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here - Cooperazione Italiana allo Sviluppo

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If the woman is pregnant in most cases she is made to abort and for that theyask another 1,500 Euros (if the pregnancy is already in the fourth month it becomes2,500) to add to the debt and the other expenses 34 .From many testimonies emerges the weight at the psychological as well asphysical level, to put up with for a year or two (this is the average duration for thepayment of the debt) a style of life which foresees about 15, 20 sexual intercoursesper day with people unknown, often violent or of whom they are afraid.The constant fear is to find themselves faced with danger for their safety, whichconstitutes another element of discomfort: many girls say that each time they goout they do not know what could happen to them. They are frightened of beingkilled, hit, or of becoming ill.According to the opinion of several privileged witnesses, in the relationshipwith the clients, physical and moral violence is not rare, often accentuated, in thecase of the Nigerian victims, of attitudes and requests for “extreme” sexualpractices that visibly betray the sense of a perceived cultural superiority, if notracial, on the part of many Italian men.In this sense the testimony of an operator from Castelvolturno is emblematic:the social fibre is severely degraded on the coast area of the north of Naples w<strong>here</strong>the daily context of sexual relations is characterised by physical violence and moraloppressionThe Law Enforcement officers also register multiple violence by the clients, inparticular to the damage of the Nigerian women “A group attacked her andtortured her with the neck of a broken bottle ” (Questura of Venice).It is difficult to say if the Nigerian women put up with more violence incomparison with those from other ethnic groups, but their clients are often thosefrom the edge:“Nigerian prostitution is directed towards the low end of the market (…) it issymptomatic of the fact that they are in the suburbs, they have lower chargest<strong>here</strong>fore even the clients belong to the lower end of the customers” (Corpo deiCarabinieri - Rome).To make a precise complaint against the authors of the violence undergone isoften very difficult: if, as nearly always happens, the attacker is Italian or howevera white, the woman has nearly always difficulty in reconstructing a preciseidentikit, because in her eyes the somatic lines of whites are hardly distinguishable.Risks of violence derive sometimes from problems with other organisations forthe management of the territory, problems that are “sorted out” putting pressure onthe same girls, as is evident from the testimony which follows:“Then I had a problem t<strong>here</strong>. Six months had passed when an Albanian arrivedwho told me «get out of <strong>here</strong>». I went to the house and I said that I had been told togo away, and that I was afraid of the Albanians. She said: «This is my place and34Faced with these situations, it appears evident how important is the aid provided by those organisationsthat operate in health protection and harm reduction, and that can sustain the women to access and benefitfrom the social health services of the territory.

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