Women who cross borders – black magic? A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Norwegian newspaper coverage

Abstract

In some of Norway’s biggest cities; Oslo, Bergen and Stavanger there has been reported an increased number of foreign women in prostitution (Pro Senteret 20062). The increase of foreign women in prostitution has led to changes within the local prostitution scene, due to the fact that women who support their drug abuse by prostitution has left the market or become less visible.3 It has also led to changes in the public discussion of prostitution. The media repeatedly describe the phenomenon by using words such as “explosions”, “invasions” and “floods” of “foreign prostitutes” or “foreign whores” who are controlled by “foreign criminals” and mafia-like organisations, something which escalated into a “whore-war”. It has especially been the Nigerian group of women who have received massive media attention, as media could report an increase from two Nigerian women in 2003, to approximately four hundred by 2006. Nigerian women were described as more visible, not only because of their ethnicity, but also because they behaved different than other groups of women. The public outcry especially escalated when the prostitution scene became an increasingly visible element in Oslo’s parade street Karl Johan. Nigerian women in prostitution, were in the public eye presented, in every way possible, as being a “matter out of place” (Douglas 1996), and as doing the wrong things at the wrong places.