When Maria* left prostitution, she started earning the same amount in one month that she would otherwise have earned in one single day. But wearing a uniform and keeping her dignity made it all worth it.
Maria is one of several women who gradually left the world of prostitution after dropping in at Dar Hosea, a walk-in centre whose location is not being disclosed to safeguard clients and staff.
“At the centre we’re not judgemental and we don’t take the moral high ground. We treat women as human beings and provide them with something to eat and wear, and a place to shower. And unlike what they’re used to, we don’t expect anything back,” Anna Vella told the Times of Malta ahead of the Combating Human Trafficking Today conference.
“In time, they realise that they don’t need to sell their body to earn money. Dignity is not bought with cash,” she added.
Organised by Dar Hosea – Friends of Thouret and the Association for Equality (A4E), a conference on Friday will take stock of evidence-based research and participants from across Europe can share their experience.
A medical doctor by profession and member of the management committee of Dar Hosea, Dr Vella will be answering the question: who are the sexually exploited women in Malta and how did they end up in prostitution?
“The real-life stories that we come across at Dar Hosea show that women and men do not choose prostitution liberally or voluntarily.
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“They usually go into this line of work because of mental or sexual abuse. No one chooses to be exploited,” she said, adding how choice was only in the service-users’ hands as they could choose what to do with someone else’s body and paid them to shut up.
We treat women as human beings
Dr Vella referred to a comment by Julie Bindel, a journalist, researcher and author who will be at the conference.
When challenged that working in prostitution was better than working at McDonald’s, Ms Bindel said that while at the food chain people sold meat, in prostitution they would be the meat that others consumed.
Still, finding an alternative job could be challenging because people in prostitution were often caught up in a web of usury and illicit drug use, and therefore did not have a clean police conduct.
Also, while prostitution is not illegal, loitering and soliciting in public, and living off proceeds of prostitution is.
Dr Vella noted that an alternative that has worked well in Scandinavia – the Nordic model – could be applied to Malta.
This would see the system penalising the service users while providing people in prostitution with alternative jobs, and if need be, a clean conduct.
People in prostitution are often caught up in a web of usury and illicit drug use
It also advocates in favour of a strong educational campaign about exploitation among schoolchildren.
Dr Vella knows too well that there are several employers who are willing to give women in prostitution a fresh start and that a regular job is often a turning point in their lives.
She recalled how one woman was called into the boss’s office soon after she started working because her supervisor realised that the woman had poor eyesight.
She was planning on spending her first salary on a new pair of specs. Instead, the employer set up an appointment for her with an ophthalmologist and asked her to pay back the cost of the eye test and the new glasses in small monthly instalments.
“She had never been treated that way by someone who did not expect anything back and she is nowadays one of the most faithful employees,” Dr Vella said.
The conference on Friday starts at 9am and will be staged at the University’s Lecture Theatre Two.
It is being held in collaboration with the Centre for Labour Studies at the University of Malta and with the support of the Swedish Ambassador to Malta, the British High Commission, Times of Malta and Falkun Films.
Participants have until Monday to register. For more information send an e-mail to anna.borg@um.edu.mt or anna-maria.vella@um.edu.mt.
Note: *name has been changed.