The scale of the sex trade, prostitution and human trafficking is enormous, both on our streets and the Internet. But the question is: what is being done to put a stop to the trade on the Internet? The will and capabilities are these, but the lack of resources represents a major hurdle. Advertisements on sex sites increase in line with the demand for buying sex. The Internet sex trade is enormous and will continue to grow without drastic actions.
The situation has been made worse by the fact that the Gothenburg Human Trafficking Group has not been able to undertake any surveillance at all for more than a year due to a lack of resources. Those reports that are made by people are of course investigated in the usual way. The City Police undertake reporting of sex buyers on the streets but not at the same level as in previous years. Meanwhile, nothing is being done to stop the Internet sex trade. In Gothenburg, Mats and his group had previously worked very effectively to track down and apprehend sex buyers, which had the effect of reducing street prostitution.
With the reorganisation of the Police in , the future is unclear. According to management, the new organisation will still undertake work against human trafficking for sexual purposes. How it will be organised and to what extent remains unclear.
As a result, there was considerable criticism directed at Malmo Police. It is hoped that at the end of the year they will be in a position to present a proposal to their leadership on activities for the future. Because current activities occur only sporadically there is a risk that the proposal is based on only a limited part of the sex trade in Malmo.
Mats would prefer a working group that worked full-time to stop the development of prostitution. Stockholm has a prostitution group that works actively and continuously with reporting and surveillance of the sex trade. Because of their high workload, they were unable to participate in an interview, which shows the skewed priorities in the fight against prostitution in Sweden. Stockholm also has a Human Trafficking section that has the task of working with cases dealing with sex trafficking and procurement of prostitutes.
