Stripper visas for Thais and other non-Europeans to end in Switzerland
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 23 October, 2014, 10:46pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 23 October, 2014, 10:46pm
Agence France-Presse in Geneva
A dancer in the Diagliev Club in Moscow.
Switzerland is to stop issuing special work permits for foreign strippers who hail from countries such as Russia, the Dominican Republic and Thailand.
The government said the eight-month permits would no longer be granted after the end of 2015, on the grounds that they had stoked sexual exploitation in the Alpine country.
"Women are forced to drink alcohol, to prostitute themselves, and it is very difficult to prove it," Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga said.
Created in 1995, the permits were meant to protect foreign women who wanted to work as nightclub dancers and strippers from unscrupulous players in the sex business. But after in-depth studies, the government decided that so-called "L permit" status for the women was not having its desired effect.
"Based on a range of police investigations, in 2010 the Federal Migration Office reached the conclusion that the status was no longer playing its protective role and was enabling exploitation and human trafficking," the government said.
From 2016, only women from the European Union will be allowed to come to Switzerland to work in nightclubs.
The L permits granted to nightclub dancers and strippers enabled them to work short-term and send money home to their families. Switzerland issued 844 such permits in 2013, far below the 5,686 given out in 2005.
