15,000 to 17,000
people entering Finland annually for the
same purpose.
Another key component of the
Swedish approach is the increase in
public services available for women
looking to escape the sex trade and
education for men on the plight of
women engaged in sex trafficking. This
third prong of the Swedish approach
is what Iceland has been lacking
according to Valdimarsdóttir. “The
government has not been focusing
on it, or acknowledged the problem.
They haven’t done anything like other
European countries, which have support
for victims. You have to have a special
support; you have to be very strict with
security for the women trying to get
out.”
The future of the sex-trade in Iceland
Due to the underground, hidden nature
of the sex trade and trafficking in
Iceland it will be difficult to monitor
the success rate of the adoption of
the Swedish approach on the island.
According to Valdimarsdóttir “we don’t
have the visual so we don’t know about
the effects of legislation. I’m not sure if
that will have the same affect in Iceland
[as it has had in Sweden].”
Still, she is optimistic that the
country is on the right track. “Here they
have been doing so little compared to
other countries but it’s starting to move
forward slightly with the new action
plan, so at least they’ve chosen their
way.”
While she has no definite plans to
conduct another study following up
on the situation of human trafficking
and prostitution in Iceland after this
legislation has been in effect for an
adequate period of time in order to see
a change, Valdimarsdóttir does not rule
it out. “I think it’s a very current issue
and I think it’s very important to take
this problem seriously. Research and
reports are a tool to help people who are
in special conditions, conditions that are
not acceptable, and we have to take that
very seriously on a global scale.”
CATHARINE FULTON
JULIA STAPLES
The Oldest Profession
Criminalising the purchase of women in Iceland
Reportedly, there are plenty of prostitutes working in Reykjavík at
any given moment. Or so we hear We haven't met any. If you are a
prostitute working in Iceland, give us a shout at letters@grapevine.is
and tell us about it. We pledge total anonimity.