Well, I could say a lot about the program of Jojanneke, but mostly I'm dissapointed. She didn't show any of the things she claimed before the show, which mainly seemed to be aimed against the Red Light District in Amsterdam. To protect the identity of some of the girls in this video I will not post it here, a concept that's apparently difficult to understand for Jojanneke.
In this first episode she asks the question if prostitution is a normal job. First of all Jojanneke seem to be under the impression that if you don't like your job,you must be forced or something must be wrong with that profession.She doesn't call that a free choice, but if we can't call that a free choice, a lot more people are forced also outside of prostitution. So many people in the world don't like their job, that doesn't mean their job is abnormal, or those people are forced, just that Jojanneke has problem accepting it as a normal job.

Jojanneke claims that it's legal for a pimp to put a someone in prostitution, as long as she agrees with this. This is absolutely not true. A pimp is someone who profits from prostitution, and that's called exploitation, and exploitation is human trafficking according to the Dutch law under article 273F. I'm surprised to find out that even after 2 years of diving into prostitution, she still hasn't learned this.

What Jojanneke does show however, is that prostitution is still not an accepted job. Her claim that so many people in Holland regard prostitution in Holland as a normal job, is an idea that she created in her own mind apparently. Because reality is, and I'm speaking from my own experience, that people don't accept it. Banks still refuse you most of the times because you do this job, as is also shown in the documentary, even though it's legal. People don't consider it normal, which creates a stigma.

What Jojanneke proved with her documentary is that prostitution is still not accepted. Not that the job isn't normal, but that people still don't consider it to be normal, of which she is the biggest example in her own show. This is the stigma we daily face. People think we're not doing a normal job, so or we must be sad victims or we must be dirty, crazy sluts. Jojanneke tries to show that we're mainly sad, while in reality we're no different from other people, they just look at us different because of this job.

When Jojanneke for instance tries to find out what the prices are, and if girls do it without condom, we see all girls answering the price that is common for those areas. 50 in Amsterdam, some other places in Holland 35 and 25 in Den Haag. Some girls will do it without condom, but not that many. One girl responds that many girls have AIDS, of course that's not true, that's a trick some girls use to scare clients off not to do it without condom, but of course Jojanneke uses it to frame it in a negative way.
In fact, at the last AIDS conference in Melbourne, they even stated that legalizing prostitution helps in the fight against HIV and AIDS, as you can ready here.

Jojanneke also keeps saying by the way that 'we sell our bodies', a common mistake many people make. I've written it before on my blog, and I'll say it here again. Selling your body means someone owns you and can take you home, that's not the case. We don't sell our bodies, it's not a product, we offer a service, a sexual service, just like a dentist offers his services for your teeth, or a psychologist for your mind. You also don't say a masseuse is selling her hands, or a psychologist is selling his brain or something like that.

When asked by Jojanneke if a brothel owner would let his ow daughter do this work, his response is quite natural negative. After all, prostitution is a tough job that's not for everyone, that doesn't mean we're forced, but like going into the porn industry or the army, I think many parents have trouble with that. It's only natural, but doesn't mean prostitution cannot be a normal profession, just because the parents would object to it.

I think the blonde Romanian girl talking in the show is a very good representation of the average Romanian and Bulgarian sex workers. They're independent, they do this job simply for the money, and they have no problem to have sex with their clients. Jojanneke obviously kept trying to make things look sad for that girl, because she's working to support her daughter, but which parent doesn't work for his or her children? It says nothing about the job, but simply about the motivation a lot of women in this business have to do this job.

Jojanneke seem to be primarily obsessed with the fact that we have sex with our clients, as she keeps calculating how many men we have sex with in order to pay for things. But again, it's a job that revolves around having sex, if you don't want to, clearly you're in the wrong line of work. Jojanneke can't accept that, but as you saw in the documentary, we girls don't think like that, we think about the money. If there are girls that have trouble with having sex for money, they should look for another job, after all, that's what the whole job is about! What else did you think you were gonna do in prostitution, sell flowers? There are many exit programs to help with that help prostitutes to exit, so if you don't like to have sex with clients for money, use those!

Also Jojanneke still seems to be under the impression we have to let every client inside. When she asks a client how he would like it if he would have to satisfy dirty, smelly, even menstruating women. Jojanneke uses a video clip made by the European Woman's Lobby to demonstrate this, the same lobby group that was one of the people responsible for the European parliament to accept a resolution to accept the Swedish model, in which clients of prostitutes are criminalized. This already shows on what side Jojanneke is with her documentary, even though she claims to be objective. She keeps forgetting that prostitutes also have the right to refuse customers, and also do this(!) as the Dutch woman explains when she says she refuses 70% of her customers. By the way, the video clip also seems to forget there are condoms for women as well, but apparently Jojanneke and the European Women's Lobby are not aware of that? I think it's important to raise awareness about safe sex, so please people, use a condom, also the women!

Jojanneke ends her documentary by stating that often girls are forced. But as we saw in the documentary, all these women choose to do this job by their own free will. It may not be there dream job, or the best job in the world, but it does pay the bills. She has not proven the things she claimed.

