web analytics

sweden

You are currently browsing articles tagged sweden.

Sex at the Margins in Stockholm: Migration & Prevention

9 January 2012 in migration by laura agustin | 2 comments | print print

I will be giving an hour-long lecture in Stockholm on 26 January 2012, covering general ideas about migration and who ‘migrants’ are thought to be, both documented and undocumented, as well as ideas about health and prevention, including for migrant sex workers. The sponsors are Smittskyddsinstitutet (Swedish Institute for Communicable Disease Control), a government agency to monitor the epidemiological situation for communicable diseases in humans and promote protection against them.

It is interesting and progressive that this agency should have me speak at their event: Nuancing of the notion of migrants is taking place. Note that State Feminism is not in charge here.

I have only just heard that pre-registration for this event closes tomorrow, so I supply details quickly now. I would love for some supporters to come to this Stockholm event, and, if you do, please come and introduce yourselves.

Konferens: Migration och prevention

Smittskyddsinstitutet (SMI) och Europeiska flyktingfonden (ERF) i samverkan välkomnar dig som arbetar med frågor inom området hälsa, prevention och migration till en heldagskonferens om migration och prevention. Konferensen vill utifrån ett hälsoperspektiv belysa hälsa och prevention i samband med migrationsprocessen och mottagandet av asylsökande och andra som av skilda skäl söker sig till Sverige.

Forskare från Malmö högskola redovisar nya kunskapssammanställningar på området migration, sexuell hälsa och prevention. Dessutom presenterar SMI med samarbetspartner ett nytt projekt som syftar till förbättrad struktur och samordning kring hälsoundersökningar av asylsökande.

26 januari 2012

Norra Latin, Stockholm
kl. 09.00 – 16.30 (registrering och kaffe från kl. 08.30)

Moderator: Willy Silberstein

Konferensen vänder sig till hälso- och sjukvårdspersonal, tjänstemän, politiker, forskare och ideella organisationer inom området hälsa, prevention och migration.

Konferensen är gratis. SMI bjuder på lunch och kaffe. Antalet platser är begränsat till 200.

OBS! Förlängds anmälningstid: Sista anmälningsdag 10 januari 2012.

Program
09.00 – 09.15 Robert Jonzon, Smi, hälsar välkommen Moderator Willy Silberstein presenterar konferensprogram.
09.15 – 09.45 Inledning av GD J. Carlson, Smi, och tf GD C. Werner, Migrationsverket.
09.45 – 10.15 Migration och sexuell hälsa – Presentation av en kunskapsöversikt från Malmö högskola, Monica Ideström, enhetschef vid Smi.
10.15 – 10.30 Bensträckare.
10.30 – 11.00 Migration och prevention – Presentation av en kunskapsöversikt, Fil.mag. Christina Halling, Malmö högskola.
11.00 – 11.45 Frågor och diskussion under moderators ledning.
11.45 – 13.00 Lunch.
13.00 – 14.00 Migration – Sex at the Margins (föredrag på engelska) – The Naked Anthropologist, Dr Laura Agustín.
14.00 – 14.30 Förbättrad struktur och samordning kring hälsoundersökningar av asylsökande – Presentation av EU-projekt, projektledare Robert Jonzon, Smi.
14.30 – 15.00 Kaffe.
15.00 – 15.20 Förutsättningarna att ge andra än asylsökande m.fl. erbjudande om hälsoundersökning – Presentation av Socialdepartementets utredning, utredningssekreterare Anna Billing.
15.20 – 15.50 Presentation av EU-projektets partners och medarbetare, Robert Jonzon m.fl. Utöver Smittskyddsinstitutet deltar följande partners i projektet: Migrationsverket, Socialstyrelsen, Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting, Stockholm läns landsting, Norrbottens läns landsting, Landstinget i Östergötland och Region Skåne samt Uppsala och Umeå universitet.
15.50 – 16.30 Avslutande diskussion under ledning av moderator

Here is the Migration & Prevention programme as a pdf.

–Laura Agustín, the Naked Anthropologist

Share

Tags: , ,

Ovanlig panel om prostitution i Stockholm

17 December 2011 in sex work by laura agustin | No comments | print print

Livesändningar från NMT Sverige

Här livesänds den nationella konferensen om prostitution och människohandel för sexuella ändamål, som pågått på Citykonferensen i Stockholm, den 14 december 2011, 15.15 – 16.30.

