15.11.2013 Rroma and the Zurich Street Prostitution

News Switzerland

20 Minuten (2013) with its article on a lawsuit against two Rroma pimps presents a perspective of culturally determined relations of exploitation, reproducing the notion of clan-like dependencies, ratios, exactly as the Weltwoche does over and over again: “The District Court of Zurich convicted the clan chief in the summer of 2012, among others for human trafficking and sexual assault, the son for promotion of prostitution. [… ] The prosecutor told the Superior Court of the brutal and unscrupulous actions of the accused. These corporal punishments and threats made the exploited victims docile with corporal. The women who were purchases as goods had to give all the revenues of the clan chief.” What is questionable is of course not the charges of the violence done to these women, , but the finding that it is due to culturally determined structures and relations of exploitation. The article implies the fact that this pimping is a Roma-specific phenomenon.

Hasler’s (2013) article discrediting human trafficking also gives the impression that this case is the consequence of clan-like, strongly hierarchically organized Rroma groups: “Since 2008, The Zurich stree prostituion on the Sihlquai and the Langstrasse was dominated by Hungarian Roma. The area allocation among the pimps was not without tensions. [… ] The son did not hesitate to send his partner and mother of his children to prostitute herself and they harass her when she opposed it. He used such physical violence that the woman had to be driven to hospital by ambulance. At the conclusion of the criminal investigation, the wife of the public prosecutor announced that she wanted to marry the 25 year old.” Several authors explain convincingly that the notion of clan-like, hierarchical structures among the Rroma is wrong (Daniels, 2013, Mappes – Niediek 2013, Martens 2013, Tabin 2013). Representing pimping as a culturally driven phenomenon can only be described as absurd. That on needs to decidedly combat human trafficking is beyond question.

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