Located in Mos Espa on Tatooine, Madam Vansitt's Charm Academy was founded as an establishment where slaves were taught, beyond the courtly arts of dance, song, and conversation, the dark arts of espionage with its finer arts of bribery and political blackmail and assassination—using poisons and hand-to-hand combat, as opposed to the extremes of mechanized battle combat with its use of crude weapons, which was avoided: subtler, less brutal means were needed for women who would be traversing the galaxy and intermingling with a plethora of alien beings in its vast web of political circles. Pala Kwi'teksa, a former slave of Gardulla the Hutt, was a student of the Charm Academy, and Madam Vansitt esteemed the young girl to be smart and cunning. She knew Paula would make a superb spy.