I'm wondering though about one thing. For her documentary she showed a pimp, apparently it was easy for her to find one. Makes you wonder why the police can't find this man, if this pimp is a real pimp? The things what this pimp said are ridiculous. I'm working now for 5 years here, 5-6 days a week, and nobody ever came to my door to become my pimp, like how this man claims, and also none of my colleagues. That also doesn't seem wise, because the police is walking around in the area and there are always other people walking around. Real pimps keep their distance to the windows, the risk is simply to high.
He claims we need protection, but we already have protection from the police, that's the whole idea why it was made legal over here! We have an alarm button we can press in case of emergency, so what more protection do we need?! Also he claims that only 5-10% are not forced, but I highly doubt the authenticity of this man.
The way in which he speaks about women, is not something that would attract women, which in his line of work would be kinda problematic, because he needs to attract women for his job. This also goes in against all those stories they always tell about loverboys and pimps, that they're charming, none of that could be found in this man.

Also she tried to show that underage girls without a passport would be working behind the windows. I cannot speak for the rest of the country, but as you've seen, nobody accepts that here in Amsterdam, which again proves claims about girls working without passports or underage girls are absolutely false.

The question about whether or not prostitution is a normal job seems to have been answered in the documentary by people's opinion about our profession, which is mainly based on prejudices. Like with gay people, as long as people have prejudices about it, it will not be accepted, and therefore not be seen as 'normal'. But are gay people not normal because there are prejudices about them?

We all know there are things wrong in prostitution, some girls are being forced, others are being exploited. We know this already, this is nothing new. The premiss however that '70% would be forced' was not proven, in fact, there was very little proof of that. Most of the 'proof' seemed to be existing out of Jojanneke judging if she feels those girls are forced or not, not by a pimp, but by economic circumstances, which in regular speech is just called kapitalism.
Yes, people have to work to make a living! Yes, people have to work to give their sons or daughters a better future! That's nothing new, that goes for almost everyone, and prostitution is no exception on that rule. That doesn't make us forced, that just proves our job is just as normal as any other job in the world, people just don't see our job as normal.

The ironic thing is that there's a huge stigma on prostitution. That stigma causes victims to be shy to step out, it causes a lot of problems to lead a normal life for all the rest of the prostitutes, and the documentary of Jojanneke just increases that stigma. So, in stead of helping all those girls Jojanneke claims to 'want to help', she just made it worse for both victims and sex workers by increasing the stigma. Thanks a lot Jojanneke!

Update 17:56:
The mayor of Groningen confirms that there is NO minor behind the windows like claimed by Jojanneke in her documentary. 'Claims from the broadcasting are not based on any reality', according to the mayor himself.

Dutch version

Picture: Voice4Sexworkers

According to Jojanneke it's all misery in the prostitution. 70% would be forced, she claimed, a source has yet to been found. Yes, someone from the Public Prosecution Office would have said it, but how come nobody can find it than, if they know it so well?
With her documentary Jojanneke wants to show the misery in prostitution. No surprise there, after all, she was already convinced even before her documentary that 80% was forced, so that's what she'll be looking for. Of course she claims to have searched for the 'happy hooker', a lady that does it out of her own free will. She didn't find it, she claims.

Strangely enough I'm really not that hard to find. And neither are the many other girls I personally know, friends, colleagues I've worked with for years, even girls I hate. In fact, it seems nobody I know has talked with Jojanneke, which begs the question: who did she talk to?
It should come as no surprise that Jojanneke talked with the people that have had a bad experience in the prostitution industry. It's like making a documentary about airplane travel, but mostly interviewing people that are either scared of flying and had to go on an airplane, or interviewing airplane crash survivors. Of course you're gonna get a negative view on airplane travel, even though statistically it's the safest way to travel.

Point is of course that Jojanneke doesn't want to find the happy hooker. I mean, if so many other people can find me: politicians, researchers, journalists (even from the USA!), than how come she couldn't find me? Of course she doesn't want that! That would jeopardize the whole goal about her show. Her show isn't about prostitution, it's about showing victims of trafficking and calling it prostitution. It's all about conflicting prostitution with trafficking to give prostitution a bad name.

And why? To show the misery? Because according to Jojanneke there isn't any attention for that.
I don't know what planet Jojanneke is from, but all people talk about when it comes to prostitution is the misery! Try and talk one time with someone about prostitution, without talking about forced prostitution and see how far you can carry that conversation!
Indeed! Not very far! That's because there's only attention for the misery in this industry, a funny thing, because Jojanneke claims the exact opposite. As if there was no attention for Saban B., which begs the question how come so many people know his name if there's no attention for trafficking? Or what about project 1012 in Amsterdam, to 'clean up the Red Light District'? Did that also escape her mind.
And what about the other liars, like Maria Mosterd, who went on almost every national TV channel to claim things that later turned out to be a fraud. And what about fraud Patricia Perquin and all the articles she wrote about the Amsterdam Red Light District? Or how about Perdiep Ramesar? Lodewijk Asscher? Gert-Jan Segers? Eberhard van der Laan? Free A Girl? Stop The Traffik with their 'dancing prostitutes' video?

Seriously? There's not enough attention for it? Jojanneke thinks we need more attention for these things? Why? Because in her mind people think positive about prostitution?
Heck! If that would be the case, my life wouldn't be this difficult. It would be much easier for me to open a simple bank account. I could rent an apartment without any problem. I could get a loan or a mortgage from a bank. I wouldn't be spit on by so many people. The police wouldn't be checking the girls every 3 or 4 months. We wouldn't have so many organisations claiming they talk to us, who we by the way never see.

Fact is that Jojanneke is framing things falsely. She wants people to believe there's no attention for forced prostitution, exploitation and any thing to do with human trafficking. In reality, it's impossible to do, write, see or hear anything about prostitution without it. Human trafficking and prostitution have become one and the same thing in the eyes of many people. And that's exactly the point!
Because when human trafficking and prostitution become one and the same thing, that brings them one step closer to banning prostitution. It's no secret Jojanneke thinks prostitution is idiotic, so of course she'd rather see it banned than how it is now. She may claim this is not that case, but than again she claims a lot of things.

It's the trick they pull every time on us. Asscher did it, Gert-Jan Segers does it, Renate van der Zee, Eveline Hölksen, Stop The Traffik, I can go on and on with the list of people. Every time they claim things about us, without even talking to us, basing themselves on false statistics and books and stories of frauds. Just so they can make prostitution look as negative as possible. Make it look like everywhere in prostitution it's human trafficking. Because the more it will look like prostitution is rotten to the core, the closer they are to banning prostitution.

Try and find one time an article in the newspaper, or a TV program, or even a movie that depicts something else than human trafficking in prostitution. You'll see the list will be very short. So how can Jojanneke claim that there isn't enough attention for the misery in prostitution, if that's what most of the media write and talk about?!
It's an absolute lie that people don't give attention to this! I see almost every day articles passing by about human trafficking, with the worst example imaginable. The idea is of course to post those kind of articles as often as possible, to make people believe it's happening a lot. It's a simply manipulation trick they've learned from Hitler's propaganda.

How many times have you read in the newspaper that 100's of prostitutes are perfectly happy with their job and weren't forced? Never? Yet it's true. How many times have you seen a TV program that shows prostitutes that are fine with their job? Never? What a surprise! How many movies can you name that show a positive side about prostitution?

Fact is that every conversation about prostitution always ends up with human trafficking. A funny thing if you work in it yourself and the world around you looks very different from how the media describes it. All we read and hear about is forced prostitution, exploitation, forced breasts enlargements, forced abortions etc. How come nobody ever wrote a story about prostitution that's not about trafficking in the newspaper? How come there's no movie about a sex worker that was able to pay off her bills because of prostitution, rather than despite it.
Problem is that people see prostitution as the problem rather than the solution. Prostitution is for a lot of women the solution for poverty, but all they see is someone 'forced by economic circumstances'. Prostitution offers a lot of women and men a way out of poverty, but for many sex workers it's not so much about poverty, but just wanting more than a regular life. A chance for something more than a normal life, a chance to make a lot of money, an opportunity to decide for yourself when to work, how long, on what days, how and with who!

But Jojanneke only wants to focus on the negative side. I mean, let's be honest. There are about 20.000 estimated prostitutes in Holland. In 2013 there were 178 human traffickers sentenced. So let's just assume that maybe there were about 200 victims, a little bit more victims than there were traffickers. Jojanneke only talked with 40 prostitutes. It's easy to find 40 prostitutes who have been forced, exploited or are not so happy with their job. After all, we have at minimum 200 victims to pick from.
But just because Jojanneke will show us 40 girls, doesn't mean those girls give a good representation of reality. And why should she? She called prostitution idiotic! She claimed already before her research that 80% was forced. It's no surprise that she has just been looking for a source that would be close to that 80% she claimed before.

Just because you'll see 40 girls hand picked by Jojanneke and her team of EO people that both don't share much love of prostitution, doesn't mean that's a correct representation of reality. How come for instance she didn't talk with Mariska Majoor, who's already been in her Prostitution Information Center for 20 years! How come she hasn't talked with Metje Blaak! How come she hasn't talked with Caja van Tolie, from the Zandpad!

Yes, there are many things wrong in prostitution. People get exploited, people get forced, people get spit on, humiliated, degraded. Yes, that all happens. We never claimed that didn't happen in prostitution. But just because that's the only thing they'll show you, doesn't make it a good representation of reality. After all, I know well over 100 girls in the Red Light District that aren't forced and choose to do this job willingly. They were never a victim of a loverboy at the age of 11. They weren't sexually molested and ended up drowning their sorrows in the Red Light District. These are well over 100 girls, mostly Romanian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Greek, Hungarian girls that all choose to do this job, and when asked today, they would not want to change their job! That's a little bit more than the 40 Jojanneke talked with. That doesn't mean those 40 women don't matter, but when are the 1000's of other sex workers finally gonna get their voice heard?

Dutch Version

And while everyone's busy with the prejudice documentary of Jojanneke van den Berge and their false statistics, meanwhile we, the prostitutes themselves, have lost again. On the 1st of January another 6 windows were closed down in Amsterdam's Red Light District. Part of project 1012 to 'clean up the Red Light District', which mainly seems to be aimed at just getting rid of prostitution and coffeeshops.

The windows that were closed down are 6 windows in the Bethlehemsteeg on the numbers 1-6 (the first 6 windows on your left). We already knew for some time the windows were going to close down, as the owner of the buildings was in talks with the city government of Amsterdam about selling his building to them. The window operators didn't had much to say about this, as they had to watch how the building owner finally gave in to the huge pressure the city government had put on owner, to sell the building in which their business was located.
For a while there was talks about more windows closing down, causing confusion and a lot of stress with a lot of the other girls, if perhaps their window was also going to close down. Basically nobody knows a thing, until the building owners and the city have come to an agreement, and we're usually the last ones to find out.

For us it's always a surprise to hear if and when a window is going to close down. The government says they're doing it to fight human trafficking and forced prostitution. But how can they know that, if they've never even talked to the girls working in the windows they're shutting down? They're just randomly closing down windows, with the excuse of  fighting forced prostitution, without having any knowledge about the girl they're kicking out on the street, who she is, what her situation is or what else she's going to do once her workplace has been shut down.

According to former alderman Lodewijk Asscher, the project 1012 was to reclaim the city's center from the criminals. But the only ones they're reclaiming things from, are honest hard working people like us. They're not reclaiming windows from pimps, they don't own any windows, the brothel owners do and they have a permit for this.
Lodewijk Asscher defended his plans by referring to the stories of Patricia Perquin, who was also the main adviser on the project 1012. But of course, she was later discovered as a fraud. But even after she was exposed the project still continued. According to Laurens Ivens from the SP, he didn't need the stories of Patricia Perquin to know that there was a lot of crime in Amsterdam's Red Light District. According to him there were enough reports that showed there was a lot of things wrong in the Red Light District. Laurens Ivens said:

"When I walk in the Red Light District, I see the suffering in the eyes of the women behind the windows"

First of all, when he said this I was already working there for about 3 years. I've never seen him there. But more interestingly, how can you know that just by walking through the streets? Is he some sort of medium that can read people's mind? Of course not!
And the reports he's referring to are also not as waterproof as he wants it to sound. Like I've written in on of my very first posts, all the reports that show high numbers of trafficking have done extremely little research in the field. The KLPD only talked with two prostitutes (who both just happened to be victims as well) (page 135), and than based their conclusion of 50-90% human trafficking on near guesswork of a couple of police officers when asked what their personal estimations were (most by the way claimed that was impossible to estimate) (page 76).

The other report from Bureau Beke wasn't much better. The number was already much lower in their report (30-40%), but also they've only talked to 8 prostitutes, of whom by the way were only working in the Singel area (page 223). None were spoken in the Red Light District area itself!
On top of that their interview was done with a questionnaire which didn't even refer to any questions regarding human trafficking or forced prostitution (pages 220 and 221). They only asked for: sex, age, origin of country, current living place, how long they were living here, which languages they spoke, the numbers of years working in prostitution, if they did any other forms of prostitution, how many hours they worked, if they has any other sources of income and their plans for what they would do if they would close down their window.
Also everyone knows, as also statistics show, that most of the girls working in the Red Light District come from mainly Romania and Bulgaria with a smaller portion of Hungarian girls, and after that it spreads out into small groups. But for this report they've interviewed only 2 Romanian girls and no Bulgarian or Hungarian girls. So the (poorly done) interviews also don't give a good representation of the groups that are working in the Red Light District.

The rest of the reports state much lower statistics. Amsterdam Sociaal stated a percentage of 10% human trafficking, and Scharlaken Koord even came to only 8% human trafficking. Both by the way interviewed a substantial amount of girls. Bas Merkx for Amsterdam Social interviewed 94 prostitutes for his research. Scharlaken Koord even came to 220 prostitutes.
So how did Laurens Ivens exactly know again there was so much wrong? You can't see it on the outside, like how he suggests in his comment in the newspaper. All the reports that show high figures are doubtful to say the least, as to how they came to their conclusion. And the reports that show low figures were actually done among a large group of prostitutes, and both of those researches stay very close to each other, even though they came from two completely different sources.

But beyond that, how can they dismiss the fact that Patricia Perquin was one of the main advisers on the project? How can you still continue a project, of which the main adviser turned out to be a fraud! That at least would require some sort of investigation, to see how large her influence was, and if the project still even has any basis to continue without it's largest adviser.
To put it more simple. If we would take out the influence of Patricia Perquin on project 1012, would it still hold up? That should be investigated, but never was, which begs the question why the politicians were so reluctant to do that? What are they hiding that they don't want to be investigated? What are they so afraid of that we'll find out?

In 2011 however, Lodewijk Asscher did an interview with Eva Jinek. That interview revolved around project 1012, and Asscher's attempt to close down large parts of the window brothels. And of course the interview turns towards the question why they are closing down windows. Asscher his response is of course that it is because according to him there's much wrong in Amsterdam's Red Light District.

Eva: "About how many people are we talking? How many women?"

Lodewijk: "About many women. The estimations are unclear"

But if estimations are unclear. Than how do you know you're talking about many women? Would be my question. After all, many implies a large potion. But if the estimations are unclear, than how do you know we're talking about a large portion of it? After all, even mayor Eberhard van der Laan has stated that they don't know, because the estimations reach from 8 till 90%.

Eva: "But are we talking hundreds, or thousands?"

Lodewijk: "Next week a new book will appear, 'Slaves in the Polder' it is called, and there they say: about 50% of the prostitutes are forced. Can you imagine, the half of those women! But it also says that from those Hungarian girls, there are now many Hungarian girls in the Red Light District, it is about 100%. If you know, that a couple of hundred feet away, this is happening in the capital of a wealthy country. Rape, every day again."


The book however that Lodewijk Asscher is referring to, is written by Perdiep Ramesar, the journalist recently fired for not being able to show his sources. Ramesar was best known for his articles on prostitution, human trafficking, but also about a neighborhood in The Hague, De Schilderswijk, which would be in the hands of radical Muslims. Also his book, 'Slaves in the Polder', has been retraced from new prints from it's publisher after these recent events.
This now has been already the second time Lodewijk Asscher has referred to someone else to defend it's project 1012, that the person in question has been exposed as a fraud. All the research they're referring to turns out to be based on guesswork by people from the government themselves, rather than actual field work and prostitutes. The researches that prove otherwise however, have done extensive field work, interviewing prostitutes.

