Last week we went to the new Red Light Secrets museum in Amsterdam. The museum is intended to inform people about prostitution, and show the world from a prostitute's perspective, to give them more of an inside peek in the world behind the Red Light District. Sadly the museum fails in every aspect of this, and I'll explain why.

To start of with, the museum should give the visitor a good insight in the hidden world behind the Red Light District in Amsterdam. So it should feel familiar and be very recognizable for me as a prostitute from the Red Light District in Amsterdam to be there. But actually it was very far from that.
At the entrance there's a woman on a big video screen, she's luring the people to come inside like a prostitute is supposed to do. But to begin with, the woman looks very far from a real prostitute. The clothes she's wearing looks more like a romantic lingerie outfit a woman might wear for her partner, but prostitutes wear outfits that don't cover nearly as much as this, in fact, they wear outfits that barely cover anything so the client can have a good look at what he's getting before her comes in. Secondly the woman barely seems to be wearing any make-up at all. As people who might have visited the Red Light District in Amsterdam before, they might have noticed that the girls behind the window use a lot of glossy lipstick and heavy eyeshadow. The make-up works for prostitutes in two ways, first of all it's to improve the look, giving yourself an almost 'pornstar' like look, and secondly it also works a little bit like a superhero-mask, since people in daily life hardly recognize prostitutes because they're not wearing that much make-up anymore. This woman however hardly uses any make-up at all, perhaps a little bit of lipstick, but that's it. And last but not least, the hair, this woman seems to do nothing special with her hair, but if you look at real prostitutes you'll notice they spend a lot of time and money on their hair (using hair extensions etc.) to give that full, big hair look.

After this you come into a cinema. The cinema is playing a kind of documentary about some people from the Red Light District. A few people I recognized, like the people who bring us the food when we're hungry, or the girls from the nail studio. But for instance they also show the guy who apparently sells the lights, I've never seen that guy in my entire life. To me the video came over as if the girls had to buy their own lights, but that's definitely not the case, this is something the office does for the girls. And than there where tons of other people I've never seen before, like people who do laundry, people who sell lipstick (although prostitutes just buy those kind of things just in regular shops) and stuff like that.
In the documentary they also show an older prostitute. I don't know if she's real (I've never seen her before), but in the video she lets in her own(?) child, which I think is a very weird thing to do. I know many other girls that have children and work there, but they never bring their own children to work, or would even let them close to the Red Light District. In fact, most of the offices have an unspoken rule that you can't bring in people from your personal life into your workplace. This is to prevent boyfriends from coming in and out, and giving people (and the police), the idea that they might be pimps. So it's more of a protective rule, to protect both the girls and their partner against any suspicions people may get from it.
In my opinion the video didn't really show the Red Light District as it is now, but rather a nostalgic version of how some people from Amsterdam might remember it from decades ago. It's almost as if the person making the documentary had a longing back to the times of the '70 and the '80, when prostitution was perhaps a little less professional, and more of a lifestyle. The girls working there these days are there to work, not to chat, not have a good conversation with the baker from next door, but simply work hard to make the money they want to make to go home.

After this you come into something they call the Red Light Fashion, it just shows three figures in costumes that would've only turned me on in the 17th century. After that you go up the stairs, where there are some posters on the sides, a lot of them aimed at fighting human trafficking (again!), and what apparently used to be once a work schedule board. After that you walk into a room with a window looking out the front of the building, where you can sit and experience how it is to be a prostitute, which wasn't very interesting since the window is too high to really experience it.

After that you get into a 'real' workroom. Well, real, as in maybe 50 years ago, because that's how long ago I think they cleaned that place. The bed was full of stains, which was disgusting, and the sink was full of junk and bottles of hairspray and God knows what else. I don't know whoever would work in such a place, but certainly not any prostitute working today in the Red Light District.


On top of that they put a big Teddy Bear on the bed, as if we where in a children's room. I don't know if this is just lack of knowledge, or a smart way to play on the 'innocence' of the women who are prostitutes, to make it easier to victimize them. I think it was just a way for the owners of the museum to hint at the 'this might be your daughter' stigma, but honestly I hope it was just a big mistake.
I don't know about the experiences of customers, but I would like to hear their thoughts on this. Did you ever come to a prostitute where the bed was so filthy it was full of stains and all grainy looking? And did you ever visit a prostitute who had a Teddy Bear on the bed?!

After this we came into a room that was apparently called the 'luxury' workplace. I don't know if these rooms have ever existed, but they certainly don't exist these days, especially not one with your own bathtub in their. If they would exist, I'd be the first in line to get a room like this.
And after that we came into a SM room, not really my thing, but if you're in to those kind of things it might be fun for you.
Than we came to the only part of the museum that did show something true about prostitution, which is the 'confrontation room'. In this room you get to sit in front of what are basically two video screens. And the video screens play footage of people walking by, looking at you, as if you where a prostitute yourselves. This is the only part that I could really say I recognized. If you really want to know how it is to be a prostitute, you'd skip the entire museum, and go straight to this room, and sit there for a couple of minutes.

Next up was the video room, showing the video made for Stop The Traffik, about 'human slavery'. I won't go too much into the video, since I have another blogpost coming up about this video. But the basic thing is, that this video pretends that every year there are thousands, or perhaps hundreds of women being trafficked into the Red Light District in Amsterdam, which is simply not true. I'm 100% sure that 90% of the women working in the Red Light District in Amsterdam knew exactly what they came here to do, and weren't tricked into it with excuses like becoming a dancer or a waitress or anything like that. To me it almost feels as if this video is showing people how dumb and naive prostitutes are, thinking they would come here for a dance career, and ending up a prostitute. This is complete bullshit, and certainly not 'many of them' end up here.

Than there was a wall with a couple of things people had lost apparently when they where visiting a prostitute. Most of these things where simple little things people often forget, like a watch, or a phone, or their wallets. There was however one thing I saw there, which I seriously doubt anyone could ever forget, which was their dentures. I don't about you people, but how the fuck do you forget to put back in your own dentures?! Or why would you even take them out?! I think most girls would throw up the moment any guy would take their dentures out, it's just ridiculous! Or was he licking her pussy and than by accident his teeth flipped out?! WTF!

Than there was the confession room, with a wall full of confessions people left there. Strangely a lot of people apparently feel the need to talk about their own sex life on those pieces of papers on the wall. I don't know why, since the museum is not about sex, but about prostitution. