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arms), tortured in many different forms 44 , if the rules are broken, or there isincorrect behaviour: to have hidden part of the money earned, to be late talking to aclient, etc. In the major number of cases, however, the means of expression forcompulsion are more frequently subtle and shifty: it is not rare that on the first slip,the woman is pardoned and encouraged to earn more or she is “instructed” again onhow she should work and only later do the sanctions start, to underline the fact thatthe madam does not want to punish, but is partly forced to by the continuednegligence of the woman.Violence may arrive to high levels: even if not being a means of dailymanagement of exploitation, there are numerous cases of violence, very cruel,often used as a warning to the others (for example, burning the body of a womanwith an iron and showing the burns to avoid any rebellion).In these last cases it is never the madam herself: the madam manages, with thecollaboration of some men (according to the tales of the victims, even Moroccansand Italians are paid to go and hit and frighten the woman), the daily violence “ofordinary administration”, but when it is needed to raise the profile specific Nigerianfigures intervene, who have the role of “hitters”. These enter on the scene on theorders of the madam, when the violence must go beyond the ordinary. Often thevictims are petrified with terror of some of the male figures noted in different localcontexts.These men are presented normally as friends or at least family friends, but the“hitter” is hardly ever a “man of the madam” who in general continues to have amarginal role and does not have a more violent behaviour.The threat does not cease with giving up prostitution or with complaints :numerous are the testimonies of victims who, under ex art.18 d.lgs. 286/1998, meetpeople near the madam or the madam herself and who are reminded of the debtpayment and threaten “retaliations” in case of the lack of respect for the pact.Sometimes the threats are pushed, silently, even to court: “ Even in the course of thedebate there was a woman who could not say...In the preliminary investigationsshe told us she had been exploited, threatened, that the family had been threatened.However, during the debate she denied everything; following this I received aletter personally addressed to me which said that in the court there were twoNigerians present - that therefore they knew about the case - and she could not sayanything because they had already gone to the house of her mother and sister, andif she had spoken up they would have died ” (Questura of Udine).Numerous are the replies about the violence perpetrated on the families. On theone hand, to corroborate what the victims declare, there are the declarations of thewomen that have decided to denounce the exploitation as well as the telephoneintercepts. On the other hand, in some cases, it has been possible to obtain realdocumentary proof (for example photographs which show scared family members),indicative of how real the threats to the families are. It should be noted that oftenthe threats are activated immediately after the rebellion of the woman, to44For example forcing the women to remain naked on their knees for hours until the moment to return towork, obliging the woman to remain immobile for hours holding very heavy objects on her head, pouringsaucepans of boiling water on the legs, hitting them with electric cables, hitting them with a stick, bitingthem.