Annika Amour's comment ·
Some years ago I looked up some legal passages that are relevant for escorting in Sweden, in regard to protecting our clients.
I printed them out on a paper that I keep my escort bag. This far, I have never had to use it, but it is a good precaution.
Maybe you foreign girls also can print out some of the law passages I cite in this post? Then keep that paper close at hand, and in case of a razzia, you can read these law passages to the police to protect both your rights and your clients.
The first useful passage is:
Rättegångsbalken 36 kap 6§
Ett vittne får vägra att yttra sig om en omständighet, vars yppande skulle röja att vittnet eller någon vittnet närstående, som avses i 3 §, har förövat brottslig eller vanärande handling.
( https://lagen.nu/1942:740#K36P6S1 )
Translated to English this reads:
“The witness may refuse to speak of a circumstance, if its mentioning would disclose that the witness or related of the witness has committed a criminal or dishonourable act.”
Since doing sexwork in Sweden unfortunately is considered very “dishonourable” (vanärande), this is the way out how having to testify as an escort. :-)
Because otherwise, you do have legal obligation to testify in Sweden. It is called “witness-duty” (vittnesplikt). This obligation to testify applies both for court hearings and for preliminary investigation done by police.
You find the laws regulating this in Rättegångsbalken 23 kap 6§ and onward.
( https://lagen.nu/1942:740#K23P6S1 )
According to Rättegångsbalken 36 kap 21§ normal witnesses can actually be penalized by fines, or even incarcerated up to 3 months, if they refuse to testify in court without valid reasons.
( https://lagen.nu/1942:740#K36P21S1 )
But the extent of this “duty to testify” (vittnesplikt) differs between interrogation in police investigation and actual court hearing:
- When testifying in a police investigation, the witness only has to be there. But the witness is allowed refuse to actually answer. You can keep silent or say “no comment”.
- But in court, a witness commits a crime if you withhold information and refuse to answer questions (unless you have valid reason for not testifying).
And of course, if a witness lies in court, you commit perjury (mened) which is a serious crime you can go to prison for, according to Brottsbalken 15 kap 1§ and onward. ( https://lagen.nu/1962:700#K15P1S1 )
So the police might threaten to force the escort testify in court, if she doesn’t cooperate with answering on questions in normal investigative interrogation.
I figure plenty of escorts probably get so scared about being forcibly “outed” in court, plus risk persecution for perjury if they keep on lying to protect their clients, and this is why they agree to expose their clients in normal police interrogation.
But as said, due to Rättegångsbalken 36 kap 6§ the police cannot force you to testify in court about participating in sexwork, because sexwork is considered committing a “dishonourable act”. Which is a valid exemption from testifying.
It might however be useful to remind the police about this law-passage (Rättegångsbalken 36 kap 6§).
It is possible that the police seldom encounter anyone using this passage about “disclosure of dishonouring act” in their normal work with real criminals. Or that the police pretend not to know, just to be able to bully you and get you talking.
As a defence against police wanting to seize our phones (and thereby get access to client information), there is this passage:
Rättegångsbalken 38 kap 2§ 2st
Ej vare part eller honom närstående, som nu sagts, skyldig att förete skriftligt meddelande mellan parten och någon honom närstående eller mellan sådana närstående inbördes. Befattningshavare eller annan, som avses i 36 kap. 5 §, må ej förete skriftlig handling, om dess innehåll kan antagas vara sådant, att han ej må höras som vittne därom; innehaves handlingen av part, till förmån för vilken tystnadsplikten gäller, vare han ej skyldig att förete handlingen. Stadgandet i 36 kap. 6 § om vittnes rätt att vägra att yttra sig äge motsvarande tillämpning i fråga om innehavare av skriftlig handling, om dess innehåll är sådant, som avses i nämnda lagrum. ( https://lagen.nu/1942:740#K38P2S1 )
I figure this post will be way too long if I translate the whole passage, so I just translate the last, most relevant, sentence here:
“The statement in 36 kap 6§ about witness’ right to refuse to speak possesses equal application when it regards possession of written acts, if its content is such, as regarded in aforementioned law section.”
