Nigerian defendants deny accusations of procurement

Group suspected of organising customers for about 60 prostitutes

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Suspects in a procurement trial that began in Helsinki District Court on Thursday vehemently deny charges of procuring customers for Nigerian prostitutes.
      Four Nigerian women and three men stand accused of serving as pimps for about 60 prostitutes in Finland last summer.
      The key defendants, two women aged 31 and 42, as well as a 33-year-old man, are charged with aggravated procurement. The younger of the women is also being charged with organising illegal entry into the country.
      The others are on trial for lesser crimes.
     
The prosecution says that the women who were supplied with customers for sex services worked in 24 different communities around Finland from spring to autumn last year.
      The women lived a few weeks at a time in each community. They favoured the Omena Hotel chain.
      “It was possible to practice the activity there without disturbance, because there is no reception. You can get inside with a door code”, says District Prosecutor Juha-Mikko Hämäläinen.
     
The two women charged with aggravated procurement are suspected of having been so-called field directors in the loosely organised group.
      The prosecutor says that the field directors recruited the women, supplied them with travel tickets and hotel rooms, and put up advertisements on the Internet. The women established contact with their clients themselves.
      The women paid money to the field directors to compensate for the various services. The prosecution calculates that one of them benefited to the tune of more than EUR 69,000.
     
All of the women being charged with procurement also worked as prostitutes themselves.
      The defendants maintain that the intense contacts between themselves and the other prostitutes, which was revealed on the basis of telecommunications surveillance, involved “sisterly exchanges of experiences”.
     
The prosecutor saw no indication of actual human trafficking. The women were apparently involved out of their own free will, and reaped monetary benefits from it.
     
The prostitution ring that was uncovered in Finland last year is suspected of having been just part of broader organised prostitution led from abroad.
      Some of the women, who came to Finland from Spain and Italy, have worked as prostitutes in other Nordic Countries as well.
      Many of them have been expelled from Finland, but some have applied for residence permits or asylum.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Sex trade in Finland more international than before (7.12.2009)
  Biaudet: Nigerian prostitutes episode contains great risk of human trafficking (8.10.2009)
  Criminal gang charges Nigerian prostitutes thousands of euros for entry to Finland (7.10.2009)

Helsingin Sanomat