tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post2846670551979610377..comments2024-03-27T03:07:32.938-07:00Comments on Behind the Red Light District: "Every day 400 prostitutes are being raped in Amsterdam"Felicia Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-17332917439990761952014-06-15T13:39:10.407-07:002014-06-15T13:39:10.407-07:00Pretty clear that city government is using traffic...Pretty clear that city government is using trafficking as an excuse to close windows when in reality it makes the lives of sex workers more difficult and dangerous.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-57381391278935250212014-06-15T12:20:55.171-07:002014-06-15T12:20:55.171-07:00Very interesting. Thanks.Very interesting. Thanks.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-83696552140462023862014-06-15T01:20:45.053-07:002014-06-15T01:20:45.053-07:00´Perhaps you should post this on her YouTube video...´Perhaps you should post this on her YouTube video comments as well, so the singer can decide for herself if she wants to support such an organisation.´<br /><br />I think not! ms Boroguez is ´ambassador´ of IJM, has started her career in evangelical revival bands.<br /><br />She has sold out her soul a long time ago!<br /><br />https://www.facebook.com/pages/International-Justice-Mission-Nederland/196678880377286?fref=tsRootmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07486193197484646637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-62436256728177742702014-06-14T13:19:57.228-07:002014-06-14T13:19:57.228-07:00@BobS
Great research! Perhaps you should post this...@BobS<br />Great research! Perhaps you should post this on her YouTube video comments as well, so the singer can decide for herself if she wants to support such an organisation.<br />But thank you very much for the tip!Felicia Annahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-14889596350991847042014-06-14T09:34:35.022-07:002014-06-14T09:34:35.022-07:00About the song of Christina Borguez ( https://www...About the song of Christina Borguez ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUh9fbM1uXk ) , wich suggests the Wallen is a hellhole of child prostitution: At the end of the clip the web adress of a NGO called ijmnl.org is shown:<br /><br />This is a rabid evangelical anti sex work organisation: via NGO watch:<br /><br />http://www.swaay.org/action/googlehandout.pdf<br /><br />´International Justice Mission is an evangelical NGO that "seeks to restore to victims of oppression the things that God intends for them."<br />The so-called "rescue" work promoted by organizations like IJM translates to actions that are nothing short of violent, neocolonialist oppression against an easy target: brothel workers in developing countries. IJM uses its power to pressure governments to crack down on the whole sex industry as an "anti-trafficking" measure, which leads to violent raids from famously corrupt police forces in countries like Cambodia, the Philippines, and India. The people caught up in these raids frequently report being beaten and raped by the police who are supposedly "rescuing" them, and are detained against their will in privately-funded locked-door "rehabilitation centers" or in overcrowded jails. ´<br /><br />http://www.swaay.org/ is a GOOD, pro-sex work NGO<br /><br />Anyway: ijm.org is the worst of the worstRootmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07486193197484646637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-35140297880194565472014-06-13T04:21:01.169-07:002014-06-13T04:21:01.169-07:00Off topic, but important:
Felicia, I want to warn...Off topic, but important:<br /><br />Felicia, I want to warn you about the site reason.com (you linked to in one of your twitters)!<br /><br />Although their opinion about prostitution is just about what many of us think, and seems therefore worth linking to, it has a very dark side to it: extremely racist, xenophobic, antisemitic and promoting pedophilia.<br /><br />Also extremely misogynistic!<br /><br />Very toxic in my opinion!!! (linking makes one guilty by association, in many peoples eyes). Warn your collegue bloggers!<br /><br />(first version of this comment deleted because of typos)<br /><br />RootmanRootmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07486193197484646637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-76933811424121807522014-06-08T14:14:07.409-07:002014-06-08T14:14:07.409-07:00Loved Frans's post (finger most definitely on ...Loved Frans's post (finger most definitely on the pulse). Look forward to reading the reference. I made a point of photographing the 'improvements' to the red light district during my most recent visit. If I was a tax payer, I would be asking for my money back THIS is it, after 7 years!!!! I looked at the snack bars between Dollebeginsteeg and Trompetersteeg and laughed out loud (and took more photos). Someone should be asking questions about political competence. How many millions of euros did those snack bars (not all opened yet!!!!!) cost? The degree of political incompetence is (quite frankly) breath takingly frightening.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-48462123499479648172014-06-08T11:54:08.705-07:002014-06-08T11:54:08.705-07:00Excellent.