Frivilligt ell er ej? Paneldebatt

  • Jenny Westerstrand, forskare vid Juridiska institutionen, Uppsala universitet
  • Claes Borgström, advokat och f.d. Jämo
  • Lisen Lindström, samtalsbehandlare vid Prostitutionsenheten i Stockholm
  • Lise Tamm, Vice chefsåklagare, Internationella åklagarkammaren Stockholm
  • Hanna Wagenius, förbundsordförande Centerpartiets ungdomsförbund
  • Jonas Jonsson, handläggare hiv och hälsa samt utbildare, RFSL
  • Petra Östergren, forskare och författare

    • OCH en Rose Alliance medlem pratate två gånger från publiken.

    Det behövs lite talamod i början men då blir debatten ganska intressant.

    –Laura Agustín, the Naked Anthropologist

    Share

    Tags: ,

    Note to researchers: Forget trips to view no sex trafficking in Sweden

    5 November 2011 in sex work by laura agustin | 8 comments | print print

    Note to visitors to Sweden who want to see, examine, document, research or otherwise report on the effects of the law to criminalise buying sex: Cancel your trips, there is nothing to see.

    How can you see ‘less’ sex trafficking’, ‘less’ sex work? How does one interpret emptiness? What does the absence of people on this bus mean? Does no one ride buses anymore? Is this one out of service? Is it on display in a museum? Has the route been cancelled? Who knows the answer?

    I receive messages continually from people planning trips to Sweden: journalists, filmmakers, researchers, students, fellowship-applicants. They have all had the same idea to visit a country where a law prohibiting the purchase of sex is claimed to have reduced its sale and reduced sex trafficking. If these visitors write to me, I suppose they have read what I (and others) have written on the failure of the government evaluation to prove anything about the law and the difficulty that any such evaluation faces. Yet people assume they will somehow be able to observe the effects of the law. The whole idea of effects is questionable, but in the case of prohibitionist laws even more so. The most obvious first effect of prohibition is to discourage people from being seen doing whatever has been prohibited. Some people might really stop (or might never start) doing whatever has been made illegal, and some people might find different ways to do it that will be harder to discover. A typical visit is proposed like this Irish one:

    Mr Shatter said representatives from the Department of Justice and the Garda travelled to the Swedish capital, Stockholm, recently to observe the impact of legislation introduced there in 1999 to criminalise the purchase of sexual services.

    And reported like this:

    Presentations in Sweden included discussions with the Swedish Department of Justice and evaluators of the Swedish legislation (Supreme Court Judge Anna Skarhed, Mrs Gunilla Berglund from the Ministry of Justice, the National Rapporteur on Trafficking Ms Kasja Wahlberg, and the Co-ordinator of Stockholm Prostitution Unit Mr Patrick Cederlof). There were also presentations from ROKS (a Swedish NGO which provides refuge for battered women), Jenny Westerstrand (Researcher on Prostitution regimes) and Ulrika Rosvall Levin, (The Swedish Institute). [some typos corrected by me]

    I don’t understand myself why they spend money and time interviewing government spokespeople, politicians, the heads of government-funded projects and moral entrepreneurs all of whom only re-state what they have said before but not proven: that the law has reduced prostitution and sex trafficking. Those statements are widely available on the Internet, including in television clips and videos. All of the above interviewees receive government money to do their jobs and all are known to fiercely favour the criminalisation of buying sex and wish for the disappearance of all forms of selling it. They give meaning to the term stakeholder.

    Many visitors also interview police officials, who are only permitted to confirm government policy and mostly just point to a drop in the number of sex workers in the street (since they have no idea how to measure all other forms of commercial sex). The police also engage in speculation that shows they are doing their jobs well, since there is so little sex trafficking to see. This absence is also tricky to interpret, since there was never any baseline evidence on trafficking before the law so they have nothing to compare to now when they do (or do not) find any.

    But, you say, some of the visitors want to talk to you or ask you to introduce them to real live sex workers who could balance what they hear from the government. About talking to me, ok I will sound different, but I can’t demonstrate that government claims are wrong – the same problem of researching an absence holds. (Another snag is that visitors begin by assuming that anyone they want to talk to lives in the capital, when Sweden’s a big country [for Europe] and all relevant and interesting folks do not live in Stockholm.) About my introducing visitors to sex workers: I consider it unethical. If I did introduce anyone, though, what would the personal testimony of one or two individuals mean? Little.

    Nonetheless, I don’t believe I have deterred anyone determined to come see what the prohibition looks like. All I can do is ask folks to consider what they think they will be able to see. Take this view of a single person sitting in a bar – how many reasons can you think of to explain why he is alone?

