#171 Sex Trafficking in Spain: 

FiLiA Meets Alison Wilson  

Luba: I am Luba Fein from FiLiA. I created the Listen to Survivor series where we amplify the voices of women with experience in the sex industry. This podcast is an interview with Alison Wilson, a documentary filmmaker whose latest project focuses on the sex trade in Spain. Today with me, I have Alison Wilson creator of the documentary Exit. 

Alison, let's first talk about the sex industry in Spain. What is Spain's legal stand on the sex industry? 

Alison: Well, thanks for having me for a start. It's not directly addressed in the criminal code, so it's quite a grey area. 

Prostitution was decriminalised in 1995 and as you'll see in my film, there are many loopholes. For example, club owners, who are essentially pimps, rent rooms to women where these women are living 24 /7, they’re prostituted there and also sleeping there. So they're essentially economically exploiting the women and sexually exploiting them, but they present themselves legally as landlords. So that's one of the problems we have here in Spain because these clubs are absolutely everywhere. 

In Spanish law it's called … which is like a third party. It's quite complicated and that's something where we're trying to address because everybody knows these women are being exploited, but if they report that these pimps are taking their money or half of it or whatever, then they will go to jail. It's something that's well known. And it's something that everyone looks to the side because there's so much money being made from prostitution in Spain. 

It's $4 billion a year. So, it's the taxi drivers that take men to these clubs. It's the people who own stores in the towns nearby. 

So many people profit from these clubs and it's migrant women who are the 90% in the clubs. So it's not happening to local women. It's not happening to their daughters. So people look the other way. 

Luba: What is the ground situation of the sex industry in Spain? Like how many women are there in prostitution, in what geographic areas is the sex trade thriving? What types of prostitution are the most ubiquitous? 

Alison: Okay. Well, I don't think there's been a study in quite a few years. They generally say between 300,000 and 400,000 women, which I think, would be very hard to gauge because what we have in Spain, we have the really large clubs, which are very obvious, everyone knows where they are because of the big neon signs and whatever. But we also have clandestine apartments and these clandestine apartments can be one floor. They can be multi-level buildings. For example, there's one in Madrid that has been there for 40 years. It's nicknamed ‘the house of the living dead’ and it hasn't been shut down.

 I tried to enter one day and the security weren’t very friendly, but we have a lot of these along the highways.  They're in urban areas. I don't believe you can really gauge the amount of women who are put to work in these places.

It's the street prostitution in every city and town. There's a lot of highway prostitution in Spain. When you drive along, you'll see white plastic seats dotted along the highway. And  women are there from early in the morning to late at night. They're not working for themselves. There is always a pimp nearby watching what is going on. They're often in a different car every day but a lot of the local townships and the local police know who they are. 

Luba:  The pimps put them in danger by putting them on the sides of the highway. 

Alison: Everyone says they’re mafia-run networks, a lot of the highway prostitution are Eastern networks. I've met a few girls from Georgia, Bulgaria, Romania on the highways. And early on, when I first moved to Spain, I used to cycle a lot along the highway, the C 32. And you can just travel through most of Catalonia on this highway. And I used to stop and I'll ask directions in English or Spanish, very few of them would be able to answer in Spanish or Catalan the regional language, which I don't speak either, and they're obviously in very bad shape, physically, they don't look well. 

And these are the women who, on the highways and then at night they are in the pisos. So, yeah, it's normally, sometimes I would see the same woman or the girl, well very young woman, in the same location. And then other times they'd be moving them around throughout the country or to another country. You could easily lose track of them and not see their face again. 

But, this is something known in Spain. It's everywhere in Spain. It's on highways, it's rural roads and cities. It's high visibility the prostitution here.

 I remember when I first moved here, driving my daughter to school. And she was like, ‘why are there so many sad Mummy's on the side of the road with not much clothes on?’ This is something we will see. We see this on the school run. We see this when we're driving home from work. 

  It's very hard to ignore. I don't quite understand how it can be accepted. Also city prostitution thrives because there are a lot of events, especially in Barcelona. You see, for example, the Mobile World Congress, they bring girls in by busloads for that. Speak to any taxi driver, we went in one on one night for this event when we were filming, and he said: The men get in the car and say. ‘I want to blow off steam. Take me to a brothel.’ 