So, the last sentence in this clause refers back to RB 36 kap 6§. I.e. the very passage about witnesses being protected from “disclosure of dishonourable act”, which I wrote about above.
Meaning that sexworkers have the right to refuse to hand over phones containing written acts, such as emails and text communications - since this information would disclose embarrassing details about our “dishonourable” acts with sexwork. :-D
For some years there was some confusion in Sweden about whether electronic communications such as phone messages and emails were equal to written act (skriftlig handling) in Swedish law.
But as late as 2018 there was a clarifying definition of the word “handling” made in the Constitutional law about Freedom of speech:
Tryckfrihetsförordningen 2 kap 3§
Med handling avses en framställning i skrift eller bild samt en upptagning som endast med tekniska hjälpmedel kan läsas eller avlyssnas eller uppfattas på annat sätt. Lag (2018:1801). (https://lagen.nu/1949:105#K2P3S1 )
This translates to:
“As act is regarded a presentation in text or images and a recording which merely by technical means can be read or listened to or to be perceived by other means.”
So, nowadays it is hence clear that emails and phone messages are to be interpreted as acts (handlingar) in legal texts! Then obviously also as written acts (skriftliga handlingar) since they contain text.
It might however be that some police are ignorant about this clarification in year 2018, about that also phone messages and email are to be considered as written acts. As said, there was ambiguity about that in legislation for some years, and police working in the field might not be that updated on stuff.
So again, it might be good to have all these law passages printed out, and keep them near your phones, just in case.
The strategy to use with this, is to right away admit at being a sexworker. Because then you can make use of these law passages about “disclosure of dishonourable act” in Rättegångsbalken 36:6 and 38:2:2 as protection.
The police cannot anymore threaten you with “obligation to testify “ (vittnesplikt) in court, in case you refuse to speak with them in normal interrogation.
This gives you good ground to go totally “no comment”, when they ask you about the client. Which is the best strategy for protecting the client.
Because if you try to make up a cover story about the client just being a friend, or a guy you just met on a non-commercial date, this is not going to hold up. The police are trained in psychology and interrogation techniques. They are going to ask the most detailed questions which you did not expect.
Sooner or later they are going to pick your story apart. Then they will bully and humiliate you with your own lies, in hope of you getting shamed, scared and psychologically broken. Aiming at getting you compliant with telling them everything they want.
The police are also going to question you and the client separately. So even if you have agreed on a background-story with your client, the police are going to find inconsistencies when they really goes into small details about when, where, how, what.
You and your client will be too stressed out in the situation to be any good at improvising, and you and your client will not be able to improvise the same small details.
Just keep repeating “no comment” both of you. Like those immigrant youth-gangsters do in the suburbs. There is enough police statistics about unsolved crime to prove that this “no comment” strategy works very well for real criminals. After all, the police have the burden of presenting proof of criminal activity. Your client doesn’t have to prove his innocence.
But I also want to add, that the best thing just is to avoid incall. Go for outcall instead, or try to encourage a larger proportion of your clientele to accept outcall. Outcalls are so much safer.
Outcalls make a totally random pattern. Whereas incalls are very predictable, with a repeated pattern of behaviour which is easy to recognize. It takes more man-power and time for the police to identify, locate and tail an outcall working escort. It is much easier for the police to do a traditional stake-out at an incall apartment. The police will also just get a single client at an outcall location, whereas they can pick off several clients at an incall location.
So you are very unlikely to get targeted at all if you stick to outcalls. It is not very economic for the police to bother with outcall escorts.
Hotel personnel are also extremely unlikely to notice that something else than a regular non-commercial date is going on, if you use some common sense with how you behave. Neighbors to an incall will however very likely start to notice that there is a lot more than one boyfriend coming visiting . . .
Anyway, I hope some of you found the info above useful.
Please respect, that I don’t want to reply to personal messages on this site. I am not planning to start writing in this forum. This is just a single post - my first and probably my last.
Take care and stay safe!
all the best
Annika