    –Laura Agustín, the Naked Anthropologist

    Share

    Tags: , , , , ,

    Migranten som resenär: Laura Agustín i Arena

    13 September 2011 in migration by laura agustin | No comments | print print

    Migranten som resenär
    Laura Maria Agustín

    Arena #2 april 2011 – Den nya underklassen Invandraren är tillbaka. Vilka är vi och dom?


    På lyxiga semesterorter i Dominikanska republiken solar turister nära stränder där småbåtar frekvent ger sig ut mot Puerto Rico. Mona-kanalens förrädiska strömmar vimlar av hajar och många av båtarna kapsejsar. Men nästan alla dominikaner känner ändå någon som har lyckats klara resan. De som har tagit sig över gränsen måste sedan passera genom Puerto Ricos västra träskmarker, där den amerikanska gränspolisen väntar. De som tar sig förbi dem kan stanna på ön eller fortsätta till Miami, New York eller Europa. Presumtiva migranter försöker hitta erfaret sjöfolk med båtar starka nog att klara stormar och som inte överlastar båtarna med alltför många passagerare.

    I boken The Suffering of the Immigrant beskriver sociologen Abdelmalek Sayad hur länder som tar emot migranter uppfattar migration som ett irriterande socialt problem som måste ”hanteras”. Sayad ser de överväldigande hinder som nordafrikaner möter i Frankrike som en tydlig strukturell konsekvens av kolonisering, utan att för den skull offerförklara migranterna. I stället argumenterar han kraftfullt för att erkänna dem som handlande subjekt. Förmågan att se och erkänna den sortens agentskap – att även missgynnade migranter är huvudpersoner i sina egna liv – har sin grund i en förståelse för hur migrationer börjar.

    När jag bodde i Dominikanska republiken, var ett av mina uppdrag att besöka samhällen där utflyttning var väletablerat. Jag mötte kvinnor som ville resa till Europa, där de två valmöjligheter som fanns att tillgå var att arbeta som inneboende hembiträde eller att sälja sex. De vägde riskerna och fördelarna mot varandra och diskuterade huruvida de skulle klara anpassningen. De flesta av dem hade inte någon längre formell utbildning, men de var varken naiva eller ointelligenta.  Om de stannade hemma var deras bästa alternativ fortfarande hemhjälp eller att sälja sex, men till långt lägre löner och utan de nya horisonter en resa kan erbjuda.

    Potentiella migranter drömmer också om att få se kända platser, träffa nya människor, bli självständiga, lära sig ett nytt yrke, få nya idéer – precis som människor i rika länder gör. Att resa är utvecklande för alla resenärer – inte bara för rika turister, och för många människor är dessa resor deras största chans att ta reda på mer om världen.

    När jag reste runt på ön och in i Haiti, hörde jag dussintals människor prata om hur de skulle komma i väg. Européer tar för givet att deras resevisum beviljas av vilket land de än vill besöka. Medborgare i länder som Dominikanska republiken vet att deras ansökningar om turistvisa aldrig kommer att beviljas. Liksom när det gäller att få ett arbete och arbetstillstånd utomlands, utgör de statliga riktlinjerna en begränsning – arbetstillstånden omfattar bara ”kvalificerade” jobb, vilket gör att många migranter väljer att resa utanför det formella regelverket och tar ”okvalificerade” jobb i den svarta ekonomin.

    För att få tillgång till de här arbetena kan resenärerna behöva nytt namn och pass, en falsk vigselring, flygbiljetter, pengar att visa upp för gränspoliser och råd om vad man ska säga till dem, någon som möter upp vid flygplatsen och någonstans att bo när de kommer fram. Jag träffade många människor som erbjuder de här tjänsterna till potentiella migranter, inklusive deras egna familjemedlemmar, gamla vänner, bekantskaper bland turister och frilansande entreprenörer. Eftersom den här resemarknaden inte är reglerad, finns det inget bra sätt att veta vem som gör ett bra jobb och vem som behandlar migranterna korrekt, förutom via ryktesvägen: berättelser från kunder som smugglats ut säkert.

    Jag pratade med Lucía, en strippdansös som hade väntat på det rätta tillfället att ge sig av i flera månader. Hon ville åka till Paris, men hade inte hittat rätt erbjudande ännu. Miriam, med två års universitetsstudier och erfarenheter av arbete som tandläkarassistent, funderade på ifall statussänkningen att bli hembiträde skulle vägas upp av de pengar hon kunde tjäna i Italien, där hennes syster bodde. Båda kvinnorna visste vilka priser och villkor de önskade och besökte platser där smugglare samlas regelbundet för att höra vad som erbjöds.

