[WATCH] Without fight against trafficking, Malta risks becoming tourist sex hub

Without fight against trafficking, Malta risks becoming tourist sex hub

A discussion the reform of prostitution reforms must tackle Malta’s problems with human trafficking and crime, women’s rights activist Lara Dimitrijevic insisted.

Speaking to MaltaToday on behalf of the Coalition on Human Trafficking and Prostitution, which represent over 40 local and international NGOs in the field, the lawyer said she feared the absence of a major trafficking fight could dead-leg any reform in prostitution laws.

“We were very disappointed that, from what we can see, there was no mention of human trafficking; while we are aware that they are two separate committees [prostitution and human trafficking] for us they go hand and hand. We cannot talk about reforms to prostitution without talking about trafficking,” Dimitrijevic said.

Although the proposed reforms are not yet public, Dimitrijevic feared that separating the two fields would create a free-for-all situation.

On Sunday, Equality Parliamentary Secretary Rosianne Cutjar announced that a technical committee set up for prostitution reform was in the initial stages of drafting a legal framework that would decriminalise sex work. A report was in the process of being finalised and presented to Cabinet. Key to the report will be the decriminalisation of sex workers, while pimping and brothels will be illegal, with harsher laws enacted to stop them.

Cutajar also refuted the Nordic model of criminalising buyers of sexual services, insisting that would defeat the purpose of decriminalising sex work.

But she invited a harsh reaction from NGOs who claimed the proposed approach would be a gift to pimps and traffickers, lambasting the committee as being “devoid of experts” in the specific area they are proposing legalisation on.

Dimitrijevic said that in countries where prostitution was legalised such as Germany and Holland, data showed that such as route had had a profoundly negative effect on women. “A high increase in human trafficking was registered due to these laws,” she added.

In Malta prostitution is not illegal; soliciting and loitering for the purposes of prostitution is.

“If we are to assume that they are talking about the decriminalisation of soliciting and loitering, what we are trying to warn is, that by doing so, your encouraging pimps and traffickers to continue to exploit this because it will no longer be a criminal activity,” Dimitrijevic said.

Dimitrijevic said that in recent years, human trafficking had increased on the island. “We have already seen it with strip clubs when Malta was being advertised as a bachelor’s paradise. These reforms could breed the attitude of ‘hey, let’s open up and become the next tourist sex hub’,” she said.

Dimitrijevic said much is yet unclear about what sort of approach the government is going to take. “If we’re talking about decriminalisation, what form of decriminalisation? If we’re going to decriminalise soliciting and loitering are we saying that people can go in the street and prostitute themselves? That this could be our next-door neighbour? Could this be done next to schools?” she asked.

In an example from reports in New Zealand, she warned that when prostitution was decriminalised there were cases of prostitution taking place next to schools. “We feel that the proposals were rushed. We have no studies… have they done mappings of areas, have they researched the local scenario and then reached the conclusion that it is in the best interest of sex workers? No advocates or experts working alongside women were consulted, at all, at any point in time.”

The United States ‘Trafficking in Persons’ states that Malta still does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. But it said the government demonstrated overall increasing efforts compared to 2019, with increased victim care funding, public awareness campaigns, and convictions, which included significant prison sentences.

Still, the government decreased both investigations and prosecutions, identified and referred fewer victims, continued to lack coordination among ministries, and did not effectively enforce labour recruitment regulations or control massage parlours where vulnerability to trafficking was high.

“The government made uneven law enforcement efforts…. In 2019, the police vice squad, which is responsible for trafficking, initiated five investigations into eight suspects for sex trafficking and one investigation into one suspect for labour trafficking. The police vice squad also continued the investigation of five cases involving eight suspects ongoing from prior years. This compared with 10 investigations in 2018.

“The government did not prosecute any suspected traffickers in 2019, compared with 10 prosecutions in 2018. Prosecutions of 20 suspects, all of whom were released on bail, from prior reporting periods remained ongoing.”