This week it was big news apparently. A small Christian youth club called Exxpose managed to get 40.000 signatures to try and get the Swedish prostitution model implemented in the Netherlands. It took them 6 years to get all of the 40.000 signatures, which already points out how little support they got, as they’ve been desperately trying to hide the fact that they're a Christian club, because they know this will work against them.
Some media however where smart enough to uncover they are a club of Christian people, which for most Dutch people already tells them enough. But even without mentioning that, most people simply don't support this idea in the Netherlands, because they are smart enough to figure out that if something is out of sight doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but is simply less easy to help victims and forces sex workers underground which creates more violence towards sex workers. Two separate polls pointed towards 75% and 87% of the population being against the Swedish prostitution model.
What many people don't know however is that this club is heavily supported by several people with a lot of influence. People like Christian party leader Gert-Jan Segers, who tried to be very casual about it but failed in that. He tried to casually say that if the evidence supports it he is in favor of this idea, as if he’s basing himself on evidence and as if he’s being unbiased about it. Yeah…. Maybe you shouldn't say that if your face was on their website prominently in support for years, that might have worked better, Gert-Jan! And guess who the petition was offered to? Not so very subtle Gert-Jan!
Other people they get support from are for example public prosecutor Jolanda de Boer, writer and feminist Renate van der Zee, christian savior Frits Rouvoet and former national Rapporteur on Human Trafficking Corinne Dettmeijer among many others. If some of those names sounds familiar to you, that's because I've mentioned all of these people before on my blog. All these people have tried in the past to influence the debate regarding prostitution towards the Swedish prostitution model.
Jolanda de Boer was not so subtle in her role as public prosecutor on human trafficking cases, about exaggerating how many victims there where. Renate van der Zee is basically the mother of the Swedish model support group in the Netherlands. Frits Rouvoet is talking with sex workers to gain intel from them, to try and figure out a way how they can manipulate it. And Gert-Jan Segers is the grandmaster behind all of this, as this is his second attempt at the Swedish model in the Netherlands, after his last one failed a couple of years ago.
And for those that are still doubting about for example Corinne Dettmeijer as being biased in this case. The new Rapporteur on Human Trafficking, Herman Bolhaar, is not biased for example. You may also notice how last year I haven't wrote anything last years about the new numbers on human trafficking like I did other years before when Corinne Dettmeijer was still the Rapporteur. That's because his focus is on human trafficking, whereas Dettmeijer was heavily trying to make it about prostitution in itself. Every year Dettmeijer claimed human trafficking numbers went up, even when they didn’t, always blaming it on how many victims in prostitution would be invisible and a new and better policy was needed. Look back on Gert-Jan Segers his twitter timeline through the years to see how many times he was the first and one of the biggest tweeters of her reports on human trafficking, and how little Gert-Jan Segers has retweeted for example Herman Bolhaar, That’s because Bolhaar is not focusing on getting rid of prostitution, but on fighting human trafficking, like he should.
And for those that are thinking that those young girls from Exxpose are just being young and naive. They might be young, but they're definitely not naive. They have talked with sex workers, i’ve seen many people claiming they haven’t, but that’s not true. But they just don't want to listen to sex workers because they ‘believe’ their opinion is better than those of sex workers.. They're not naive, they're just very much against prostitution, and therefore get a lot of support from the people mentioned above to get this info the mainstream media. They’re not looking for evidence, they’re not looking for reasoning, they’re basing themselves solely on their own christian moral judgement.
But yeah, it took them 6 years to get these amount of signatures. And getting 40.000 isn't really that extremely hard, because most of their signatures come from strict Christians, the more evangelical type that also want gay marriage to be banned and are against abortion. You'll always be able to find a small portion of the population to be in support of extreme ideas. I'm actually quite surprised it took them this long to get this many signatures. I thought there would be more people supporting them. Maybe they would have gained more support if they wouldn't have used such obvious lies. Lies about sex work that might work in other countries like Sweden, but for which the Dutch are way too much down to earth for.
But I'm not worried about them. Even though they get much support from some powerful friends, in parliament there simply isn't enough support for this. So why should I worry about something that's such a long stretch? I don't. It's good that other organisations spoke out against them, just to give off a clear signal, but they'll never pass this anyway. I'm therefore working on more important matters at the moment, and hopefully soon I'll be able to tell you more about that.
I just have one message to those girls from Exxpose: Go get a life! There are so many important things you could be focusing on that could actually improve the world, instead of wasting your time trying to achieve something just because you don't like it. I also think something should be done about the sexual abuse of children in the church, but you don't see me starring a petition to get churches or religion banned. Maybe you should go help those children, who really do need help and leave us alone!
Some media however where smart enough to uncover they are a club of Christian people, which for most Dutch people already tells them enough. But even without mentioning that, most people simply don't support this idea in the Netherlands, because they are smart enough to figure out that if something is out of sight doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but is simply less easy to help victims and forces sex workers underground which creates more violence towards sex workers. Two separate polls pointed towards 75% and 87% of the population being against the Swedish prostitution model.
What many people don't know however is that this club is heavily supported by several people with a lot of influence. People like Christian party leader Gert-Jan Segers, who tried to be very casual about it but failed in that. He tried to casually say that if the evidence supports it he is in favor of this idea, as if he’s basing himself on evidence and as if he’s being unbiased about it. Yeah…. Maybe you shouldn't say that if your face was on their website prominently in support for years, that might have worked better, Gert-Jan! And guess who the petition was offered to? Not so very subtle Gert-Jan!
Other people they get support from are for example public prosecutor Jolanda de Boer, writer and feminist Renate van der Zee, christian savior Frits Rouvoet and former national Rapporteur on Human Trafficking Corinne Dettmeijer among many others. If some of those names sounds familiar to you, that's because I've mentioned all of these people before on my blog. All these people have tried in the past to influence the debate regarding prostitution towards the Swedish prostitution model.
Jolanda de Boer was not so subtle in her role as public prosecutor on human trafficking cases, about exaggerating how many victims there where. Renate van der Zee is basically the mother of the Swedish model support group in the Netherlands. Frits Rouvoet is talking with sex workers to gain intel from them, to try and figure out a way how they can manipulate it. And Gert-Jan Segers is the grandmaster behind all of this, as this is his second attempt at the Swedish model in the Netherlands, after his last one failed a couple of years ago.
And for those that are still doubting about for example Corinne Dettmeijer as being biased in this case. The new Rapporteur on Human Trafficking, Herman Bolhaar, is not biased for example. You may also notice how last year I haven't wrote anything last years about the new numbers on human trafficking like I did other years before when Corinne Dettmeijer was still the Rapporteur. That's because his focus is on human trafficking, whereas Dettmeijer was heavily trying to make it about prostitution in itself. Every year Dettmeijer claimed human trafficking numbers went up, even when they didn’t, always blaming it on how many victims in prostitution would be invisible and a new and better policy was needed. Look back on Gert-Jan Segers his twitter timeline through the years to see how many times he was the first and one of the biggest tweeters of her reports on human trafficking, and how little Gert-Jan Segers has retweeted for example Herman Bolhaar, That’s because Bolhaar is not focusing on getting rid of prostitution, but on fighting human trafficking, like he should.
And for those that are thinking that those young girls from Exxpose are just being young and naive. They might be young, but they're definitely not naive. They have talked with sex workers, i’ve seen many people claiming they haven’t, but that’s not true. But they just don't want to listen to sex workers because they ‘believe’ their opinion is better than those of sex workers.. They're not naive, they're just very much against prostitution, and therefore get a lot of support from the people mentioned above to get this info the mainstream media. They’re not looking for evidence, they’re not looking for reasoning, they’re basing themselves solely on their own christian moral judgement.
But yeah, it took them 6 years to get these amount of signatures. And getting 40.000 isn't really that extremely hard, because most of their signatures come from strict Christians, the more evangelical type that also want gay marriage to be banned and are against abortion. You'll always be able to find a small portion of the population to be in support of extreme ideas. I'm actually quite surprised it took them this long to get this many signatures. I thought there would be more people supporting them. Maybe they would have gained more support if they wouldn't have used such obvious lies. Lies about sex work that might work in other countries like Sweden, but for which the Dutch are way too much down to earth for.
But I'm not worried about them. Even though they get much support from some powerful friends, in parliament there simply isn't enough support for this. So why should I worry about something that's such a long stretch? I don't. It's good that other organisations spoke out against them, just to give off a clear signal, but they'll never pass this anyway. I'm therefore working on more important matters at the moment, and hopefully soon I'll be able to tell you more about that.
I just have one message to those girls from Exxpose: Go get a life! There are so many important things you could be focusing on that could actually improve the world, instead of wasting your time trying to achieve something just because you don't like it. I also think something should be done about the sexual abuse of children in the church, but you don't see me starring a petition to get churches or religion banned. Maybe you should go help those children, who really do need help and leave us alone!