    En del såg mig som en möjlighet. En kypare började prata med mig efter att ha serverat kaffe, Read the rest of this entry »

    Share

    Tags: , , ,

    Sunday Shock! There are proud sex workers in Sweden (which some have known all along)

    14 August 2011 in sex work by laura agustin | 4 comments | print print

    There are people who believe that all the values expressed and rhetoric declaimed in places like the building to the left – the Swedish parliament in Stockholm – represent the reality of the country itself. There are Swedish government spokespeople who claim there are no voluntary sex workers, and no clients, and no sex venues or prostitution or trafficking in all of Sweden. But do you really believe that a law banning the purchase of sex could achieve all of that? It is just highly improbable, as it is when other governments claim there is no homosexuality here (sometimes said about Somalia, Zimbabwe, Uganda) or the veil has no place in our country (said by some about France, Belgium). Of course there are gay people and women wearing headscarves in those places – but it is convenient for mainstream politicians to pretend otherwise.

    Sweden is one of the big-time gay-rights-friendly spots in the world: RFSL (Riksförbundet för homosexuellas, bisexuellas och transpersoners rättigheter – Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights) dates back to 1950 and receives government funding. So it is significant that RFSL supported and encouraged Sweden’s sex worker organisation Rose Alliance to participate in Stockholm’s Pride Parade this year. The argument is: Just as other sexual identities and orientations are marginalised and deprived of rights, so are sex workers. Obvious: sexual autonomy, the right to do what you want with your own body. Money is not a defining element.

    The following video clips from JubBacon show the Rose Alliance float. You can read about this in Swedish from sex worker Greta Garbo and on Makthavare. PS: No one was attacked, threatened or shamed. Some of those along the route were surprised into silence, others cheered.

    Yes, I am a member of Rose Alliance.

    –Laura Agustín, the Naked Anthropologist

    Share

    Tags: ,

    Trafficking convictions in Sweden: tortuous laws about sex

    15 July 2011 in trafficking by laura agustin | 4 comments | print print

    I suppose in a dictatorship it might be possible to write a law aimed at punishing traffickers where no meaningful evidence was required. Then arrests and convictions could shoot up and prisons be full of men who might or might not have had bad intentions or done anything wrong. But despite the unpleasant rhetoric and complete lack of interest in evidence evinced by some of Sweden’s Gender-Equality Warriors, the Swedish legal system operates as (in)effectively as those in other contemporary democratic-style states. This was made obvious in police comments on the difficulty of convicting men for buying sex and now here on the subject of convicting traffickers.

    The story below attempts to explain why there have been so few convictions of traffickers, but the impossibility of getting the law’s wording right is obvious. Legal language is often tortuous, but this quality is exaggerated when it attempts to pin down ultimately indefinable states of mind: Note, in the key paragraph (in green below) the use of coercion, deception, abuse, vulnerable. defencelessness, dependent, improper means, controls, exploit. The meaning of each of these key words changes completely according to context and moment and easily mean different things to migrant (or victim), smuggler (or perpetrator) and rescuer.

    The story comes from Ireland, where some legislators who want to penalise the buying of sex sent a delegation to Sweden – which absolutely everybody does, it’s the in thing, but all they usually do is talk to government representatives in Stockholm, who tell them what the visitors could have read online without taking an expensive junket. Note that this entire analysis makes no mention of migration at all, which continues to be the fundamental issue despite protestations that it is not because now we are talking about slavery.

    Human Trafficking: Concerns even as Swedish law is rewritten to get convictions, 04 January 2011, Irish Examiner

    When one looks at the numbers of successful prosecutions for human trafficking in Sweden over the last five years, one could easily be forgiven for thinking there had been little return for its major investment in combating the crime. Between 2003 and 2008, there were just 10 people convicted specifically of human trafficking out of 133 cases brought. However, the low return is not reflective of the true impact the prosecutions have had. The ambiguous wording of the trafficking law in Sweden up to July 2010 made it exceptionally difficult to get convictions. But the authorities had good reason for not being in a particular rush to correct that ambiguity. The sentences for aggravated pimping — the crime just below human trafficking carried the same maximum sentence of 10 years as the more serious misdemeanour.

