Entering the field: Nothing in life happens by coincidence

This study is based on six years of experience providing psychosocial services for victims of trafficking in women for sexual exploitation purposes. In 2003, at the beginning of my work as a social worker, I did not expect my work to develop into a scientific study in the future. I still keep in touch till now with the woman who was my first client. This woman needed quick and prompt help, back then in 2003. No sooner did I begin speaking with this woman when I realised I had heard her voice before. During a later conversation

with her, I realised I had consulted this woman by telephone a few years ago while I was working for a help line as a volunteer consul-tant. Now, being near the woman, I realised our meeting was not accidental, since nothing in life is accidental.57 I understood that I must assist her immediately, here and now, otherwise she would face fatal consequences. Later there were many other women suffering from sexual exploitation or involvement in prostitution for whom I provided support while working at the centre. Each had her own painful personal experiences, trials and different ways of overcoming all that. Their stories allowed me to feel and understand what pri-marily stood in their way or injured them. The obstacle standing in the way of the women getting needed help proved to be the unwill-ingness or inability of people whom they had approached in search of help. They needed someone to understand the anxiety they were experiencing as they tried to circumvent various external threats.

These women were broken inside and they were feeling the dangers from the outside world very intensely. To cap it all, they were often inclined to reject the help they needed so much, possibly as a conse-quence of all the rest.

While working in a non-governmental women’s centre, we often deliberated in our frequent conversations with clients what their existing situation means to them and what would help them change.

Each and every one would claim it was understanding and accep-tance of the reality of their being. Such thinking did not give me peace and prompted me to analyse more deeply and to search for effective means to help them. My previous practice and the experi-ence and skills I acquired in a variety of social work58 no longer satis-fied me when I had to provide help to victims of human trafficking and prostitution. Some of the methods I used to apply earlier seemed entirely inappropriate with these clients. Thus new methods had to

57. As Plotinus (Enneades, IV, lib. 4, c. 35) asserts, “Chance has no place in life, but only harmony and order reign therein” (Schopenhauer, 1974, 199).

58. My practice included volunteering for the youth help line providing psycho-logical counselling, social work at the health centre for people with mental dis-abilities and work with female victims of domestic violence.

be found to help these women overcome the traumas they had suf-fered. Moreover there was little practice in working with such clients in the country; thus opportunities to learn and analyse this sort of specific help for victims were limited. This was the beginning of the road drawing me into a more in-depth study on women in prostitu-tion or women trafficked for sexual exploitaprostitu-tion purposes.

In 2004, upon my invitation to study in the doctorate pro-gramme, I began scientific examinations on the personal experiences of women in prostitution or female victims of human trafficking for sexual exploitation purposes. I expected the research to begin at the Klaipeda Social and Psychological Services Centre, which would be the most suitable place to observe the experiences of traffick-ing or prostitution victims the best. As a social worker at the cen-tre, I could be closest to them emotionally; thus, by interacting and talking to them, I would be able to approach their perspectives and sensations regarding what they were experiencing, what their feel-ings and emotions were, how they behaved and how they presented themselves in society.

I gathered a variety of information when I began my study on this phenomenon and the research on the experiences of the women involved. The information included articles and videos about involv-ing women in prostitution. I analysed various literary works on socio-cultural and historical aspects of women’s situations in society and the family that illustrated prostitution and human trafficking as multi-dimensional problems. Furthermore such literature cov-ered issues of the social policies on prostitution and human traf-ficking of women in Lithuania. Furthermore I analysed the national and international legal codes relevant to the sexual exploitation of women, prostitution and human trafficking. Observations of women providing sexual services at their “work” places were conducted in joint with students from the Faculty of Social Sciences at Vytau-tas Magnus University. I kept field notes on my visits to striptease clubs, nightclubs and places where women “worked” providing sex-ual services. I wrote-up notes on the more important details from my observations after my talks with clients. Furthermore I wound up working a great deal with responsible representatives from other

non-governmental and governmental institutions in the course of my practical work and in implementing a number of projects rel-evant to problem resolutions in prostitution and human trafficking.

Notes on these and the instances of greatest importance to me were written-up by me in a diary. I combined several methods, including interviewing and observations, to help me best analyse the personal experiences of women in prostitution within the context of their social life.