So today I got my first interview posted in a newspaper. It was the Dutch newspaper Het Parool which had the courage, and journalist Corrie Verkerk who was smart enough to look me up and ask me to let me give my comment on the recent news that politicians want to criminalize clients of forced prostitutes.
This is the article:
I'm quite happy with the article, since it precisely states what I'm thinking, and I'm happy Corrie was able to see past everything and was smart enough to focus on telling the truth and report it.
This is the article:
 |
| English version of the article can be found here |
Some people have commented on the fact that at the end of the article they mention a client who 'thinks' he can see if a girl is forced. But I think the reason this was put in the article, was exactly because of his 'tip' this client gives about how to spot a forced prostitute, which is about spotting bruises, which is exactly what I've debunked in this article. The 'John' as they call it in English, basically says he sees a bruise as a definite sign of being forced. Yet earlier in this article, I've already explained that I've also got bruises sometimes, and yet I'm not forced. Of course this goes all the way back to my article about '9 Signs of forced prostitution', in where I debunk most of the so called 'signs' clients should be able to use to spot forced prostitutes. Obviously this anonymous client from hookers.nl took that very serious, which just shows the impact these dumb 'signs' have on clients, and how mindless they'll accept things other people say without thinking twice. A typical example of not being able to think for yourself.
Truth is of course that a client could never see if a prostitute is forced. There's just no way to tell, unless she explicitly tells you. But even then you'll have to be careful not to mistaken a sarcastic joke for the truth, because sometimes I also get so bored of these questions, that I sometimes also sarcastically say to people that I'm forced and I only get to keep 2 Euro's of what I make for my 'pimp'. Obviously this isn't true, but it does show how tired we get from getting these questions all the time, and how sarcastic you get from them all the time.
Because let's be honest, how many people here have never had a bruise in their entire life? Or even worse, how many people here had a bruise somewhere, and still went to work? Does that make you forced? Of course not, that's just idiotic!
There are girls that break their legs, that doesn't mean they're forced, even though that's automatically what a lot of people will assume, but that just shows how automated this idea is of a prostitute doing things against her will. We only need a slight hint to automatically trigger something in our minds that says a prostitute is forced. It's a testament to the strength of the marketing campaign anti-trafficking organisations have done. It's so stuck in our minds that when you see a prostitute with a bruise, you'll automatically assume she must be forced. Something you don't assume when for instance you see a secretary with a bruise or a broken leg. Then how come people assume this with a prostitute? Simple, only because that's the information that has been fed to us from day one. Repeat it often enough, and people will automatically make that association. it basically comes down to brainwashing.
In the article it also mentions the discussion I was having, or trying to have, with SP parliament member Nine Kooiman, one of the initiative takers of this new proposition law. It wasn't so much of a discussion, since she stopped listening to me after like 4 Tweets, and has since completely ignored my responses, even though I gave her an invitation to come to talk to me. She also hasn't responded to me after this article was published in the newspaper by the way, even though my boyfriend send it to her in a Tweet, and many other people retweeted it.
It's a typical example of how politicians refuse to listen to people from the field, people with experience, and the people who it actually concerns, and how they completely focus purely on what's written on the page, in stead of what happens in reality. When I asked her for instance how this new proposition law would help those victims, all I got was a 120 page research document. Apparently she's so knowledgeable about this matter, that she can't even describe how this would help in her own words, and needs to completely and mindfully rely on a document which says it will help.
Oh, and by the way, how many prostitutes did that research document talk to again to see if it would be a good idea? Exactly! None! Yet again, a research has proven itself to be completely useless, by talking and referring to everyone else, except the people which it's all about, the prostitutes!
What did the research base it's idea on that it would be a good idea to criminalize clients of forced prostitutes? Well, how surprising, the research of the Nationaal Rapporteur Mensenhandel. An organization which counts every girl that looks suspicious in the eyes of customs as a victim. Marijke Vonk already wrote an entire article on this, which you can find here. It proves with facts that the Nationaal Rapporteur counts virtually everyone that passes customs as a victim, even though there's no good reason to assume she is a victim, or for that matter even has anything to do with prostitution at all!
