Her word against his

The caption underneath a photo, featuring Valletta, our stunning Grand Harbour and The Three Cities, in the EU Observer read: “Women (in Malta) who cry out for help risk being punished by the police.”

The US Department of State report on Trafficking In Persons, out a fortnight ago, put Malta on the Tier 2 watch list, which classifies us with those where “the absolute number of victims of severe forms of trafficking is very significant or is significantly increasing”... and where “there is a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons”. We are thus now on a watch list for failing to stop “severe levels of human trafficking”.

When, last February, I wrote about the trafficking and exploitation of women in Malta, most of the feedback I got was of scepticism and remarks that this is hardly a reality here. These comments came mostly from men with a skewed perception of reality but also from women. This showed that also the latter are oblivious to what is happening to other women around them and that they have been lulled into a deluded sense of security.

I had addressed this issue back then – when the court opened urgently on a Sunday for the arraignment of a Romanian lap dancer – in a piece titled Sharks Play, Small Fry Pay: “... who are these so described – in this newspaper’s report – ‘skimpily dressed foreign women’ really? Have they been trafficked? Were they promised jobs as waitresses, nannies, chambermaids or receptionists? Once here, are they slaves kept by violence and threats and forced into sex? This is where the line between voluntary prostitutes and intimidated slaves becomes increasingly thin.

“Traffickers frighten victims off going to the police by warning them that the latter are on their side. They lure young women with a better life and promises of work. Once here, they are threatened and abused and made to do as their boss wants while they are paid minimally and offered uninhabitable living conditions.

“What choice do they have? In certain instances not even to go back to the country they so wanted to get away from. So they accept to do whatever work they are asked to do including prostitution and other work in our various clubs where the main entertainment is provided by strippers, lap and pole dancers.

“I have no truck with the idea that these sex workers are all doing their own thing. But it seems that we have given up and chosen to turn the collective blind eye to the realities of these people. Once in a while, then, we arraign someone and make a big scene.”

Four months on and the doubting Thomases can place their fingers on this social wound. Maybe now that an important institution is drawing our attention, more people would open their eyes to this sordid actuality. Perhaps those who had sent me e-mails of incredulity upon reading my article last February will now think again.

The US State Department report points out, as one example, the case of the Somali woman who, after reporting to the Malta police that she was being forced into prostitution, got a six-month suspended sentence for having false travel permits.

The recent release from house arrest of former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn re­minded me of this incident. It was revealed that the Guinean Sofitel chambermaid accusing Mr Strauss-Kahn of forcing himself upon her had committed fraud including the fabrication of her claim for asylum, so her rape accusations were put into question.

This, as if one matter has anything to do with the other, and when, in fact, DNA test results confirmed that the semen found on the maid’s uniform belonged to Mr Strauss-Kahn.

These issues need to be seen in the context that refugees are people who have undergone harsh ordeals and might, out of fear and under pressure, change their stories when seeking asylum.

There are those, then, who are ready to abuse this human fragility. Victims then find themselves in a double bind because those who are supposed to protect them could be on the side of their powerful assailants or pimps.

When asked questions on this Trafficking In Persons damning report, the Home Affairs Minister was optimistic and pointed out that it says that, although we can do more in the field of combating human trafficking, it does acknowledge that some action is being taken.

True, but still there is no evidence that these efforts have been effective; the contrary is true. What is worse though is that the minister says that “the government does not believe there is widespread human trafficking activity on the island”. Does not believe? We are talking about human lives here, in an area of just over 300 square kilometres! Surely the minister could at least try to be specific.

But, in any case, this is the wrong sort of argument as the report is not based on how prevalent human trafficking is but on each state’s commitment to battling it.

helenadalli@gmail.com

Dr Dalli is shadow minister for the public service, government investments and gender equality.