Status of Women committee  Yes, and because I will do them, I get a bit longer. As for the international aspects, I want to point out that recently the Dutch police closed down half of the red light district in Amsterdam, due to the involvement of organized crime. That tells us exactly what legalization does, as to attracting organized networks.

Status of Women committee  No, we discussed it beforehand. For her, having had this position for so long, and having seen the development of the work that she and her colleagues have been able to do, of course she can only encourage you to establish a national rapporteur. As we discussed beforehand, you're welcome to come here and see for yourself how this work is developed.

Status of Women committee  I will translate that in a moment. The total, you could say, was about 350 million Swedish kronor, which is about $50 million, if one dollar is seven kronor. It includes all of the multilateral projects we have done, the prevention measures within Sweden and outside, and the 30 million kronor—about $4.5 million—that went to the police.

Status of Women committee  May I comment on that too?

Status of Women committee  I think it's important to separate the tasks of a national rapporteur, which are actually to uncover and present the reality of trafficking in Canada. From those presented recommendations, it is then up to the government to make political decisions on whether or not to implement the recommendations and to fund whatever actors need to implement those decisions.

Status of Women committee  Let me say that the former government did a lot on this, but the present government hasn't presented any budget. If I look at everything that was spent during the five years I worked within the government, including the 30 million Swedish kronor that went to the national rapporteur—

Status of Women committee  Should I answer that?

Status of Women committee  Who is to answer this one?

Status of Women committee  The 30 million kronor that Ms. Wahlberg mentioned was earmarked by the government to work on operational measures against trafficking in human beings, not to the office per se. In Sweden, the cost of the office is included in the large budgets of the national police. Because the government has given the task to the national police, they will have to fund her office from that budget.

Status of Women committee  We're just discussing improvement. What Kajsa says would be really useful for her office--and as you remember, they have three police officers and a secretariat--is to have researchers attached to her office, researchers who have good experience and knowledge of this who can assist in investigating things.

Status of Women committee  Kajsa will note what she thinks should be improvements. I will answer what happens in a change of government. We've had, as you know, social democratic governments for a very long time here that highly prioritized the work on trafficking in human beings by giving money to the rapporteur, to the police force, giving a lot of money to NGOs to work on different issues--prevention, protection of victims--and also, money to fund organizations in the countries of origin of the victims.

Status of Women committee  Yes, absolutely, although the initiative originally about the criminalizing of the buyer came from the Swedish women's movement. But the first reports of the national rapporteur were definitely one of the bases for putting the legislation into play.

Status of Women committee  The rapporteur was established in 1997. On the criminalizing of the buyer, the legislation came into place on January 1, 1999, about two years later.

Status of Women committee  Again, I have asked Kajsa what to say. As the county police of Stockholm always say when that issue comes up, there is no such thing as prostitution going underground, because the necessity for the prostitution industry is to reach out to the buyers. The buyers will find the pimps, and they will find the women.

Status of Women committee  Having worked in the Swedish government for five years, I think the disadvantage of only having an office in the government is that when the political majority of the government changes, the policies change quite radically and very quickly. If you have an independent function outside of the government, you create some stability in the work and in the investigation of how to continue to do the work.