    “A lot of cases end up as serious pimping instead of human trafficking, because it was easier for the prosecutors and court to have a sentence for it,” said Detective Inspector Jonas Trolle of the Swedish surveillance unit who is an expert in investigating human trafficking. “I think it was sad, because our legislation on trafficking in human beings is a very good legislation and has a lot of possibilities to get convictions, but it was too complicated for the prosecutors and courts. Therefore, prosecutors would not push strongly for the highest sentence possible for aggravated pimping.”

    When that category is taken into account, the successful prosecutions shoot up. The number of reported crimes rise to 601 and the convictions rise to 127. Nonetheless, it simply was not good enough not to have clear and detailed legislation. The problem was that a successful prosecution for human trafficking required the prosecutors to prove the defendant had taken control of the victim.

    “We had two trafficking paragraphs before, which did not work,” said Kajsa Wahlberg. “The second paragraph had so many tiny little things which had to be correct. For instance, it said that the trafficker must use improper means in order to recruit or transport the person but it also said the trafficker must have control. Improper means is very much related to control also. It was mixed up. It also said the trafficker must have the intention at recruitment that he is going to exploit the person.”

    She cited, as an example, an instance where a Swedish man trafficked a girl from Slovakia to the southern part of Sweden. “He claimed she was his girlfriend, they had lived there and they decided to move to Sweden,” she said. “He said he proposed for her to go into prostitution and that he recruited buyers for her but that he had no intention to traffic her to Sweden when he took her from Slovakia. He said it was an idea that came up when they got here.

    “So many of these types of people got loose because we could not prove intention to traffic. It was also viewed that the second paragraph did not protect children as it should. Because of the confusion, 16-17 year olds were not being regarded as trafficking… The court required directly that the trafficker must have used improper means. The paragraph did not require that.”

    In the forward to the new clause which came into the Swedish human trafficking law on July 1, 2010, the authors wrote: “The requisite that describes the improper means should be given in somewhat clearer and more readily-understood meaning than they have at present.” Therefore, the relevant paragraphs were rewritten to state: “Anyone who makes use of unlawful coercion or deception, abuses someone’s vulnerable situation, abuses someone’s youth or defencelessness or abuses someone’s dependent status has used such a means that may result in liability for trafficking in human beings. “The current list of kinds of acts of trafficking covered shall be supplemented by the possibility of a person, who by some improper means controls another in order to exploit her, in him being penalised for trafficking in human beings.”

    It is too early to say whether the new language will make it easier to achieve the full human trafficking convictions authorities crave.  As far as Jonas Trolle is concerned, there may still be issues. “I am worried about the situation now,” he said. “They have removed the control part, but I am not sure it is easy to have sentences for human trafficking.” He has reason to be worried. Police estimate that between 400 and 600 women are trafficked to Sweden every year and of those 200 to 300 are destined for Stockholm.

    Furthermore, there is concern that even the new version of the law does require the accumulation of a large swathe of evidence before a conviction can be sought. Kajsa Wahlberg admits that that often means victims might be moved on before the police can move in and arrest the trafficker.

    “After surveillance for a certain period of time, you might assume there are 30 women being exploited, but you don’t go in and identify them all, because you will reveal your investigation,” she said, “We are not always sure what is going on; if all of these women are being exploited or if they have another role in the apartment. When we strike, there might only be three left because some of them are being transported back and forth and we are not always clear of each and everyone’s role. We can interrogate the three, but we don’t know about the other 27.”

    They will keep trying to get this right, though, we can be sure of that.

    –Laura Agustín, the Naked Anthropologist

    Share

    Tags: , ,

    Conviction and punishment in Sweden for buying sex, 1999-2009

    1 June 2011 in sex work by laura agustin | 7 comments | print print

    Back in March people in Canada contacted me to ask about Gunilla Ekberg’s claim, in talks given there, that there have been 3500 men found guilty under the Swedish law against buying sex (sexköpslagen) since it was passed in 1999. Why would Ekberg make a mistake about something that can be verified on the website of the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (BRÅ)? The total is 757 over eleven years.

    Until recently, the maximum penalty for those convicted of buying sex was six months in jail or a rather small fine. No one was ever jailed, as far as I can tell; jail-time is not mandated when penalties are minor. Therefore, the nearly unanimous vote in the Swedish parliament last month was about making it possible for a convicted person to go to jail, as a year-penalty pushes the crime upwards in importance. Perhaps one could say, then, that this apparently fierce vote was more about making the original 1999 law more coherent: if you seriously believe something is a crime, then you don’t want it to be never punished. If you see what I mean.

