Russian prostitution down in Finland?

Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation says Russian-based prostitution has gone down in Lapland.

Two years ago, an estimated 50 to 60 women crossed the border every week to work in the sex trade, and minibuses used to arrive daily with women carrying large numbers of condoms, police say. Now only an estimated 10 to 20 arrive every week to work as prostitutes in Finland’s north.

The purchase and sale of sex are not crimes in Finland.

But police in the northern community of Saariselka recently confronted a group of “tourists” from Russia who were selling alcohol, tobacco and sex. According to a local police chief, their activities were so open that a small boy was overheard asking, “What are those people doing in the bush?”

The “tourists” told police that they had come to Finland to pick berries. But one woman had offered to pay a house call and deliver sex services for only 10 euros – about $13.