Football games, obviously, especially in Barcelona there's a lot of that on offer related to prostitution. 

And Madrid, all the major cities. it's highly visible. 

Luba: You have noticed before that women in prostitution are not local, so from which countries do they come and why? 

Alison: Well, early on, I interviewed a Spanish Madame. She was in her seventies. And it was interesting speaking to her because a lot of studies say Spanish women haven't been represented in prostitution in Spain for 30 years. 

 And she was blaming globalisation and organised crime, saying of course when she had her brothels, there wasn't any trouble, you know how they all say there was never any trouble but migrant women have always been in prostitution in Spain. It's the men here demanding variety. Spain is known for low cost prostitution. 

 Like we were discussing earlier, we have a lot of migration issues. The Nigerian network has probably the largest network of trafficking girls and women to Spain. I see, like I mentioned before, a lot of Georgian women and Romanian women in highway prostitution. There's this whole VIP market for escorts from Venezuela, Argentina, because, for example, it can be quite cheap to be surgically enhanced in Latin America.  These girls are marketed as the luxury escorts.

 Then you have in Barcelona, the city mayor hands out licenses for what's branded as ethical brothels. And she handed out licenses for over 100 of these ethical brothels. And in those brothels, there's a lot of Dominican girls. I've also met some Syrian girls, again a lot of Bulgarians, a lot of Latin Americans, what the market demands. 

Luba: Who creates the demand? The local market or the traffickers come and  create a supply, which designs the demand?

 Alison: Well, like I mentioned before, the Spanish men, a lot of front-liners are telling me, nine years ago they wanted a lot of Eastern European women and now they're kind of bored of them. So there's the demand for African women, but the laws are weak. Everyone knows it's a country of exploitation. So it's a breeding ground for traffickers and it's also a breeding ground for these ‘want to be sex entrepreneurs’ and people that want to make money quickly from women. It's culturally accepted. 

 People generally consider it is something private. A lot of Spanish literature, there's historically been a lot of reference to prostitution. It is definitely a cultural norm. I think it will be very hard to change the mentality here, but I know it's something a lot of activists are working on. 

 That's also a part of their appeal with the Nordic Model to help change the mentality. It's going to be difficult, but I don't think it's impossible. 

Luba: Thank you. So now let's talk about the film. The film deals with the sex industry and human trafficking in Spain. 

 What made you decide to make this documentary? Were you a filmmaker looking for a new project and an abolitionist hauteur to the field of cinema to expose a human rights disaster? What was your primary motivation? 

Alison: Well, I think you nailed it there, a human rights disaster. Rage was my primary motivator, purely from what I saw. 

I'm a political scientist by training and I've worked most of my career in  the refugee sector. And I've always been interested in migration and things like that. I went to London and I studied film. I studied cinematography so I could make this film because I wanted to be able to tell the story myself and manage the project by myself, which hasn't been easy, but I have a finished film now. Then I wrote the treatment and it was accepted at the Sheffield documentary festival three years ago and here we are now with the finished film. 

Luba: Thank you. What obstacles did you face when making the film? Was it difficult with the process? 

Alison: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. New country, new language. 

I didn't have any contacts. It was really hard. I think in Australia, it would have been much easier for me to raise the money, but it was very hard in Spain and also I'm not a Spanish citizen, I'm a resident. 

Luba: It could be easier in Australia because you're a local or the public opinion is different?

Alison: I don't think the public opinion is different but people have more money generally. I think it would have been easier to raise the funds. A lot of obstacles, I mean, I've had a lot of opposition from pro-sex people, pro-sex work people because I live in Catalonia and it's the hub of it really. 

 I'm a foreigner. So it was like ‘you’re a foreigner, it's not your place to say these things’ at the end of the day I have a family here. I'm married to a Spaniard. I live here, I pay taxes. I want to contribute to society in a meaningful way. So I've made this film. So yeah, there were a lot of obstacles, but also I have just met an incredible amount of amazing people. And it's been a really life-changing experience actually. 

