here - Cooperazione Italiana allo Sviluppo

A: «You have to bring me a present of three million! 75 » (Preventive detentionorder, criminal proceeding - Naples, 1999).The extinction of the debt sees the figure of a “client-saviour” not rarelyinvolved, who helps the girl pay the remaining amount, in some cases even gettinginto debt. This figure sometimes represents an occasion for a real change of life,but in the opinion of different operators, is often a complicating factor, eitherbecause, if not loved by the girl, the logic of the relationship of prostitution isreproduced, or because such relationship can be an obstacle towards the process ofgradual understanding, on the part of the victim on the edge of individualautonomy.Sometimes, however, the women use these client-saviours to emancipatethemselves, exploiting the possibility that this presence offers: “Some marry anItalian man, many of them do this, and they think that if you marry an Italian, after6 months you have a passport. Therefore they prefer to marry, by contract, bypaying someone stupid, a figurehead. If you ask me how many of those that marryan Italian, how many are for love, I say 2%. To stay beside an Italian man…apartfrom the fact that the culture is very different and then it seems as if I was stayingwith one of my clients. And it is for this that I can’t manage to have a relationshipwith an Italian man” (Interview Victim No.4).Different operators, even from the police, maintain that the women have bynow acquired the capacity not to get involved in a relationship with the so-calledclient-saviour: “They pluck the chicken well, and then goodbye” (Caritas - Udine).The simple extinction of the debt is not a sufficient condition for the liberty ofthe victim. In nearly all the cases, the woman does not have identity documents, orpermission to stay; she does not have, or has little knowledge, of the opportunitiesand services of the city where she lives, nor “social capital” 76 to spend. Generallytherefore, it is not even possible to imagine a normal life in Italy. Apart fromstaying in the prostitution circuit, an alternative is often to start legal activities orsemi-legal activities managed by their countrymen: for example managing orworking, without paying taxes, in a phone centre or other similar commercialactivity. The women escaped from prostitution even help the women that are stillthere, for example by sending cash to the families.The support of the Nigerian community in Italy is, at this stage, playing animportant role, above all if the girl is not assisted and accompanied by the Italianorganisations that work in the sector. It is the community, generally, to produce forthe girl a choice of possibilities. Very important in this phase is, in addition, therole of the extended family that can affect in several ways the future of the girl,:supporting or negating consent to the continuation of the life on the street, takingthe girl again into the family in Nigeria (very rarely), or having her accepted,provisionally, by relatives in Italy or in other European countries who will help herfind a place and work.75According to the testimony of the women, the present is even more costly, around 5 million lira.76For social capital it is intended the patrimony of relations of which the individual is in possession, orthe network of relationships that can be used to face individual needs and the needs of social functioning,as well as the capacity that she has to benefit from resources and to use the ties for her own use.