    Numbers of convictions for buying sex in Sweden by year, 1999-2009

    Source: BRÅ

    Is this a large or small number of convictions? How many men were detained by the police but the case dropped? That information isn’t available. Activists and scholars tend to focus on the law’s rhetoric and presumptions, but it is never easy to put such a law into practice. Consider the document BRÅ published in 1999 on the subject of these difficulties from a policing point of view:

    Evidential difficulties are the most common reason for the discontinuation of police investigations into suspected offences of this type. The most difficult thing to prove has been that the parties have entered into an agreement that sexual services will be provided in exchange for payment. It is an offence without a complainant and even though the prostitutes are obliged to give evidence, this obligation is limited since they are not obliged to reveal that they have themselves participated in an act of prostitution. Even if the prostitutes might consider giving evidence about the incident, it has been deemed difficult to reach them to obtain their co-operation in investigations since they often have no fixed address or telephone number.

    So although the Swedish parliament recently raised the maximum penalty from six months’ incarceration to a year, the difficulty of getting convictions remains.

    Thanks to Louise Persson for help with the numbers.

    –Laura Agustín, the Naked Anthropologist

    Share

    Tags: , ,

    Satanic Sex on Sunday: Gunilla Ekberg, Sex War and Extremist Feminism

    1 May 2011 in sex work by laura agustin | 10 comments | print print

    Feminist Satanism. No, that’s not right. Satanic Feminists. To be fair, no, it should be Feminists Who Believe Men are Pedophilic Satanists (or Satanist Pedophiles). No matter how you look at it, these words don’t immediately make sense together. This is the Rescue Industry with a vengeance – and Extremist Feminism indeed.

    Gunilla Ekberg has not appeared in public in Sweden in quite a while, I believe, but she has been giving anti-prostitution talks in Canada in support of a campaign to defeat Judge Himel’s decision to decriminalise many aspects of sex work in Ontario (Ekberg is apparently a citizen of Canada now). Admirers in Canada are billing her as a famous international lawyer, but she was publicly criticised in Sweden for calling herself a lawyer – does anyone know about Canada?  Her notoriety derives from her unyielding attitude as a campaigner, so authoritarian even some Swedes with similar ideas stopped wanting to be associated with her.

    In 2005 she worked for Sweden’s Ministry of Industry as an expert on prostitution and was closely allied with ROKS, an organisation that runs shelters for women in trouble. At the time, ROKS’s management claimed Swedish patriarchy could usefully be compared to Afghanistan’s and advocated separatism: women living apart from men. As if this were not enough, ROKS management came to believe that pedophilic satanism was a real threat to girls and women in Sweden. Phew.

    Eva Lundgren: There are grim rituals where foetuses are cut out of wombs, cut into pieces and sacrificed.

    Other European countries have suffered mad bouts of belief in satanic cults in history, and the US is famous for its Satanic Panic all through the 1980s, but the oddity with Sweden is how such extremism can dwell so very close to mainstream government: get funding, have prestige, function as if ordinary and unremarkable.

    The story of Ekberg’s embarrassing moment and public disgrace occurred in 2005, when journalist Evin Rubar (a woman) was making a programme about ROKS for Swedish Television, Könskriget (Sex War – link to first part),  in which the story of the satanic pedophiles is told, including the testimony of a young woman supposedly saved by ROKS who complains about her treatment by the rescuers. You will see in the clip below that Rubar, assuming Ekberg to have been closely involved, asks questions Ekberg refuses to answer. Leaving the room, Ekberg, assuming the microphone is off, threatens Rubar: Don’t count on any help from the shelters. The whole Sex War programme is two hours long; this is the clip in which Ekberg threatens Rubar:

    Ekberg did not lose her job over this, but she did eventually leave it. The affair generated much criticism of her behaviour and that of the ROKS people, who come across as maniacs (at least one writer calling their thought patterns feminist fundamentalism, with which I concur, here on the blog and in Sex at the Margins). Numerous Swedish bloggers followed the disgraceful affair, reported here in the newspaper Aftonbladet. The ROKS manager was replaced.

    Here is Part One of Sex War in Swedish, and here is a website that does a summary in English. After which, you will need a laugh.

