European Network of Migrant Women’s latest report, shows that there is a lot missing in the support and care inventions for female migrants in Europe, and that they are also especially vulnerable to being exposed to sexual exploitation. Just like many in commercial sexual exploitation, migrant women are suffering from a high degree of posttraumatic stress syndrome, anxiety and depression.
Realstars has read the latest report from European Network of Migrant Women’s (ENMW), that has been put forward by the network’s female migrants from different countries within the EU. Since before, we know that women in migration run a high risk of being exposed to human trafficking and ending up in sexual exploitation. Female migrants and minority groups are also overrepresented among women in prostitution as human traffickers, sex buyers and those exploiting women seek among the most vulnerable. In the ENMW: s report, it also appears that female migrants to a high degree, have difficulty to get access to housing, education, care and job opportunities. Many women have low or no income, their life opportunities are often limited by slow moving asylum and migration processes with authorities, and they are exposed to discrimination from both their surroundings and authorities. Just like many that become victims to commercial sexual exploitation (KSE) there are also many suffering from anxiety, depression and PTSD.
Complications and obstacles in support
We know from several reports that people exposed to commercial sexual exploitation have very limited access to adequate support measures, conversational support and exit programmes in all Europe. In Sweden alone, more than 50 % of persons in KSE say that they haven’t been offered professional support and many are witnessing a mistrust and debt burden from society’s support measures. According to ENMW: s report, the access to support measures for migrant women in sex trafficking, is determined by the country’s categorization of citizenship status, and undocumented migrants have a very limited access to care and support measures in many countries in the EU. ENMW: s reports show the importance of overcoming language barriers as there are difficulties and an unwillingness with professionals in support and care operations, to understand cultural and linguistic differences. The waiting time to meet specialists that can give adequate support to migrant women is long and in many countries, there isn’t even any specialized care.
Tabu and stigmas even makes the possibilities to access these support operations more difficult. Mental ill-ness is still stigmatized in many of the countries investigated, which causes difficulties for women in migration to seek help for anxiety, depression or PTSD, that many people in commercial sexual exploitation suffer from. The women often experience that they are not believed and that the system can’t help them, and so they avoid talking about it. In the report, ENMW is also referring to the philosopher Mary Daly’s analysis that describes the problem in psychotherapy of fixating on individual problems, when the exposure in sexual exploitation on the contrary should be looked through the lens of a structural feminist analysis. ENMW and Daly highlights that the individualization risks reinforcing the feeling of responsibility and guilt, and that conversational support for people exposed to sexual exploitation therefore can’t be ideologically neutral, when the assaults come out of structural violence and oppression.
In ENMW: s report there are several stories from women in migration, among others, Malaika’s, a woman that survived human trafficking for sexual purposes. She emphasizes the importance of a strong social network, and that the police’s handling of people that have been exposed to human trafficking, must change. She says that it’s traumatizing to over and over again, account for all details of what she has experienced, to the police. This is also descriptions that we recognize from statements made by people that has been exposed to sexual abuse in Sweden.
Conclusions and recommendations
The conclusion of ENMW:S and the report are that professionals within the support- and care system should have the right competence. They also raise the importance of recruiting personnel with a migrant background to be able to meet migrant women’s demand, and that there ought to be specialist’s services, expertise and support groups to support women with mental ill-ness, as a result of traumas. ENMW also highlights that it requires a more holistic picture of migrant women’s rights and living conditions, shorter processing time, adequate social and economic support as well as a long-term support to networks and on-calls. Parallel to this, we know that the demand on paid assaults is high, especially in countries with a legalized sex trade. It is sexistic and racist men that commit paid assaults. We must break the constant growing sex industry in Europe, and for that it requires combined efforts, both preventatively, around protection and support and also to bring those responsible to justice.
Read the complete report here.
Take part of ENMW:s recommendations by clicking on the picture below:
