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