    –Laura Agustín, the Naked Anthropologist

    Share

    Tags: , , ,

    Rapport douteux sur la loi d’achat de sexe, Svenska Dagbladet

    30 April 2011 in sex work by laura agustin | 1 comment | print print

    Original: Tvivelaktig rapport om sexköp, par Laura Agustín et Louise Persson,, 15 juillet 2010, Svenska Dagbladet. Traduction par Thierry Schaffauser. J’ai décrit le contexte dans La fumée dans les yeux . Étant donné une tres grande limite de mots, nous ne pouvions parler des questions clés que de façon réduite allant à l’essentiel.

    Les crimes sexuels diminuent en Suède: La nouvelle évaluation de la loi contre l’achat de sexe diffuse le message autour du monde, mais le rapport souffre de trop nombreuses erreurs scientifiques pour justifier une telle affirmation.

    Le rapport a été retardé. Il est difficile de trouver des preuves pour expliquer pourquoi on ne voit plus les travailleurs du sexe là où on les voyait avant: Ont-ils cessé de vendre du sexe, ou le font-ils ailleurs? Les personnes stigmatisées et criminalisées évitent tout contact avec la police, les travailleurs sociaux et les chercheurs.

    La prostitution de rue reçoit une attention exagérée dans l’enquête, en dépit du fait qu’elle ne représente qu’un petit type en diminution du commerce du sexe qui ne peut être extrapolé à l’ensemble. L’enquête mentionne la difficulté de la recherche s’agissant de «la prostitution sur Internet», mais semble ne pas savoir que l’industrie du sexe prend de nombreuses formes différentes et à rechercher en profondeur ailleurs (escortes sans sites Web, sex parties, strip-clubs, salons de massage, et étudiants qui vendent du sexe, entre autres).

    La conclusion du rapport que la loi a diminué la prostitution est basée sur les rapports de police, des groupes financés par le gouvernement travaillant sur la prostitution dans trois villes, quelques petites études et des comparaisons avec d’autres pays nordiques. Mais la police ne rencontre les travailleurs du sexe que dans le cadre d’enquêtes criminelles, les groupes financés rencontrent principalement les travailleurs du sexe demandant de l’aide, de petites études ne peuvent indiquer les tendances et les statistiques danoises sur le nombre des travailleurs du sexe de rue «actifs»  – utilisées pour montrer que la prostitution en Suède est moindre – ont été publiquement révélées comme fausses il y a huit mois.

    Il est affirmé que la loi a eu un effet modérateur sur la traite sexuelle, mais aucune preuve n’est offerte. Les statistiques sur la traite ont longtemps été contestées en dehors de Suède, en raison de la confusion dans la définition et le refus d’accepter la distinction de la Convention des Nations Unies sur la criminalité organisée entre traite des êtres humains et le passage clandestin humain lié à la migration du travail informel. Le rapport affirme que la loi diminue le «crime organisé», sans analyser la façon dont les crimes ont été identifiés et résolus ou comment ils sont liés à la loi contre l’achat de sexe.

    Toute recherche sociale doit expliquer sa méthodologie. Une évaluation comme celle-ci doit fournir des détails sur l’échantillon des personnes consultées, car même dans un champ aussi petit que la Suède, aucune étude ne peut prétendre parler à tout le monde. Les normes de la recherche méthodologique doivent expliquer comment les informateurs ont été consultés, dans quelles conditions, quelles sont les questions qui leur ont été posées et comment, quel dispositif éthique a été mis en place pour aider à garantir qu’ils ont donné leur vrai avis, comment un équilibre entre les différentes parties prenantes a été réalisé, combien de personnes ont refusé de participer, et ainsi de suite. Dans ce rapport, toutefois, la section sur la méthodologie est pratiquement inexistante. Nous ne savons rien sur la façon dont l’évaluation a été effectivement réalisée.

    D’autre part, le rapport regorge de documents non pertinents: arrière-plan sur la façon dont la loi a vu le jour, l’histoire de la Suède avec l’égalité des sexes, pourquoi la prostitution est mauvaise, pourquoi le public international s’intéresse à l’évaluation et le nombre de Suédois dont on dit qu’ils soutiennent actuellement la loi. Une unique et triste histoire personnelle d’une travailleuse du sexe occupe trois pages, tandis que le compte des opinions des travailleurs du sexe se limite aux résultats d’une enquête de seulement 14 personnes dont sept seulement étaient des travailleurs du sexe en exercice.

    La recherche doit s’essayer à une sorte d’objectivité, mais la mission du gouvernement à l’équipe d’évaluation dit que «l’achat de services sexuels doivent continuer à être criminalisé», peu importe ce que les évaluateurs ont constaté. Le biais est inhérent.