After Perdiep Ramesar was revealed to be a fraud, the people from the Schilderswijk in The Hague went in talks with the newspaper that published the articles about them. Yet I'm surprised nobody has said anything about all the lies Perdiep told about prostitution and human trafficking in all of his articles and his book.
Especially considering the fact that now already two of Lodewijk Asscher his sources have turned out to be frauds. How can a project like that still continue without any questions? How can it be that no journalists has stood up, and thought: "Wait a second! There's something wrong here! This is already the second fraud connected to Amsterdam's Project 1012, I'm gonna write a story about that and ask some serious questions about that?"

The media might have woken up about Jojanneke her lies, but that's only because I handed it to them on a silver platter. Do I need to do all the work for you people? Have journalists become copy machines of the people that really delve into the truth? When are you going to wake up, and do some actual journalism, in stead of just copying what me and many other people are saying?
I mean, you are also just copying exactly what Lodewijk Asscher is saying without question. If Lodewijk Asscher says that 50% of us are forced, you don't investigate it, you write it down as if it was a fact. If I write that Jojanneke is using false statistics, you write it down without checking it. Fortunately I still check the facts, or rather my boyfriend does, who helps me a lot in that respect for doing most of the fact checking on my blog. But the media doesn't check their facts anywhere! And that was exactly the mistake Perdiep made and the reason he got fired!

Fact is, that Amsterdam's Project 1012 is built on lies. Lodewijk Asscher used frauds as evidence to support his project, namely Perquin and Ramesar. All stastics about forced prostitution are unclear to say at least, so any conclusion based on that is a false one. Fact is that Lodewijk Asscher is now the vice-prime minister of this country because of this prestige project of his. So this man basically became vice-prime minister, by lying and using frauds as proof, and nobody's asking questions? Go shame on you!

As for the girls working in those 6 windows? Well, they lost their workplace, which basically means they're without a job, unless they can find another window. They don't have a fixed income anymore to pay their bills, and some might resort to illegal prostitution in order to pay for those bills. But that's okay, as long as you people can still believe in the illusion that you're fighting human trafficking, right? Great job!

Update 3/2/2015:
I've updated the blogpost because it turned out that not the window operators but the building owners sold it. The window owner therefore became as much a victim of this as the prostitutes themselves.

Dutch version

It's good to know that at least a portion of the media isn't dead yet, and have picked up on my message about Jojanneke's false claims that 70% would be forced to work behind the windows, while in fact it is just the conviction rate of human trafficking court cases. Well done Jojanneke, you've proven to be an excellent journalist with knowledge... ahum.

Numerous times she's claimed it already. According to Jojanneke van den Berge 70% of the girls working behind the windows are forced. These are numbers from the Public Prosecutors (Openbaar Ministerie) she claims. When asked for a source about this, she refers to her documentary. But of course a documentary isn't a report, a documentary is simply something that might mention a report, but it doesn't show it. So the question remains what her source is. The fact that after repeated asking for it, she only keeps referring to her documentary tells us two things.
She doesn't have a source of is scared to show it, because it probably won't support what she's claiming. And secondly, she wants to get famous, which is why she keeps referring people to watch her documentary, in stead of coming up with some real facts and not false claims.

But after a long search with my boyfriend, we were able to uncover the statistics she based this claim upon. And shocking fact is, the only two things true about what she claims, is the fact that is mentions a number of 70% and that it's originated from the Public Prosecution Office. And those are about the only two things that are true about her claims, because if you take a closer look at what it says, you'll find out it's something completely different from what Jojanneke van den Berge claims.

To begin with I'll refer to the origins of this statistic, which can be found here on the website of the Nationaal Rapporteur in Holland. The article is about new statistics about human trafficking and they are based upon the statistics of the Public Prosuction Office (OM) and CoMensha, the organisation which counts all the 'possible' victims.

"In 2012 en 2013 kwam de rechter in ruim 70% van de zaken tot een veroordeling voor mensenhandel."

Translation:
"In 2012 and 2013 over 70% of the human trafficking cases in court came to a conviction."

That is what it literally says on the website of the Nationaal Rapporteur. These are also the only statistics to can be found which mention 70% that originate from the Public Prosectution Office. There are simply no other documents to be found that mention 70% in combination with forced prostitution or human trafficking that originate from the Public Prosectution Office, or any other source for that matter. So either Jojanneke has found some secret, hidden document that nobody knows about, except her and the Public Prosectution Office, but I highly doubt that. Or these are the statistics she's referring to, which explains why she's so reluctant to give away the source, since that would undermine everything that she's claiming.

So why is Jojanneke wrong with her claims? Well, first of all, she repeatedly claims the 70% are only about window prostitution and nothing else. This is false! These numbers are about all human trafficking, and not solely those from window prostitution. This already gives her one reason not to give us the real source, since she knows it doesn't hold up. But this isn't the most shocking false claims she's making.

Secondly, she claims that 70% are forced. which is again false, since forced prostitution is only one type of human trafficking. Like I've explained extensively in this post here, not all human trafficking is forced prostitution. Human trafficking consists out of basically two types: forced prostitution and exploitation. These are two different things not to be confused with each other, even though for the law they fall under the same category.
Besides, most cases in court regarding human trafficking are about exploitation and not forced prostitution at all. So to claim all of those 70% are about forced prostitution is simply false. Some part could be about forced prostitution, but the numbers never specify exactly what part of these numbers are about forced prostitution versus which part are about exploitation. Therefor it's impossible to claim these are only forced women. Especially considering the fact that most cases attorneys handle are about exploitation and not forced prostitution at all, this furthermore supports the fact that a large majority of this 70% are exploitation victims and not victims of forced prostitution, like how Jojanneke claims.

