"Every day 400 prostitutes are being raped in Amsterdam". These are the words of the mayor of Amsterdam, Eberhard van der Laan, words he has used already multiple times when it comes to a debate about prostitution in Amsterdam and defending his 'project 1012' to 'clean up' the Red Light District in Amsterdam. Words by the way, that where almost exactly copied by Marjolein Moorman, also from the same political party , the PVDA (Labor Party), during a debate about prostitution in the Amsterdam Red Light District, for the local news channel AT5 (view the debate here). But also by district attorney in Amsterdam, Jolanda de Boer. The line is obviously meant to shock people into supporting the plans of the PVDA to reduce the Red Light District, plans they have already partially been executed and they have been working on already since 2007 and the wings of former alderman Lodewijk Asscher at the time.

It comes from a scripted answer to defend the plans of the PVDA to close down more windows, a plan that in recent years has gotten more and more criticism for it's failures, and the answer goes something like this:
"There are 7000 prostitutes working in Amsterdam. Nobody knows exactly how many women are being forced into prostitution, because researches show very different numbers about how many prostitutes are being forced, from 8% to 90% and everything in between. So we don't know how many women are being forced into prostitution and are being raped on a daily base. But even if we take the lowest number of 8%, that still means 400 women are being raped on a daily base here in Amsterdam, and we shouldn't want that. So if you want to fight forced prostitution, you will support our plans, if not then you're supporting human trafficking."

The numbers are obviously meant to shock people into supporting the plans of the PVDA without question. Anyone who opposes the plans immediately disqualifies themselves by the added line 'if not, than you're supporting human trafficking'. And even if you try to reason with the people from the PVDA, they will always come back to 'their fact' that 400 women are being raped, and that 'if you're not with them, then you're supporting human trafficking'. And this is exactly why it's so hard to prove to people that the PVDA aren't really interested in the safety of women in prostitution, and that they're not 'saving' women from 'being raped', but that they're only interested in getting rid of the image Amsterdam has about prostitution and drugs (read more about that here).

But the PVDA are just manipulating people into supporting their plans using a story filled with holes. The first hole in this story comes from the fact that they're defending their policy on the Red Light District, 'project 1012', and using statistics from the Red Light District, while on the other hand referring to the total number of prostitutes that work in the entire prostitution industry in Amsterdam, and not just to those of the Red Light District. It's like doing a research on Starbucks and using their statistics to claim things about Starbucks, while relying on numbers from the entire catering industry.
So using the number of all the 7000 prostitutes working in Amsterdam, while we're talking just about the Red Light District where only around 900 prostitutes are working, is obviously a way to crank up the number of women 'being raped' into a shocking number, to get support for their plans.

But the second hole in their story is much bigger. It revolves around the use of the word 'rape', which is being used to imply horrific things happening in the prostitution industry. The word rape is used to imply that forced women are doing this job against their will, and that in a way it's rape. Of course this would never hold up in court since we're talking about forced labor rather then actual rape, but that doesn't stop the people from PVDA of using this word. But fact is, that the 8% they use in their story, are not all women who are being 'raped' as they claim. The 8% comes from a research about human trafficking, which is much more then just forced prostitution and the 'rape' they claim. Human trafficking also encompasses extortion and/or assisting the migration of a sex worker, stuff that has little to nothing to do with being forced, and certainly has nothing to do with 'being raped'.
In fact, if you look at the court cases about human trafficking, you'll often find that women weren't forced into prostitution, but they choose it themselves, and afterwards got into trouble with someone assisting them. Of course there are also cases of real forced prostitution, but certainly not every case of human trafficking is a case of forced prostitution. So claiming that 8% of the prostitutes are being raped, is hugely exaggerating things. This would only be the case if human trafficking only encompasses forced prostitution, which is definitely not the case.
So also the claim that 400 women would be 'raped' every day in Amsterdam, is simply false. The 400 women they are talking about, are the estimated number of victims of human trafficking, of which only a portion is being forced into prostitution or 'rape' like they call it.