Luba: Your interviewees has been able to put the sex industry behind them. But many other women have not. I know that estimations are difficult to have. All of them mentioned that, but how many victims of trafficking do you believe are still trapped in the sex trade without an option to exit in Spain? 

Alison: Well, two of the women in my film are out. The third character she's, she's not out, she's still in debt to the network. It's quite a complicated situation for her. For Vanessa, it took her decades to get out, in and out. And she has this intergenerational trauma with her family involved in prostitution. 

Aleeka is probably the best person to listen to about how to get to the other side and what life is like on the other side. So that, that's why I have so much of her in the film. Firstly, I think women, they need to be put in contact with a survivor led organisation to understand the stigma and trauma involved in trafficking and prostitution, because I know it's not easy to get from A to B. Many have told me that it took them multiple attempts to get out. The societies where they're not given the tools to get out. I don't know, it's not easy to answer that question. 

Luba:  I understand. You have mentioned your interviewees. Can you share any particular story you were exposed to during the filmmaking and you especially connected to it? 

Alison: The three women in my film were certainly not the only women I interviewed, I interviewed widely over three years and I decided to focus on the three of them.  Aleeka is on the other side, Vanessa managed to leave last year and Hope's trying to build a life for herself. I've heard horrific stories of violence. I've heard about a woman who was killed in a club in Madrid, how she was strangled and there was a cover-up. I've heard these sorts of stories. 

I've heard a lot of stories about corruption, which I couldn't put in the film for safety sake. I've heard of a lot about bribery, especially with border control. And also I interviewed in one of these ethical brothels, and then I didn't end up putting them in the film because the brothel managers decided they didn't want anything to do with me anymore.  But surprise. 

Luba: Yeah. I'm not surprised. I understand them in this particular point. 

Alison: I remember going in one day and setting up my camera in one of the rooms and I had all of these rules that I had to comply with. I wasn't allowed to leave the room. And if I wanted to leave the room, I had to message the manager and she would come let me out. And I was to sit in the room and if anyone wanted to come and speak to me, they could. And that happened. A couple of women came in to speak to me. With, of course the brothel manager just sticking her head in every 10, 15 minutes to monitor what was going on, but they introduced me to this woman, Leticia, who was the most empowered woman in the brothel. 

 This is their description. She chooses to be here. Prostitution has given her a lot. She's got a house; she's got a car. So when she came in, we were just talking and about 10 or 15 minutes later, she started to tell me her story. She'd been orphaned in Bulgaria. She remembers going through garbage bins with her younger brother, her mother had died. Her father was an alcoholic and they were pretty much abandoned. I don't know how she came to Spain, but she had been in that brothel for about eight years. And she fluctuated between, depends on how you see it in this life.  I've got my license; I've got a house to the other extreme, I don't have any hope anymore. I don't have any dreams anymore. Right. I only care about my little brother. 

I probably spent about an hour speaking with her and, and all of these women towards the end of the interview, I'd ask them what their dreams are. And of course, they tell me some other dream, you know, she had actually studied early childcare and wanted to work in childcare. She said ‘I've been in this life. I don't know how I'll be. I don't know if I'll be able to give something good to the children because I've been in this life, you know’, then on the other hand as well, she was like ‘Oh, my dream, I'd really liked to study interior design’ and the brothel manager walked in towards the end of the interview and said: ‘She's amazing, isn't she, you know, she's really happy here. She's really happy in this job.’ I said, ‘She kind of told me something different.’ 

Luba: Maybe this interview was biased because of the presence of the brothel manager?

Alison: Oh, well she just keeping an eye on it. She was popping in and out, but in those private moments I had with this woman, she told me something different, and the same with the other women I spoke to there, they were all doing it for their families. I don't think I've heard anyone say. ‘I really want to be a prostitute’ I don't think I've met anyone like that. You know, they've all got their various reasons for why they entered prostitution.