But most important is the fact that this 70% is only based upon the cases that see court. In short, this is not based upon the total number of prostitutes working in Holland, or those working behind windows. This is based ONLY upon all the court cases in Holland, and not those who never go to court. Obviously the number of trafficking victims that go to court are much higher than those who do not, since there must be reason why they go to court in the first place.
Basically this 70% is not a percentage about how many girls are forced into prostitution, but it's a conviction rate. This conviction rate shows in how many of the court cases someone get's convicted versus how many are not getting convicted. This says nothing about how many girls are forced behind the windows, but only about how many people that go to court for human trafficking cases get convicted in the end.

To give you an example, let's say there are 1200 cases of sexual assualt in Holland (rape, but also lighter forms of sexual assaults, like sexual harassment for example), and from those 1200 cases 900 are found guilty and therefore convicted. That would mean that 75% of the cases lead to a conviction. Just like how 70% of the court cases about human trafficking lead to a conviction. This however doesn't automatically mean that 75% of the women in Holland get raped, which is how Jojanneke presents things. In short, not 70% behind the windows are forced, but 70% in court are found guilty. This is something completely different from what Jojanneke claims.

This means that 70% says nothing about how many women are forced behind the windows. And how could they? The Public Prosectution Office has never been in Amsterdam's Red Light District to take a look or to do research, since that's not their job. The job of the Public Prosectution Office is to deal with court cases, not to do research on how many girls are forced in the field, that's the job of CoMensha, the police and the KMar (marshals). And that's also exactly what they did because the only thing they did, was count the total number of trafficking cases, and calculate how much of those court cases end up in a conviction.
So these numbers are conviction rates, not statistics about how many girls are forced. And these numbers are certainly not solely based upon just window prostitution, even though Jojanneke claims that is the case. Also she claims this is about how many girls are forced, while that's not the case at all, since these are numbers on trafficking and not just forced prostitution alone.

Fact is that Jojanneke her claim: '70% of the girls working behind the windows are forced', is absolutely false on so many different levels. The number doesn't speak about how many girls behind the windows, but how many court cases. The number doesn't speak about how many are forced, but how many are trafficked. And the number doesn't give any indication as to how many women are forced in Holland, but how many court cases lead to a conviction.

Shocking though, is the fact that numerous media publish this information without checking the facts. Feminist magazine Opzij published this false information without checking it in an article here, as well as countless other media did. But even newspaper De Telegraaf published this information without checking the facts in an article here.
It is remarkable how media copy Jojanneke her words, and without checking these facts, and presenting them to the public. Especially considering the fact that recently newspaper Trouw fired one of it's journalists, Perdiep Ramesar, for using untraceable sources. Also his articles mostly were about human trafficking and prostitution (what a surprise, right?). And of course this is not the first person who got caught lying about prostitution, since we already have people like Patricia Perquin and Maria Mosterd who were exposed to be frauds.

How much longer do we have to wait for the media, for journalists, for editors, to wake up? How much longer do we have to wait before they start checking their facts before publishing them? Especially since there have already been so many people who have been lying about prostitution. Shouldn't their ring a bell, whenever someone comes with these kind of 'horrifying' stories about forced prostitution by now?

So media, wake up! Check your facts! Don't believe whatever stories people tell, check the facts for yourselves before publishing it! You've had plenty of examples by now, to prove that people are lying about prostitution in a negative way. So whenever someone comes with some story about how bad things are about prostitution, you first check the facts and the sources!
And of course the EO isn't going to check the facts of Jojanneke. Why should they? She's claiming things which play right into the cards of more conservative Christians, which is to spread negative stories about prostitution, in hopes to make it illegal. This is exactly what they want, and this is also the reason they hired Jojanneke van den Berge, since she was already against prostitution to begin with, just like the EO itself.

How much longer will people believe the bullshit about prostitution? How much longer will people keep blind to all the lies that are spread? How many more writers, journalists and reports have to get fired because of fraud and untraceable sources, before people begin to realize these stories are just fabricated to criminalize prostitution, in stead of helping victims of trafficking.
For how long are you going to stay blind to this? Are you going to sit around, read this post, and move on with your life? Or are you going to stand up against this injustice, and share this article, so that everyone can read the lies people spread about my job and my workplace? Stand up and fight! Fight against the corruption, the corruption in the media who are protecting liars out of moral and political motives. Fight against the corruption in the politics, who are not interested in you, but in themselves and their own morals. You didn't really think they're making human trafficking laws to make things better for us, did you?

Share this article, and let Jojanneke answer for the lies she's been spreading. Let her prove where here statistics come from, if she has any. Because as far as the facts go, there is no number of 70% the Public Prosectution Office mentions that are about forced prostitution, besides how many court cases lead to a conviction. So, Jojanneke, if you have any proof, bring it to the table! If not, you're just another liar like Perdiep Ramesar, Maria Mosterd and Patricia Perquin, gaining fame over false stories about my job and my workplace.