As you have suggested before, the Amst...Excellent. <br />As you have suggested before, the Amsterdam prostitution mission (actually a slow-death strangulation policy for De Wallen) is not really motivated by improving the social position of prostitutes in general or even fighting sex trafficking, as stated and preached by hypocritical local politicians, Mayor Van der Laan in the first place. If this were really their honest motivation, politicians would have gone overboard with publicizing the smallest result in improving working conditions, safety, and a better life for prostitutes they so much care about. But after SEVEN years of apparently intense fighting the so-called wrongs, with national and international allies, with local police squads performing raids, with the help of the Ministry of Justice, with a special national Reporter Human Trafficking, with a special Monitor Prostitution and Human Trafficking within the national Police Force, with local and national NGOs offering support, help, and exit programs, with a special prostitution department in City Hall, with local field inspectors covering the 3 red light districts, with closing down close to 150 windows in the red light districts, and with a new City Ordnance (APV) for prostitution businesses, progress and improvement have not been reported in Amsterdam or anywhere else, at least as far as I know. Instead, the number quoted by politicians of prostitutes being forced and / or raped has been the same for years. Since it is objectively unlikely that all their so-called efforts in favor of the prostitutes' conditions and safety show no effect at all after seven long years, but that cleaning-up De Wallen is right on schedule with the plans of the city's Project 1012, the city will probably keep using its trafficking and rape rhetoric until Project 1012 has been completed. Then it will probably drop its trafficking rhetoric, lose its interest in the well-being of sex workers and in loudly touting how it fights wrongs in the local sex business. It could even return to its relative tolerance policy from the Nineties. This seems to me the extent of the city's false morality policy: abuse of the sex industry and total disdain for sex workers' rights as citizens and human beings just to get an unrelated business agenda accomplished. Immoral Policy. Obviously, you never hear city politicians refer to Mariska Majoor's and Else Rijerse's powerfully little statue "Belle" in front of the Old Church, or to its inscription: RESPECT SEX WORKERS ALL OVER THE WORLD. It was installed in 2007, right when the city initiated its hypocritical Wallen policy. Coincidence? <br /><br />In the AT5 "debate" you link to in the 1st paragraph, Metje Blaak mentions the recent report by prof. Henk Wagenaar, "Complexity and Challenges in Prostitution Policy," published in July 2013. Quite obviously the two politicians had not read this excellent research, or didn't want to admit in public that they had read it. <br />For readers who don't know it, here is the link where you can download its 138 pages. On p.55 and following, prof. Wagenaar formulates and discusses "Morality Policy" and the tools that policy makers use for it, always to the detriment of sex workers and sex work in general. It also fits the Amsterdam situation perfectly, reason why politicians simply neglect it: <br />http://issuu.com/platform31/docs/p31_prostitution_policy_reportFranshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10957801270515070956noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-48059819574648407332014-06-08T11:02:18.214-07:002014-06-08T11:02:18.214-07:00Hi, I just got back from Amsterdam. Hot and busy. ...Hi, I just got back from Amsterdam. Hot and busy. And pleased to see that you have been hard at work writing while I've been playing. I see exactly what your point is but using a reference like: " Fact is that right now there may be around 36 women that are being raped on a daily base in the Red Light District," is maybe not helpful. There is an honesty about it and that is healthy (and I see that you are working with official statistics in order to discredit official statistics), but unfortunately, the politician and others can use that: "Even the blogger ..... says that there may as many as 36 .... and one is too many, so you see we were right all along." Yes, one is too many but the thing about estimates (high or low) is that they are estimates. And estimates are 'made up numbers'. Estimates by definition are fiction. And estimates which vary so wildly have no credence. Your basic argument, of course, is right. Can anyone justify disrupting the lives <br /><br />This weekend I did some asking around about how many window workers know about your efforts. None in that survey. That's partly because they don't have regular access to the Internet. I seem to recall that somewhere along the line you you said that you were motivated to correct misinformation with a hope to bring people (the general public) on-side (and so resist the politicians). The more I think about it, the harder it is to visualise those people becoming politically active on your behalf. Like it or not, you have become political. Feminists are full of themselves regarding "Strong young women who speak out," well now we have found one (the feminists have remained deafeningly quite again). I can't help feeling that your target audience should include the women working in prostitution in Amsterdam (starting with De Wallen), with a view to representing their collective voice (with their support and encouragement). In order to do that they need to know that Felicia Anna exists and they need to know what she is doing (and what the politicians are doing). And your readers could help in that respect by pointing the women they visit at your website (you can still remain anonymous). At the same time you do have allies in Amsterdam, influenetial people who have a positive reputation. Maybe making contact with a view to discussing how to tackle this issue would pay dividends. I recall mentioning an open letter to the press around the time of the debate on raising the age for working in the windows. Mariska signed that letter. She knows who was on it, ie has a contact list. Anyway, that's my thought for the day. Looking forward to your next post. PS. Made no effort to find you. Too hard! Regards. Marcus.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com