Luba:  I understand that nobody is really willing to be a prostitute for the intrinsic reasons, but this story leads me to the heated debate around the sex industry with the two competing narratives, one that perceives the sex industry as a violence against women and then the other frames prostitution as a choice that is not suitable for everyone, but it is legitimate as long as some do it. And your interviewees, and also this woman that you have mentioned now, they came from the background of extreme poverty. Easily it is framed that as women who were so poor, that prostitution was a reasonable choice for them. And we Abolitionists say ‘end the demand.’

Do you believe that ending the demand can leave those women with few alternatives? 

Alison: Well, I mean, reducing demand has been proven to reduce trafficking. You can just look at the Swedish model. Trafficking was reduced by 50% after the introduction of the Nordic Model. But I really support the Nordic Model and every person who has been prostituted, that I've spoken with, have said, they think it's great because it's a bundle of rights, but are we going to have the exit programs ready for women?  

 Specifically, in the case of Spain, we talk about it in my film where it has been pushed around Congress, but politicians have been scared that the law will become diluted in so many ways that it will be lacking the abolitionist principles where there are exit programs for women that they will be accompanied on the journey out of prostitution, not the case of, you know, the men being fined or the women being rescued, but they're rescued and afterwards there's nowhere to go. Do you know what I mean? For example, Aleeka told me she's met the same women who have been rescued, however many times in these operations, they rescue them. Then afterwards there's no work for them to go to. They still have families to feed. And it's something very despairing because I do see women present for help. 

 I do see them want to get out. But the tools aren't there yet. For example, there's one organisation, which I can't mention. In one year they had 400 women present for help. They only had places for 30. I know a lot of women who've benefited from psychological support there, especially during the COVID crisis, I've seen women present with their children and they can get help. They can get food, they can get whatever, but I mean, no one's paying their bills, there's still this question of how are they going to survive. 

 They still might be in a precarious legal situation. There's just so many variables and so many reasons that make it difficult for, for women to get out. It's really, really hard. I see some organisations that are accompanying the women on their journey out of prostitution and the companies as well, which are employing them, but there's just so many women who need the support and there's not enough places. Do you know what I mean? It's really despairing. 

Luba: So I will now play the devil's advocate. We have these women in extreme poverty. Some just cannot exit because they have dependents and some admitted in your movie that they agreed to prostitution as their only chance to escape poverty, they only disagreed with the amount of abuse. 

 So in your opinion, could a legalised and strictly, strictly regulated sex trade, like in several states of Australia, can it be an acceptable solution for those women? 

Alison:. Well, for a start, we can offer migrant women a proper job. Right. I hate how this is okay for migrant women, but not us. I do not agree in any form that the regulations model would work in Spain, purely from what I've said before, it's a cess pit already for human trafficking and sexual exploitation. We have three clubs to every public hospital in Spain. I honestly just think it would explode if that were to happen here. I think we're in a dire situation here that we really do need to invest in the research and invest in the Nordic Model that President Sanchez promised pre-election. No, I don't think it would work here at all at all. 

And in Australia?  Well, I lived in Kings Cross, which is the red light district in Australia, in my early twenties because there's a lot of one bedroom studios there. And it was like a cheaper place for me to live. I used to walk through the Cross every morning and every evening on my way home from work, I saw a lot of women clearly with drug problems, a lot of knife violence. There's a police station right in the centre of the Cross. And unfortunately in Australia, we're really desensitised because when you turn 18, you go for your nights out in the Cross. So there'll be a live sex bar. And then there'll be a drum and bass. Club, and then they'll be some other type of venue for people to party in and then there'll be more sex clubs. So you walk through there with your male friends when you're 18, and they're saying, ‘Hey boys come in here’ it's a completely commercialised sex industry. So, I had always been exposed to that. I had some friends who, considered themselves to be sex workers and things like that. 

Coming from that environment, I was completely shocked when I moved to Spain. We have very high unemployment here. The promise of quick money, which you see in my film which essentially the women were lied to weren’t they? I mean, even if they did accept the offer of prostitution, they didn't know it would be 24/ 7. They had their passports seized, they were trapped under the cycle of debt. There were all these other coercive control factors and the drug addiction, and once you’re caught in that spiral, it's very hard. It's very hard to get out. 

