On Friday night, police conducted a strike against suspected sex buyers in central Stockholm. Eleven men were arrested, one of them a big TV personality. According to police reports, several of the women in the raid came from Europe's poorest countries.
Eliot Wieslander is secretary general of the non-profit organization Doctors in the World, which is working to try to help people from poor countries in Europe who sell sex in Sweden.
- These women do not have access to care, they have a terrible situation in their home country with children who are starving. If you do not receive money when you beg, it is easy to become a victim of other forces, such as human trafficking, says Eliot Wieslander.
"Important focus on the vulnerable"The organization wants the police to make greater use of the consent law as the prostitutes do not become the target of the ordinary sex purchase law.
- If you are a landowner, you get a victim status and can access help in different ways. If you only use the Sex Purchase Act, the victims of the sex trade are not even justified damages and must not be involved in a process. It is very important to focus on the vulnerable in this.
- We have seen that people have been able to obtain damages from the person who bought sex in cases where the consent law has been used, says Wieslander.