Delphine, Elvire, Aurora. Three tough, sensitive and very determined female cops. Passed by the border police, the family protection brigade or the anti-terrorism department, they work for the Central Office for the Suppression of Trafficking in Human Beings (OCRTEH), based in Nanterre, in the Paris region.
Their mission? Dismantle prostitution networks and get sex workers – whom French law recognizes as victims, whereas, before 2016, they could be prosecuted for soliciting – out of the trap into which they have fallen.
Complicated work, carried out in cooperation with police from other countries, because foreign networks have invaded the prostitution market. By offering clients girls at much cheaper prices, these highly organized networks from Eastern Europe or South America have eradicated French prostitution. “When I go home, I often think of these young women, of what they are going through. We are dealing with a fundamental question of an attack on human dignity,” underlines Delphine, who does not hide the difficulty of the task.
Always under pressure
In his profession, the valuable help of specialized psychologists allows him to better understand the reluctance of victims to speak, to denounce their pimps while the French system provides them with protection. During the hearings, even though the pimps have been arrested, the girls generally do not speak. Always under pressure.
It is all the more difficult to bring down the networks since, today, the lucrative prostitution business has changed methods. No more girls on the street, soliciting the customer. Everything is done through classified ads on websites with so-called “housed” prostitution (in apartments or hotel rooms).
This documentary follows in particular the long work of dismantling a huge Colombian network which was rampant in France and Spain. After two years of investigation, OCRTEH investigators identified, thanks to wiretapping, those responsible for this network on French soil. In this type of issue, international cooperation is decisive when it comes to taking action. On a given day, at a fixed time, very early in the morning, a vast police operation is carried out simultaneously in Spain, in Madrid, Malaga, Torremolinos, in eastern France and in Colombia. The mission is risky, the result convincing: a dozen arrests and a network dismantled.
“It’s more than a job, it’s in line with my values ??as a woman. If there’s one that goes off the grid, that’s fine with me! », summarizes Aurora. Between endless hideouts, grueling auditions and spectacular arrests, the job is difficult. But more necessary than ever.