Luba: And then there is another argument by the sex trade apologists that, as far as sex buyers are not criminalised, like under the Nordic Model, they have an incentive to report human trafficking to police. So I am just curious, are you aware of any real stories about human trafficking rings, exposed by punters?

Alison: No, I'm not. And we also discussed this in my film. It's something I read up on when I was researching the film. If sex buyers have an awareness of human trafficking, and I think it's a topic we really need to explore more. There was a study on that commissioned by the Spanish Government and the University in Madrid. And they identified different types of sex buyers. And some of the conclusions were that some of the men believed the women had entered prostitution to buy themselves luxuries. Some had an awareness of human trafficking, but still decided to continue with prostitution and in my trailer, which I will release - hopefully you can publish it with this interview - 

we answer this question in the trailer at the end when I ask Aleeka what she actually thinks. So, hopefully people can watch that and hear her answer.

I think men do it because they can get away with it. You know, the power model is there, it's easily accessible. It's impunity free. 

I've heard of one case here in Barcelona where some German guys were here for a stag night and they were taken to one of these clandestine pesos and they reported. So that's the one case I've heard of in, you know, four years. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. 

Luba:  It is statistically negligible.  I have a practical question. You have met so many survivors and activists, so what advice can you give to a woman in the sex trade? Now you're familiar with Spain. So a woman in Spain in the sex trade and she is willing to exit, what can she do practically, who can she turn to for help? 

Alison: Okay. I will mention the organisations that I've had permission to speak about. In the case of Nigerian women, there are a lot of organisations here that really understand the complexity of the networks, because not only do they come with a really huge debt, when they arrive in Spain, it can be up to 40,000 Euros. But there's also the case of Voodoo where I've met a lot of girls, they really do believe it. A few years back the Oba, he lifted the curse of voodoo for a period of six months to trafficking to Europe and he released the debt as well. And this did actually, it actually worked, it reduced trafficking during this period. And it was also at this period, I had a lot of Nigerian women that actually wanted to speak for the first time, because they did have all of this fear about something could happen to their family. And it's something they call their invisible cord here in Spain. With the Nigerian network, sometimes there isn't a pimp or Madame watching them on the street, but they've had this voodoo spell put on them before they do the trip to Europe. And they really believe it.

Luba:  A sort of psychological slavery. 

Alison: It is absolutely. And I know police and a lot of other people find it really hard to understand because they're not under vigilance in the street. 

like a lot of the other girls are, that's going back to why they call it their invisible cord here. 

I had a lot of Nigerian girls that wanted to open up during this period because normally they're very quiet. And they don't speak up, but there is an organisation called Pathfinders, they’re in the US they have an office in the US and in Nigeria. So what they do is they pick up, whoever wants to go home from the airport. They take them to rehabilitation centre and they give them as long as they need. It's not like six, nine months, you have to be ready to go. 

Having said that when I've spoken to a lot of the Nigerian girls here and I've said, there’s this offer to go back, if you want, they don't want to go back because they don't want to go home empty handed.  After they've been brutalized and everything they've been through to get here also the stigma, a lot of their families have no idea that they've been in prostitution. Some of them do want to go back. So it's good that that offer is there.

 For Latin American women. The Aleeka Keenan Foundation work with women throughout Latin America and Spain. So I would recommend that Foundation. Rescue Freedom, also work with them. There is Medicos Delmondo (Doctors of the World) in most cities and towns in Spain. They do have an abolitionist framework. Of course everyone they have working for them isn't an abolitionist in such a large institution, but speaking about Barcelona Medicos Delmondo in Catalan, I've seen it first-hand the work that they do and I would absolutely recommend to anyone that wants to get out, to speak to them, or if they don't want to get out either. There aren't any judgments. Then there are some other organisations that work directly with the police. When women have been rescued, then they work with those organisations. 

Then there's a lot of smaller NGOs. But I would recommend any frontline organisation that has a survivor led approach. There's one starting in Valencia now called The Independence and Vanessa who was in my film, she's working with that organisation. So I don't think there's anyone better to speak to than someone who has been in that situation, they understand the stigma. They understand the trauma and they do really practical stuff like courses helping with the language, the psychological support, things like that.

