The 27th of May, Realstars national board held an annual meeting for the financial year of 2020. We looked back on a different but still very eventful year! In 2020 and 2021 there was in many ways a breakthrough and momentum in the work against sexual exploitation in Sweden, where Realstars have been a driven actor and spokesperson for Fair Sex against trafficking and have been able to benefit from the knowledge that Realstars built up in recent years, above all about sex buyers’ mindset and about the digital brothels.
Two guest speakers were invited to the annual meeting, Ida Östensson, Communications manager at Child10 and Moa Alishba who runs a Thai massage salon and spa. Ida talked about Child10’s work and about the campaign #Hyrflickvän [#Rentagirlfriend] that was done in cooperation with Realstars. Moa talked about how she works to counteract sex purchases and contributes to project Växtkraft Thai. A big thanks to Ida and Moa!
We present the new board
During our annual meeting two new board members were elected to take the operation to the next level, we welcome Magdalena Sundqvist and Per-Anders Sunesson! At the same time, we’d like to thank the outgoing board members Charlotte Axelsson, Lars Björklund and Maria Ek for their time and commitment to the board!
The current board members are:
President: Vanessa Corneliusson, Accounting consultant Eutopia Redovisningsbyrå AB
Members:
Torbjörn Johansson, teacher at Angeredsgymnasiet
Malin Ekelund, Communicator, leadership- and fundraising consultant, InMarketing AB
Simone Hellrand, student at the master’s program for Political Science: Global Politics at Malmö University
Tobias Rasberg, Lawyer at Audent Juristbyrå
Magdalena Sundqvist, Planning Manager at the Unit for Investigation and School-law within the town of Gothenburg and member in Kungsbacka’s municipal council for the Social Democrats
Per-Anders Sunesson, Swedens previous ambassador for the work against human trafficking.
Vanessa Corneliusson, ordförande
Simone Hellrand
Torbjörn Johansson
Magdalena Sundqvist
Tobias Rasberg
Malin Eklund
Per-Anders Sunesson
The past year was presented during the annual meeting
The association’s activities during 2020 has been influenced by several environmental factors that have steered the activities toward campaign and advocacy work to counteract human trafficking. The organization has, despite the pandemic, made several impressive contributions. One impactful example is the campaign #hyrflickvän [#rentagirlfriend] together with Child10 that turned out really well, and became the biggest campaign against sex purchase in many years when it gave attention to sugar dating and the digital brothels. The campaign was set up with a fake sugar dating list that was spread through sponsored web ads and flyers around the country. During one weekend, 808 men registered and tried to hire a girlfriend via the home page hyrflickvän.se [rentagirlfriend.se]. Out of these, every sixth man, 16.6 %, searched for underaged girls – that is, children. The purpose of the campaign was to raise awareness and share knowledge that sugar dating is one of prostitutions different faces and thus counteract prostitution and human trafficking in Sweden. The campaign also aimed to show the attitude around sex purchase amongst swedes. In connection with the campaign, we released a SIFO-report that showed that every seventh man in Sweden has a positive attitude to people buying sex.
Ahead of EUs anti trafficking day, the 23rd of October, Realstars also arranged an event at Clarion Hotel Post and gathered Gothenburg’s politicians and key persons to consider EUs anti-trafficking day and counteract sexual exploitation in Gothenburg.
In the Annual report for 2020 you can read more about all focus areas that Realstars worked with during the year.
A big thanks to everyone that has supported, committed to and pushed for a world free from sex trafficking and sexual exploitation during 2020. We are now looking forward to the coming operational year, to clamp down even harder to counteract sex purchase, influencing politics and law regarding both tougher penalties and better protection for the victims and to bring about a long-term change!