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For the woman interviewed the reason for the different treatment was in the factthat she had arrived from Nigeria in an advanced state of pregnancy. If in the firstmoments this was the reason for an excited contrast between the madam and whohad sold the woman, successively the birth of a child represented an instrument ofblackmail of the woman, obliged to prostitute herself not only to pay the debt, butto be able to keep the child with her. The madam in this case managed the child asif it were hers, being at the same time the baby sitter and jailer. In spite of the factthat she was perhaps very attached to the child, she used the child as a blackmailweapon controlling the times and ways of meeting the mother and threatening tosell the child every time she did not behave according to the rules imposed.T<strong>here</strong> are also cases of women who lived in lodgings on their own, without thepresence of persons officially in charge of control. As we will see, this way, even ifgiving the illusion of more liberty, hides the more shifty control mechanism, basedon competition within the group of girls.The lodging is used during the day to sleep or watch TV for those who work atnight, while those who work both at night and day spend few hours. Only in onecase the house was also a place of work, being positioned in the neighbourhood ofthe place of work of the woman interviewed.T<strong>here</strong> are not infrequent changes of lodging due to the buying and selling of thevictims from one to another, or to the incompatibility of character between themadam and the girl or following incursions of the police in the original lodging.“When I saw that my money was not so much to give I started to respond. Oneday she threw my things out [of the house, Ed.] (…) my boyfriend found me ahouse, but I still owed money that I should give ” (Interview Victim No.2).“In the end she said «I don’t want one with her eyes so open, I want my moneyback». I went a second time to Genoa and they sold me another time to Verona”(Interview Victim No.4).“I was in Naples, I worked for a year and then t<strong>here</strong> was a lot of troublebetween me and her and she sent me to her friend <strong>here</strong> (in Veneto)” (InterviewVictim No.8).“Then t<strong>here</strong> were problems of police and the house was full, she put me inanother house, always in Turin” (Interview Victim No.12).The transfer of the girls is not necessarily connected to personal difficulties.The operators often talk about a turnover of the victims not only in neighbouringplaces, but also on Italian territory, with an exchange of the girls between two ormore madams. Two main explanations emerged during the interviews. The firstreason was the fear that the girl could escape the logic of the pact: often the transferis the consequence of a too tight relationship created between the victim and aclient, or connected to the perception that the girl is acquiring excessive margins ofautonomy. The second reason calls upon the logic of rationalising theorganisational network: the need to optimise in economic terms the exploitation ofthe victim, placing her in areas w<strong>here</strong> the market is the most florid 33 .33Data which suggests the existence of a very well organised network, very well structured. We willreturn to this point in the following Chapter.

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