 In Madrid there's Project Esperanza, Project Hope they have a really good reputation as well. 

One I think they're in Nevada. There are some really good organisations in Spain. They work tremendously hard. They do amazing work but like I mentioned before, they don't have the places to support all of the women that they need to, because there are just too many, too many women who, who need that help. 

 They can't get that help. So they stay where they are. 

Luba: Thank you, Alison. 

This information can be also useful for people who are willing to help sex trade and trafficking survivors. So they can reference them to those organizations. Thank you very much. I really hope this movie will contribute to the movements to promote the Nordic Model in Spain. 

Alison: I do too. And do you mind me asking you what you took from the film from a survivor's point of view. Are there things you could identify with, or maybe something you hadn't seen before? 

Luba: Okay. First I learned a lot about the legal situation in Spain. It is very important for me, maybe the field of my personal interest. Another very interesting conclusion that I have made is that I see many women who came from extreme poverty, willing to improve their economic situation to achieve some social mobility and sex trade is there is some promise, as you say, it's for quick money. It is very difficult to believe that. But if you look at the sex trade and the women in the sex trade, you can see that nearly nobody improves her situation, health, economic, social in the long run. You see that women who came very poor to the sex trade, they stay poor and they are also very ill marginalised, sometimes addicted to drugs. So the myth of economic mobility or social mobility via prostitution, I knew it before it doesn't work, but this movie was one additional pro for that, no matter how poor you are, prostitution is not the way to become well-off. It can only worsen your already bad situation.  

Women didn’t become rich and they paid an additional price for being in prostitution when you're 18 or 20, 20 years old, sometimes younger. You believe that you're just going to make a fast money and then runaway, it doesn't happen. You will find yourself poorer, ill, marginalized, abused, vulnerable in so many ways.

That is prostitution helps nobody but only the pimps and the johns. This movie is amazing and everyone should see it. So I just want to ask you before we part when and how can we see the movie? What are our options? 

Alison: Good question before I answer that, I just wanted to say one more thing about the film. In this film, I really wanted to focus on the recruitment of the girls and also the recovery, because I really think a lot of films on trafficking are sensationalised, you see a lot of half-naked women, that's always the police busts, saving them from the traffickers and all of that sort of thing. I wanted to give the women all the time that they wanted to speak and tell their story within reason. 

And also, you know, there are older women, well, except for Hope, they're migrant women. They're not these young girls in the porn industry where, which I find, you know, other stories that are a lot on commercial TV and this whole spectacle that people want to see with a film about human trafficking, that's something I really tried to avoid. And like you mentioned before, I did try and make it quite practical as well and propose some of the solutions in the film. So coming off that we're going to do some educational releases in Spain. The first one is coming up on the 23rd of February. And I'm really happy because it will be in the Barcelona area. 

 I'm going to publish a little bit closer to the date because we're inviting some schools to the launch and different government departments that work towards equality. So that's the first step in Spain.

Also with all of the festival restrictions, it's like, it makes it really hard for this film to be seen because you can't have it online. You can't show it in this region if it's going to be in another region. 

At the moment I've been concentrating on Sweden, it's been accepted in two festivals in Sweden. I've asked some activists to watch it actually, and to write about it. It's already won an award in Paris, so it will be screened in Paris later on in the year. 

 Then we have some other festivals coming up in Spain. A US launch is under the way. In the UK, I’d really love for it to be seen at Sheffield. And then afterwards I'd like to look for some on-line distribution. But if there are any institutions, if anyone's listening and would like to learn more about the film, I'd really like them to make contact so we can speak about it because I'd really like it to be shown in universities around the world because there's an English copy with an English narrator. And there's also a Spanish copy with the Spanish narrator. So there's a lot of potential to cross over there, but I will be releasing the dates on my website very soon. And with more materials. 

Luba: Okay. I follow it. I really hope to bring this film to my country because I know that people would love to see it. I know people who are willing to see it. A must see movie.