The debate entry expresses the writer’s opinions.
“You let your daughter sell sex”, the journalist shouts into the room while she is being filmed.
“I’m 22 years old, not 16”, is the reply dryly from the room.
In another sequence, the journalist stands with the film crew behind him and tells a woman:
“You sell sex, I’ve seen nude pictures of you on an escort ad.”
Thanks to NRK Brennpunkt’s filming, we, the viewers, know where the venue is. Those who know the woman also now know, thanks to Brennpunkt, that she sells sexual services. Something most sex sellers work hard to keep hidden from family, friends and those around them.
In the documentary, it goes from blow to blow. We will see the location of the massage institutes.
The women are outed with such badly edited pictures that it is only for those of us who do not live in Bergen, they are not recognisable.
The journalist is rejected, and the women refuse to talk to her. However, the women do not know that NKR Brennpunkt is up to it, because an undercover male journalist is sent in with a hidden camera and hidden audio recording.
Brennpunkt sells ads for escorts and turns one plus one into sex. In the intro, it is presented that 80 percent of massage parlors are disguised brothels.
Click here to subscribe to the newsletter from Norsk debatt
The journalist lurks in the bushes, and films the women who work there, and customers who come and go. Employees, customers and hours are counted, and it is speculated that expensive bags and jackets are a sure sign of sex sales.
What the filming of the outside of the premises actually reveals is uncertain, and the same applies to the journalists’ calls. Does the person answering understand what is being asked? And the other way around – does the journalist understand what is being answered?
Brennpunkt claims to be able to document that the women are grossly exploited. But the worst thing this documentary can document is that the massage income goes in favor of the owner, who takes approximately 70 percent. It is undoubtedly economic exploitation of the masseurs, and reveals a general problem in Norway: namely that migrants are often exploited as cheap labour.
Images of customer lists and money, data on the customers’ age and marital status are conveyed in “true crime” dramaturgy. Since no one other than the Thai masseuse who is sick of having male customers who think she is selling sex will talk to Brennpunkt, the sources of this data must be from the police’s constant raids on massage parlors.
PION has been at war with NRK several times over issues where press ethics have been subordinated to the national channel’s tabloid and speculative news reports about sex workers. But in the Brennpunkt documentary, NRK surpasses itself, it is so bad that it hurts to watch it.
Read also: When you as a minister pose in such a dress, you must expect attention. Also for the choice of dress
It is not forbidden to sell sex, and Thai massage is not synonymous with sex work. Some Thai masseurs, like other low-wage workers, have to supplement their income by selling sex to keep the financial wheels turning. And many sex workers have both massage and sexual services in their business portfolio.
There is a high degree of mobility in the market. The majority, regardless of gender and ethnicity, are itinerant sex sellers.
The Thai massage institutes around Norway are not only workplaces, but also social meeting places for both visitors and permanent residents with a Thai background. Having social meeting places and networks provides social protection. A benefit many other itinerant sex workers do not have.
The Thai massage parlors are therefore not the problem, the criminalization is.
Read also: What would you need if you had to move away from an abusive partner?
For the sex workers, the ban on buying sex (large §316) and the pimp section’s (large §315) ban on working indoors and in community with others create the real problems. Both because criminalization has led to a loss of control over one’s own business, and because the party selling sex is being chased by the police
Instead of throwing a socially marginalized and stigmatized group of female migrants under the bus, NRK Brennpunkt could have directed attention to how structural conditions force many migrants into the sex market.
And further: Which market are the migrants facing? NRK could ask itself how the pimp provision and the ban on the purchase of sex affect the everyday working life of the sex workers. Then they would see that sex workers are forced to exercise a high degree of discretion to protect clients from police attention.
NRK would also gain insight into how the sex sellers experience a loss of control over their own business because the visit must take place on the customer’s domain. Both parts have contributed to the fact that today we are talking about a buyer’s market.
As is known, the wording in the so-called pimp section does not prohibit the exploitation of other people’s sex sales. What is prohibited is “promoting prostitution”, which is, in short, an indirect criminalization of the seller’s side. It creates a market for exploitation where whoever takes the risk of offering premises for the sale of sex can get paid very well.
Also read: As a newly qualified nurse, I will not be professionally qualified
For the sex worker, it means both more work for less money and greater dependence on third parties. In addition to a weakened negotiating position vis-à-vis both customers and the person who owns the premises.
So when NRK has made the public aware of the costs of the current prostitution policy for the party selling sex, they could have followed up the matter with questions to politicians about what they want to do to reduce recruitment for sex work through better distribution of the benefits as well as reducing the risk of sex sellers being exposed to exploitation, violence and other crimes.
Then we could have had a debate about how to organize sex sales in ways that both reduce the risk of injury, and strengthen and improve the working situation and everyday life of all sex sellers.
We understand that it is not as excitingly sensational as lying in the bushes filming the immorality. But it would have been nice to see that NRK can handle the role of important social watchdog and social actor towards this group as well.
This post was first published at Journalisten.
—————–
- Andrés Lekanger
- Nampueng Simmakhun Møller
- Astrid Renland