Dutch version

I see it happen so many times, report after report comes out about human trafficking. By now the numbers reach from 90% to 5% and almost everything in between. The numbers show us basically one thing, that we don't know a damn thing about how the size is of human trafficking.
Yet, the anti-prostitution people keep claiming there's lots of it happening, even though they've never met one, otherwise of course it would be breaking news that a reporter or politician found a forced prostitute by him or herself. But since this never happens, all those people claiming these things, only claim these things based upon reports that state what they want to hear, and ignore other reports that state the opposite.
Truth is, we don't know. Nobody knows. Even the people claiming they know, they don't know. I wrote a while ago my personal estimations, but truth is, I also don't know. So, if some outsider claims to know it better, that just proves how ignorant they are, since even we, the sex workers themselves don't know it, and we're in the middle of it all!

But every once in a while there's some prostitution hating person who's found a platform to twist the truth about this, and make all sorts of false claims. Now for example Jojanneke van den Berge, a 'reporter' (if we can call it that), has found her place with the anti-prostitution TV-channel of the EO, to 'report' about how forced we all are in a 4 part documentary.
Sure, sure, Jojanneke, we can't even tell it from each other if we're forced after years, sometimes even decades of working here. But you, an outsider, has figured it all out in a matter of months what other journalists, politicians and decades worth of scientific researchers couldn't figure out. Of course this has nothing to do with the fact that you called prostitution 'idiotic' in one of your earlier interviews, and of course this also has nothing to do with the fact that the EO is a strict Christian channel who's known for it's frequent negative reporting on prostitution, because it against their Christian values.

Enlarging the negative, while keeping the positive small

Honestly, if people buy this shit, they're too far gone to safe. So I say let those people believe what they want, people who can't see past this bullshit aren't even worth talking to.
That doesn't take away however the fact that she does come up with some things that are interesting. For example she mentioned that she had numbers from the Public Prosecution Service (Openbaar Ministerie) about forced prostitution. First of all, the Public Prosecution Service doesn't have any statistics on how many forced prostitutes there are, all they do is count the number of court cases they have. Since they only deal with court cases (that's their job after all), they can never make any estimations, since they only deal with the victims, or 'possible' victims and never any non-victims. In other words, since they would never come across a sex worker who has no problems at all, they can never make any good estimations about how many girls aren't forced versus how many are.
For example, the only way you can make an estimation about how much percentage of green dots there are, is if you also have other dots to compare them to. But since Public Prosecution Service only deals with victims, they never come across any material to compare them to.

Funny thing though about how the Public Prosecution Service counts their statistics about trafficking cases (not about how many girls are forced, but other statistics about how many court cases etc.) is this. If the Public Prosecution Service has 10 human trafficking cases a year (meaning 10 suspects), but only 1 is actually guilty, the Public Prosecution Service will still count those other 9 as trafficking cases as well, meaning that they will still report them as if these are also legit cases. How do I know this? Well, fortunately I've talked with some good lawyers who were able to explain this to me. They are also very aware of how the Public Prosecution Service manipulates their statistics to crank up the numbers.
The idea behind counting this way, is that perhaps those people that did not get convicted could still be guilty, but they just couldn't prove it. Obviously this is a completely ridiculous way of counting things, since that would mean that any person who is being falsely accused of something is guilty no matter what. In short, completely bullshit, but since few people know about it, and it's the Public Prosecution Service, few people know this and have the guts to spill it out.

So where do these so called 'statistics' from Jojanneke come from, if not from the Public Prosecution Service? Well, there aren't that many places it could come from, since there's only one organisation in Holland that deals with statistics about human trafficking, and that's the Nationaal Rapporteur.
As I've talked about before, Marijke Vonk already wrote an excellent essay about how the Nationaal Rapporteur comes to these numbers. Counting innocent tourists and visitors to Amsterdam from so called 'source countries' (a.k.a. Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary), as 'possible victims' for no reason. Really? Yes, really, you can read the entire thing on Marijke her excellent blog here with examples to prove it.
On top of that comes the fact that these statistics are statistics on 'possible victims', meaning we're not sure if they're victims or not. They could be victims, perhaps, but we're not sure. And we're definetly not so sure anymore about it, after reading Marijke her research on this subject, which just shows that the definition of 'possible' is stretched out into the extreme, so far that you can't even call them 'possible' victims anymore. In fact, even I am being reported as a 'possible' victim for no reason, simply because I'm travelling from or to a source country, in this case Romania.
In short, these statistics say nothing about the number of real victims out there. These numbers are trying to give people an indication of how many girls COULD possible be a victim. They are not exact numbers about victims, since those numbers don't exist. Anyone using these numbers to prove how many girls are forced are just making themselves more ridiculous, since these numbers are near indications and not exact numbers, and not the best ones either.

But I'm not so much interested about the fact who they count as 'possible victims' or not, even though some of them are completely ridiculous. What is far worse, is the fact that Jojanneke presents these numbers as numbers of forced prostitution, which they are NOT.
How do I know? Well, for the very simple reason that there is no organisation in Holland that counts numbers of forced prostitutes. All numbers about prostitution regarding forced prostitution are called human trafficking. And human trafficking is much larger than just forced prostitution.
Like I've talked about in my previous post here, human trafficking is not just forced prostitution, but exploitation as well. And since exploitation cases have nothing to about being forced into prostitution, calling human trafficking numbers forced prostitution would be a false way of presenting facts. After all, most cases about human trafficking are about exploitation, and NOT forced prostitution. And more importantly, a victim of exploitation DID choose for prostitution voluntarily, they just were exploited doing so.
In most cases the victims of exploitation also continue their work during the court case, or continue their work in prostitution after the case is over. Being exploited doesn't mean these women don't like prostitution, or didn't want to work in prostitution, it only means someone is taking away their money and they don't agree with that and take those people to court. Not nice indeed, but this says nothing about the women their choices to work in prostitution.