    Le gouvernement suédois considère que la loi est d’intérêt international comme forme de prévention du crime. Ce qu’ils ne savent pas, c’est comment, quand le rapport est traduit et révisé, les erreurs méthodologiques et les biais brut amènent les chercheurs dans ce domaine à rejeter cette évaluation.

    Le débat sur la traite internationale a dépassé la position simpliste présentée dans ce rapport. Plus d’humilité est nécessaire de la part d’un petit pays avec peu d’expérience, et de recherche sur la migration irrégulière et l’industrie du sexe. Si l’on veut se présenter comme occupant une moralité plus élevée que les autres pays, il faut faire un meilleur travail pour comprendre les questions complexes. Cette évaluation ne nous dit rien sur les effets de la loi contre l’achat de sexe.

     

    Nous avons offert des sources sur le sujet de la recherche viciée ne soutenant pas les affirmations extravagantes dans ce domaine, mais les éditeurs l’ont omis.

    Socialstyrelsen. 2007. Kännedom om Prostitution:.Un autre rapport du gouvernement suédois d’il y a quelques années qui conclut que peu peut être connu de la prostitution en Suède:

    Folketingets Socialudvalg, 20 novembre 2009. Socialministerens endelige svar nr påspørgsmål. 37 (Alm SOU. Del). Question au Parlement danois sur les chiffres incorrects réclamé pour la prostitution de rue.

    OIM-SIDA. 2006. Traite des êtres humains et la Coupe du Monde 2006 en Allemagne. Recherche financée par la Suède trouvant les allégations sur la traite non fondées.

    BBC News Magazine. 9 janvier 2009. Est ce que le nombre de call girls victimes de la traite est un mythe?

    United States Government Accountability Office. Juillet 2006. Human Trafficking: de meilleures données, stratégie, et des rapports nécessaires à l’amélioration des efforts des États-Unis dans la lutte contre la traite à l’étranger.

    Les Carpenter. 2010. Démystifier le plus grand mythe de la Coupe du Monde. Nouvelles Yahoo, 10 juin.

    Share

    Tags: ,

    La loi suédoise contre l’achat de sexe la prostitution, la traite: efficacité pas prouvée

    30 April 2011 in sex work by laura agustin | 1 comment | print print

    Page de présentation: Ici se trouvent plusieurs textes sur la loi suédoise contre l’achat de sexe. Ce modèle legislatif, aussi connu comme la pénalisation du client, est devenu célèbre à cause des prétentions du gouvernment suédois sur son efficacité comme méthode d’abolir la traite humaine, l’explotation sexuelle et même la prostitution. Ces prétentions n’ont pas été prouvées par l’évaluation gouvernementale publiée en juillet 2010. Depuis deux ans et demi j’habite en Suède, où j’ai publié quelques critiques de l’évaluation et du mouvement anti-prostitution dans divers médias. Merci à Thierry Schaffauser pour traduire ces textes.

    Rapport douteux sur la loi d’achat de sexe
    original Tvivelaktig rapport om sexköp, Svenska Dagbladet, avec Louise Persson, 15 July 2010
    Version anglaise

    Grandes prétentions, peu de preuves: la loi de Suède contre l’achat de sexe
    original Big claims, little evidence: Sweden’s law against buying sex, The Local, 23 July 2010

    Rapport suédois basé sur de mauvais chiffres danois de la prostitution de rue
    original Swedish report based on wrong Danish numbers for street prostitution, 3 July 2010

    La fumée dans les yeux: l’évaluation de la loi anti-prostitution suédoise offre de l’idéologie, pas de la méthodologie
    original Smoke gets in your eyes: Evaluation of Swedish anti-prostitution law offers ideology, not methodology, 15 July 2010

    Derrière le visage heureux de la loi suédoise anti-prostitution
    original Behind the happy face of the Swedish anti-prostitution law, Louise Persson, 4 July 2010

    Pas de méthode dans l’évaluation de la loi Suédoise contre l’achat de sexe
    original Skarhed admits scientific method was lacking in evaluation of Swedish law against buying sex, 19 Jan 2011

    L’utilisation irresponsable des données relatives à la traite, ou: Mauvaises entrées de données, mauvais résultats
    original Irresponsible use of trafficking data, or: Garbage in, garbage out, 14 August 2010

    –Laura Agustín, the Naked Anthropologist

    Share

    Tags: ,

    « Older entries