Today there was a radio show about prostitution in the Dutch National Radio. One of the key people in this conversation was Warner ten Kate, the public prosecutor human trafficking in Holland. Interesting thing about Ten Kate is the fact that he spoke during the TV show of Jojanneke, and claimed there was a research that showed that 70% of the prostitutes were forced in Holland.

I've already given it a lot of attention with previous posts. And this eventually resulted in a public debate about these statistics. Laurens Buijs from the University of Amsterdam wrote an article about this whole discussion in the newspaper NRC. In a response to that article Warner ten Kate himself wrote an article one week later in the NRC, shoving his own words of 70% in the shoes of Jojanneke, claiming it were her 'statements'. Apparently Warner ten Kate didn't feel too confident about his own statistics, and decided to blame the whole thing on Jojanneke.

An interesting thing, since it were clearly the words of Warner ten Kate himself, and not those of Jojanneke. Jojanneke simply used his claim a lot in the media after she did the interview with him, because it supported her own conclusions. But Warner ten Kate already claimed a similar statistic in another interview for a research by the University of Groningen. The research was being done to find out if criminalizing clients of a forced prostitutes would work. Warner claimed in an interview included in this report that 70% of the prostitutes in Holland would be forced. He claimed this was based on the Sneep case and the Koolvis case (page 102).

Today in the radio interview however he dropped the Koolvis as source, and now claimed only the Sneep case was the source (25:25). Not so weird to drop the Koolvis case as a source. After all, the Koolvis case was a case about prostitutes being forced in other countries, not in Holland. Holland nearly functioned as a gateway to Europe for the traffickers, but the women never worked here. So it would also be kind of amazing if this case could tell us anything about how many women are forced in Holland, if this case wasn't even about that.

But this time during the interview on the Radio Warner ten Kate was specifically asked about the 70% and where it comes from, and if he would still repeat it today. He claimed the 70% comes from a research done by the Erasmus University during the Sneep case. Funny thing is however. The Erasmus University never did any such research. None whatsoever! In fact, the Sneep case report itself (now dubbed Schone Schijn) doesn't even mention the Erasmus University in any of it's 141 pages. Even more interesting, the Sneep case also doesn't say 70% is forced, but claims it's 50 to 85% (page 76), and 8 pages later all of the sudden changes that to 50 to 90% without any reason.

How someone that lies this clearly can still be in function as a public prosecutor, is a miracle to me. A public prosecutor should be without any blame, someone you can trust, not someone of whom you can factually proof he's lying on several occasions. How come this man can still be in his current function, if it is factually proven he's a liar? How the hell is this possible? How come this man's function is not a point of discussion.

But more interestingly perhaps is Warner his own claim to 'stop talking about numbers'. That's really kind of funny. This whole debate started because he as a public prosecutor and the police keep mentioning numbers which are pure bullshit. But when people point this out, all of the sudden they say the discussion shouldn't be about the numbers? Then why the fuck did you mention them? We didn't mention any numbers, we just try to show people you are lying about the numbers, and we try to do this with actual research which constantly proves them wrong. But than all of the sudden they chicken out and we can't talk about numbers anymore? Why? Because those numbers aren't in your favor? Because those numbers would prove you are a liar?

But most of all what I don't understand, is why Warner is making up his own statistics, while there are perfectly usable (yet unreliable) statistics out there to make the same claims? Why didn't he just pick the 50 to 90% from the Sneep report? Why does he think he can get away with making up his own numbers? And why make up your own numbers, which are easier to prove wrong, than to debate about existing number and prove those existing numbers aren't correct. Is it because he's scared he'll be proven wrong by people with knowledge? Does he think that if he makes up a number that doesn't exist, nobody will find out because nobody can find the source?

We never wanted a debate about numbers. It was people like Warner ten Kate, Gert-Jan Segers, Renate van der Zee, Jojanneke van den Berge and sorts that started this whole debate years ago. First with the 50 to 90%, until apparently it lost it's reliability because it got proven to be unreliable as hell. And now this magical 70% which is made up by Warner ten Kate, and shows up in no research at all. Did you really think we wouldn't find out Warner, if you just made up your own numbers? Did you really think we would be this dumb?

I don't want to have a debate about numbers. We're talking about people, and those people aren't numbers, and shouldn't be treated as such. It's really a shame the anti-prostitution lobby constantly has to resort to incorrect statistics as arguments for their lies. Victims of trafficking aren't helped by these nonsense discussions about statistics. But by constantly bringing them up, you force us to debunk those numbers, starting a whole discussion about numbers while it should about the victims.

Why oh why did you have to lie Warner? I simply don't get it! You just should have used existing numbers, not make them up and think we wouldn't find out. But what I really don't understand, is how this person can still be a public prosecutor, if his lies are so clear as daylight, and his position regarding sex work is so obviously opposing it. Your lies are busted mr. Ten Kate. My question is how long are you going to be able to keep that job now that your lies are exposed?

Dutch version