I'm 100% for sure that I'm also one of those 1222 'possible victims' they speak about in the report of the Nationaal Rapporteur. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm in there multiple times, since the Nationaal Rapporteur doesn't look if the same people are counted twice, which automatically results in higher statistics. In fact, I'm pretty sure almost every girl form the Red Light District in Amsterdam is counted once or more in this report, for the very simple reason that almost every girl from the Red Light get's pulled over by customs for questioning.
So far this year I've only been pulled over two times, but then again, I've also only traveled home only two times, so that makes pretty much sense. They pull you over, and they start asking you questions about where you come from, where you work, if you know where you life, if you have a boyfriend, what's his phone number, if someone comes to pick you up form the airport, what kind of work your boyfriend does, if you give money away to other people, etc. etc.
So the fact that this research document Nine Kooiman presented to me as 'how this would help victims', is completely based on false statistics is completely ignored, just like how she apparently has completely ignored me. She'd rather trust in a document that's based on false statistics, and that didn't talk to anyone with any field experience, and completely ignored the people which this new law will affect.
It just shows how much she really cares about prostitutes. I guess she only cares about those prostitutes on paper, and not the real ones talking to her. Kinda disappointing, but then again, not really surprising, after all, they're politicians, they're paid to lie stuff.
I guess politicians like Nine Kooiman should take more advise from people like Laurens Buijs and Linda Duits, who recently wrote a great article on how politicians completely ignore prostitutes, to create policies they 'think' works, because a piece of paper (or actually 120 pieces of paper) says it (read their article here).
Fortunately there still are people out there who listen to prostitutes, and who deserve our gratitude. These people are people like Marijke Vonk, Laurens Buijs, Linda Duits, Corrie Verkerk and of course ex-prostitutes who speak out for us, like Mariska Majoor and Metje Blaak. Those are the people that count, that people should listen to, and not politicians who just do things based on pieces of paper, either that be a report, like Nine Kooiman does, or based on some very old pieces of paper called a Bible, like Gert-Jan Segers does as also this article proves. Don't treat us like numbers on a piece of paper, treat us like regular people and talk with us!
Dutch version
Dutch version
|
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Beware of such laws to protect the sexworkers. These are often stretched to antiprotitutionlaws. Especially when it comes from the Christian Union, they want to ban prostitution alltogether. There are always people who take financial advantage of prostitution. For example, the partner or boyfriend, people who mediate, so potentially human traffickers. The client wants to protect his identity so his position is weak. Just think of the brothel ban in 1913. Ment to protect the girls against the dominance of the brothel owners. Turned in practice in an antiprostitutionlaw because nobody got a permit to work independently.
Glad to see your interview in the paper! Maybe I can find an English translation somewhere online.
I found out recently that a young woman works 14 hrs a day 7 days a week at Geleen straat. First thing I thought was she must be abused It worried me but I decided to go back and talk to her again. I didnt find her and instead talked to her colleagues. turns out the foreign prostitutes there all work these hours. They take 1-2 days off every 2 weeks. one said she goes on a holiday every 3 months They seemed to be quite happy with it. No signs of abuse whatsoever. What to make of it? Abuse? Working for a pimp? As long as they dont speak up, no way to find out.
Frankn71: I have no idea if this girl was forced or not. But for example in Swiss bars girls usually work that amount of time, so do srxworkers in German FKKs. In the bars it doesn't mean that they have to be in the bar the whole time - as far as I know they have to be there only if there's a client inside, if not, they can stay in another room. Girls can go there for at least 2 weeks and I'm not sure if they can get a day off. My two friends worked in a Swiss bar and I don't know if they could have got a day off but I don't think they wanted one because they wanted to get as much money there as possible. To compare: in Switzerland a girl can get 250 EUR for one hour and she can keep 150 EUR of that. In Hungary it is around 50 EUR and probably you can get more clients in a bar than online. (And more men can afford it in Switzerland than in Hungary)
I worked in an FKK for a few days in Germany and I had to arrive until noon and stay until midnight, or arrive until 5pm and stay until the club closes (2 AM or 4 AM). Of course I was allowed to spend time in the changing room but still I had a kinda "job description". Of course I prefer more to work on my own but in another country it's not as easy as in your homeland.