It was past 10 p. The two women, whose names have been changed to protect their identities, were waiting outdoors in their underwear for potential clients and had no time to rush back to their van. They sprinted in the opposite direction, braving the darkness of the night, hoping to escape what have now become frequent police raids on the woods, which are infamous for sex work.
One of them told my friend he was going to fuck her. The sex workers in Vincennes are mostly Nigerians, the majority of whom are victims of sex trafficking and considered by French authorities as women in need of protection.
In recent months, and despite their precarity, they have been subjected to regular police raids, allegedly in an attempt to remove them ahead of the Olympic Games, according to local organizations.
Sex work is not illegal in France. In , the country replicated what is known as the Nordic model for sex work, decriminalizing public solicitation of sexual services and punishing only the client who pays for sex. In the eyes of the law, the women are all victims and cannot be punished.
Various organizations working with sex workers on the ground told New Lines that documentation control has increased in the first six months of , with many incidents being reported by sex workers in Vincennes and across the city. These controls are being used to go after the women because the police cannot criminalize them as sex workers, only as undocumented foreigners.
