My material is
collected in Finland
where the high level of social security benefits puts prostitutes into a
relatively good position. Because every citizen is guaranteed a certain standard
of living, forced prostitution is rare. Most of the prostitutes work as independent
call girls – considered in many
countries as elite sex workers (O’Connel Davidson 1998, 88). Thanks to the free education, sex workers usually stay in
business less than five years.
However, there are also in Finland whole groups of sex workers
who don’t have clear control over their work. The
field of prostitution is divided ethnically: the Finns offer traditional sex
services (incalls/outcalls) and special services, the Thais offer erotic
massage and the Russians and Estonians visiting Finland usually offer only
traditional sex services. Because Russian sex workers usually do not
speak Finnish, they are not capable of answering the telephone and thereby
screening their customers. And when they have to work under the threat of
deportation and can’t trust the protection of the police, they have a much
higher probability of facing violence and getting robbed than their Finnish or
Estonian colleagues. (Kontula 2005.)
As the new
communication technology is becoming more and more common and changes are being
made in legislation (eg. Criminalizing soliciting, making foreign prostitutes
liable to deportation), the internet is gradually replacing streets,
restaurants and newspapers as a way of finding customers. The parties of
Finnish prostitution use the Internet in many ways. Apart from the advertising
of services, both customers and sex workers have discussion channels, together
and separately. Prostitutes have a common “black list” for the telephone
numbers of unwanted clients. There are also some customers and sex workers who
write a web diary about commercial acts they have experienced[1].
Currently, there are some eight thousand prostitutes working in
কোন মন্তব্য নেই:
একটি মন্তব্য পোস্ট করুন