When I first read the second book in Stieg Larsson's trilogy, The Girl Who Played With Fire, I was shocked by the tale of sex slavery and sadism. The book takes the reader on a journey into an underground world where that famous cliché, treating women like chattel, is a cliché no more but a graphic account of sexual violence, torture and a social structure where women lose physical freedom, identity and will to fight.
In other words, an account that can only find life in a paperback or a Hollywood blockbuster.
But no. The story that hit the local headlines over the past week - where Eastern European women were systemically tricked/kidnapped into becoming sex slaves right in the heart of one of our most idyllic villages - was only too real. Rather naively, I have lived most of my adult life believing that "these things do not happen in Malta".
By "these things" I'm not referring to voluntary prostitution, about which quite frankly I couldn't care less as long as there are no minors involved. What I'm referring to is a sophisticated network of organized crime that targets specific, vulnerable sections of society, ie foreign women who have reached a quasi-stage of desperation that makes them the ideal, gullible prey.
It is glaringly obvious that we are in dire need a solid framework of regulations for our sex industry and it is equally obvious that Malta is hiding its head in the sand with regards to the possibility that our country is being used as base for human trafficking. We can ratify as many UN protocols as we like - but without vigilance and enforcement, we remain guilty of a laissez-faire attitude.
And we can wish away all the strip/lapdancing clubs as much as we like. It is not going to happen, in the same way it hasn't happened in any other country, no matter how many times people like Terence Coonan (from the Florida State University Centre for the Advancement of Human Right) argue that the industry ought to be discouraged. Despite the best efforts of authorities across the years no-one ever managed to eradicate good, old-fashioned prostitution or its derivatives and it is not going to be Malta that succeeds where everyone failed. The answer is strict regulation as opposed to outright banning, which will only push the industry more underground.
However, the whole sad saga also drove home two particular points that are being conveniently ignored.
The first being, what on earth is the attorney general's department playing at? We had a man allegedly involved in systematic rape, kidnapping and long-term violence. For his pains he got a miserable ten year sentence. Why? Because, to quote the presiding magistrate, when delivering the sentence she could only "stick to the sections of law quoted by the prosecution". The magistrate goes on to explain that two out of the three counts quoted by the A.G.'s office included cheap labour and prostitution of minors, which "did not apply to this case".
So let me get this straight. Is the court saying, in the most diplomatic way possible, that the case was messed up because the A.G.'s office didn't quote the correct legislation in the bill of indictment? Was this why most of the charges could not stick? Luckily the prosecution did get one out of three charges right, or our hero would have walked out scot free. But as it was, ten years was the maximum punishment possible - the extra year was added on from a previous conviction.
Am I the only one here who believes that, if a mess-up of this calibre occurred, a couple of heads should roll? It's not like this is the first time we have had a whiff of things not going quite as expected in our law courts.
Some weeks ago a youngster who allegedly hacked a HI-5 account walked out free because...wait for it... the charge sheet was full of mistakes. They even got the date wrong. Seriously. Hacking a Hi 5 account isn't exactly up there in the scheme of nefariousness so I didn't really expect any backlash. But if the implications I'm reading from this judgement are correct, well then it is a whole different kettle of fish.
On to my second point. Judging by the amount of insensitive comments this case gave rise to on the social media, it's not just those who hail from African countries who get the full benefit of our misogyny/racism. Eastern European women aren't spared either. The amount of people who practically implied that the victims were to blame for their fate and what the hell were they doing in Malta anyway was shocking. The one that took the prize for heartlessness went: "well, they should have done better research before flying to Malta... they asked for it".
Wake up, all those who are living in their happy bubble and who have no clue what goes on in other countries! If you are ready to leave your home for a waitressing job here (this was the pretext used to lure most of the victims) it can only mean one thing. That things were so desperate back home that they believed nothing they found here could be worse. And when these girls' dreams of a better life were dashed, what does the country that dealt them the final blow say? Your fault, stupid.
Lovely.