Nobody knows exactly in how many cases of human trafficking there's also rape involved. It's also difficult to say, since even if rape would occur, that doesn't automatically come from the fact that they're victims of human trafficking. Also a prostitute can be raped outside of work and not by her 'pimp', just like every other woman can. And certainly those women who where victims of extortion or who where merely getting assistance into migration for sexwork, are not being raped.
But let's say that about 50% of the cases of human trafficking would involve rape, which is very high, seeing the number of court cases that I've come across with and have much less then half of them involved a woman being forced into performing sexual acts. But let's just say it's 50% to 'humor' Van der Laan and the rest of the PVDA. That would mean that from the 900 prostitutes working in the Red Light District, of which 8% are victims of human trafficking (72 prostitutes), we would be talking about 36 women (50% of the 72) that would actually be 'raped' as they call it.
That's a very different story from the 400 women that mayor Van der Laan claimed, and although 36 women are still way too many, I think it gives a very different view on prostitution than the one the PVDA would like us to have. We're talking about 36 women, from the 900 that are working there!
No offense, but don't you think closing down the workplace of 900 women to 'save' 36 women is overreacting a little bit? And by the way, in what way is closing the work place for these women, going to save those 36 from being raped? Do they really think those women who are being raped wouldn't be put to work somewhere else by their pimp, if they lost their place to work in the Red Light District?

It seems that the PVDA is defending their plans for closing down windows in the Red Light District of Amsterdam using a scare tactic, in which the more horrific they can make their story, the more support they'll get. Of course to they eyes of the general public this is invisible since they have no idea, but not to those that are in or are related to prostitution. But the PVDA has very cleverly put everyone that is connected to prostitution away as criminals, disqualifying them from the debate, and have silenced everybody else who stood up against them as 'a supporter of human trafficking' if they do not agree.
As I've talked about before in this post here, closing down the windows in the Red Light District doesn't stop human trafficking and forced prostitution, but in fact only makes the chances of human trafficking bigger because the police and other authorities loose them out of sight. After all, how can you fight something if you can't see it?

You could even say that the plans from the PVDA to reduce the number of windows in Amsterdam, is supporting human trafficking and forced prostitution. After all, it's because of their policy that women have lost their safe workplace, and by taking away their safety of their workplace, they've indirectly been responsible for all the women that have become victims of human trafficking, due to the fact that they where not protected anymore.
In fact, it's almost as if mayor Van der Laan seems to be protecting pimps, by keeping them out of sight of the police and other authorities, by moving those women away from protected areas like the Red Light District, causing them to work unprotected in prostitution, like in hotels and homes.
They've also neglected to support the women who lost their safe workplace in the Red Light, neglecting to look after their safety. Now isn't one of the first priorities for any government to look after the safety of the people living and working there? Then how can you claim to fight human trafficking, by removing people from a safe place to work, leaving them no other option (since they get no help or support) but to work in places that don't provide the safety the Red Light District offers?
After all, where are these women to go, if they loose their safe workplace, don't get any help or support from anyone, loose their income, and are not being monitored or helped by anyone, with a good chance of ending up in the very hands of those the PVDA claims to be protecting them from?
If you're reducing the number of safe workplaces for people, and not offering them any way out, or any help to get started somewhere or with something else, you're neglecting those people, and you are responsible for what happens to those people. And can anyone explain to me why people think it's a good reason to reduce the number of safe workplaces for employers, and why anyone could even think that reducing the number of safe workplaces will help the safety?

No, the mayor of Amsterdam, and with him the PVDA in Amsterdam itself, has no interest in saving women from being raped. They only pretend to be the saviors, while actually helping the pimps to stay out of the hands of the police and other authorities, by forcing prostitutes to work in places that are less protected. The PVDA is helping pimps, and is helping forced prostitution and human trafficking with their plans to close down safe workplaces in the Red Light District.
Fact is that right now there may be around 36 women that are being raped on a daily base in the Red Light District, but if the PVDA continues with their plans, the total number of prostitutes in Amsterdam getting raped might get much higher then the 400 that Van der Laan talked about. If that is their goal, they should continue closing down more windows. But if they want to save women from forced prostitution, they should offer them a safe place to work, a right that every worker has.
So if they really want to fight human trafficking, they will create new workplaces in the Red Light District in Amsterdam, to ensure the safety of the women working there now, and also to ensure the safety of the women that have lost their safe workplace due to the policy of the city government and the PVDA. Create more safe workplaces, so you can ensure the safety of more women, to protect them against pimps and traffickers and fight forced prostitution. You're not gonna safe them if you can't find them after you kick them out.

Dutch version