Lee la entrevista en español aquí

Fachstelle Frauenhandel und Frauenmigration (FIZ – Advocacy and Support for Migrant Women and Victims of Trafficking) is a member of GAATW based in Zurich, Switzerland. Jennifer Janssen from the GAATW Secretariat conducted this interview with Lelia Hunziker, Managing Director, in July 2022, to better understand the organisation’s history, current work, and context.

Jennifer Janssen: Thank you for taking the time to speak with me. Let’s start with some history: when was FIZ founded and why?

Lelia Hunziker: The trigger was a 1981 report by a Swiss TV programme about the conditions in which a young Filipina worked and lived in a Zurich nightclub. Alarmed by these circumstances, a group of people from aid agencies, religious groups, and women’s organisations came together; their aim was to become more active in combating the conditions which led to migrant women in Switzerland being exploited in the sex industry, as wives of Swiss men, or exploited abroad by Swiss sex tourists. So in 1985, they established FIZ, which was known at the time as Information Centre for Women from Third World Countries (in German: Fraueninformationszentrum Dritte Welt).

FIZ has changed a lot since then. Today, 35 women work here. We have a Managing Board that consists of five women and I'm the director of the Managing Board. We have two counselling services: the Protection Program for Victims of Human Trafficking and the Counselling Programme for Migrant Women, and we have a department for advocacy and education. We have six shelters for victims of trafficking. We also support sex workers and advocate for the decriminalisation of sex work. Because in counselling we recognise that sex workers and victims of trafficking have different needs and therefore need different support and counselling. Mixing up their needs and situations harms both groups.

In the beginning we spoke about go-go girls, slave trade and third world. The terminology has changed a lot in the past nearly 40 years, so now we speak of sex work, trafficking in women, global north and south divide, and I think it will change more in the coming years. When we identify problems and legal gaps in the areas where we work with clients, then our advocacy department translates it into political processes and demands, and we fight for solutions. We initiate legal proceedings on the national level to fight for women’s rights, but also on the European level when it's necessary. We’ve set precedents that we use for the rights of victims. Our staff includes social workers, lawyers, psychologists, political scientists, sociologists, and ethnologists. We have an interdisciplinary view of the phenomena of human trafficking and that is valuable.

JJ: It sounds like migrant and trafficked women are really at the centre of your work. Can you tell me more about how you incorporate their voices and perspectives?

LH: Once a year we publish a magazine focusing on different topics related to our work. The last one was on human trafficking committed abroad because at the moment that’s a big problem: victims of trafficking are exploited abroad, but when they come to Switzerland, they lack the rights that other victims are afforded. However, the Council of Europe Convention states clearly that Switzerland should give them protection.

Apart from this, we also bridge our counselling and advocacy work where our advocacy work finds solutions to the problems and structural hurdles we identify in our daily counselling. For example, we address our experiences from our victim support work twice a year in meetings with the national parliamentary group on human trafficking. Further, we incorporate women’s stories in traditional and social media, and political activities, or when we attend demonstrations and marches for women rights. We work in a very interconnected way. Cooperation is central in the fight against human trafficking and exploitation. We have a huge network in-house and abroad, at the national and regional level. We work with NGOs and with government agencies. Out of current concerns, one major aspect of our work at the moment, is on the question of Ukrainian refugees and we cooperate closely with La Strada International and La Strada Ukraine and the other GAATW and LSI members in eastern Europe.

JJ: What are some of your other main concerns?

LH: Switzerland has a fairly good response to human trafficking for sexual exploitation, but we don't have almost any cases of labour exploitation - healthcare workers, housekeeping, construction workers, agriculture workers, etc. So we are working on a new national action plan on human trafficking. This will become an important topic and we need to find new ways to identify victims. So far, police structures and identification procedures are very much focused on sexual exploitation, but not on labour exploitation so we have to find ways to identify these victims.

JJ: What are some of the main challenges for migrant and trafficked women and how has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted them?

LH: At the moment, the largest groups of victims of trafficking are from Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary (for several years now), but many women also come from Nigeria, Brazil, Thailand, and the Philippines.

The situation during COVID-19 was very difficult. Many Eastern European women come to Switzerland for three to four months as care workers in private households, then they go back for three months, and then another woman takes their places. During COVID-19, when travel was impossible, many women from Slovenia, Hungary, or Ukraine (to name a few) couldn't leave the country, or if they were to leave, then they couldn't come back. So they decided to stay in Switzerland and leave their children in their home countries, in a home schooling situation. That was quite difficult for them.

We noticed that when migration becomes more difficult, it creates many problems for migrants. Here in Europe, we have free movement for Europeans and European allies who can migrate and get work permits very easily. Meanwhile, people from other countries can’t get a permit to engage in sex work, for instance. Some sex workers from Asia, Latin America, and Africa are working illegally because there are no possibilities for them to migrate and work legally. If they are working illegally, they need help. They have hardly any access to health care. They don't have a work permit, they can't rent a flat, they can't open a bank account. Often, they are dependent on someone who organises all of that. This dependency makes them exploitable and vulnerable. If sex work were also banned, these people would be even more exposed to controls, violence, exploitation. This is another reason why sex work must be decriminalised.

JJ: In your opinion, what is unique about the work FIZ does?

LH: I think it is our three departments. As I mentioned, we have the human trafficking department; it's quite big for Switzerland with the six shelters. We have many years of experience and specialisation and we have many professionals in our team. The second department is the counselling of sex workers, this gives us a good view of the differences between human trafficking and self-determined sex work. Then we have the advocacy department that allows us to demand the amendment of laws or introduction of new laws. Also, the parliamentary group on human trafficking which works with politicians two or three times a year is an important tool to fight for the rights and dignity of migrant women. We work with sex workers and support them to empowered and speak for themselves – rather than us speaking on their behalf.

For us, it’s important to cooperate with all the stakeholders working in the area of human trafficking: the police, first responders, prosecutors, and so on, because we all have our role to play to effectively combat trafficking. We are very strong in the specialised protection of victims. The police need us and we need them because they help us identify victims. So we all have different roles and these roles have to be very clear. But without cooperation there is no solution.

JJ: What does a typical day at FIZ look like?

LH: It's very different depending on who you ask. My work is mainly office work and a lot of meetings. I review all the contracts we have, I think nearly 20 contracts, with sponsors, cities, cantons… I also do a lot of communications work. When I come in the morning, I plan my day and my tasks, and then at 10 o'clock a journalist calls to ask me about a certain issue, to ask my opinion and if I can come for the evening news. And then the whole day is different.

My colleagues who provide counselling services to victims are in meetings with the clients. But one colleague always has the emergency mobile phone because the police or another first responder may call and inform us about a possible case of trafficking in a brothel, on a construction site, in a restaurant – whatever, and say that they will arrive with a client within an hour. And so everything changes. We have a 24/7 crisis intervention centre, so yeah, everything can happen. Sometimes it's very quiet and we think, oh, when will the next case come? And then when the cases keep on coming, the pace goes up and we think, oh, well now it's too much! It's nearly never at a steady pace.

JJ: Thank you so much for your time and for these insights.