Unfortunately this is not very well known among people, and sometimes not even among lawyers specializing in human trafficking. I've come across lawyers who didn't even know that exploitation is also human trafficking, and we had to explain to them that also exploitation is human trafficking, which I guess proves how little people know about it.
Most people think that human trafficking and forced prostitution are the same thing, which is definitely not the case. Forced prostitution is nearly one type of human trafficking, a much larger description of different types of crimes often associated with prostitution, but not solely happening in prostitution as they happen in other industries as well.

Interestingly enough, most human trafficking cases that see court are about exploitation and not about forced prostitution, as also several lawyers have confirmed. And that's also kind of logical, since forced prostitution simply doesn't happen as much over here, though still more than we all would like.
Fact is that in reality forced prostitution happens very rarely. In all my time working in Amsterdam's Red Light District I've never came across one single girl that is being forced. Only recently I've came across ONE girl, in my now nearly 5 years time, that used to be forced years ago. But guess what? She went back into prostitution after all, even though nobody forced her this time, simply to make good money. This proves that prostitution is not bad, and that even sometimes victims that were forced into this work, would have no problem to do this work if they weren't being forced into it.

I guess the most common cases of human trafficking would be 50/50 cases. Those are exploitation cases about girls who take the 50/50 deal. Those cases are about girls in need of assistance with their migration. But since the Dutch government so cleverly blocked any way of receiving any legal assistance with their migration, due to some law it seems, they have to turn to people willing to help them in an illegal way. Obviously few people risk to burn their hands on that, and this is the opening this government provides for the traffickers to come into play.
These people offer help to these girls with their migration, in exchange for 50% of their income during their stay. Essentially they're doing exactly they same thing as an unemployment agency does for other jobs, except that it's illegal. Why is it illegal again if unemployment agencies can do for other jobs? Well, simple, because it's about sex! The fact that it's also about work doesn't matter, people are still scared shit about sex, because apparently it's a huge taboo for many people. That's why!
Now, since these girls don't have any other options (why? because the fucking government blocked it, that's why!), the girls are basically forced to accept their help. And because they are more or less forced to accept these people their help, and they're making a lot of money on it, it's basically called exploitation, which falls under the human trafficking law.

So, there you have it people. Our own government is the one blocking the only other option girls have from avoiding human traffickers, with a law that ironically enough is meant to prevent human trafficking. But as usual, this is the way things work in prostitution. Politicians making laws to prevent human trafficking, that eventually only increase human trafficking in stead of reducing it, only because the politicians have trouble to embrace prostitution because some religious nuts and radical feminists have issues with it.
So if you're looking for the ones responsible for all those 'poor, sad girls' who have become victims of human trafficking, you only need to look at those people that throw up a blockade for prostitution to be accepted, so we can make laws that actually prevent human trafficking rather than creating it.
If for example the ChristenUnie and the SGP wouldn't make such a big deal about the government supporting people to step into prostitution, we could change those laws that force girls into the hands of traffickers, and we would be able to create laws that supports women to enter prostitution in a safe and legal way, taking away the need for the services these traffickers provide.

And about Jojanneke? I really don't care about her. I've asked around but no other girl has talked to her. She claims she's talked with a lot of prostitutes, yet nobody that I know from Holland's most famous prostitution area has either seen or heard of her. So whatever she's came up with, it isn't going to be a very realistic presentation about Amsterdam's Red Light District, even though we all know that's what 90% of this thing will be about.
But as usual, people rather avoid us than finding out the ugly truth. They'd rather live in a world in where they can believe that no girl would ever 'sell their body' for sex, rather than accepting the truth that sex isn't all that special, it's the person you do it with that makes it special. Accepting sex work as work doesn't change a damn thing about sex, just like selling food doesn't change a damn thing about the food itself. It's just sex people, get over it!
I'm not asking you to sell it, but don't tell me what I can or cannot do with my own body! Denying me the right to decide what I can do with my own body is taking away my rights to decide about myself, limiting women's choices because it deals with 'sex' and nothing else. This just proves still how women are even until today still being limited in their choices by other people, like for example feminist Renate van der Zee, who advocates heavily against prostitution.
Some feminist you are, Renate! Advocating against the right to decide about myself. You're only talking shit about my job, in hopes that my job will become illegal, meaning you're advocating against my choice of doing with my own body what I want to! What did you say feminism was about again? About improving women's rights?!

Jojanneke her documentary about prostitution will be nothing more than a promo for the ChristenUnie, since the EO is basically a ChristenUnie TV channel. Promoting that sex work is bad, girls only do this because they are forced, and the ones that do do this job voluntarily are just crazy bitches that are exceptions. That's much easier to accept than to accept the fact that sex doesn't have to be special, because that would seriously damage a lot of people their idea about what sex means to them, only because they think this is what sex means.
Sex is just sex, it's nothing special. It's like walking, kissing or farting. It's nothing special until you do it with someone that's special with you, and that's what makes sex special. Not the sex itself, but the person you do it with! And since my clients aren't special to me, since they're nearly my clients, sex with clients is never special. The only sex that I have that is special is with my boyfriend. It's completely different sex from the sex I have with my clients, and no client could ever get me or them the experience I have with my boyfriend. That's what makes it special!

Dutch version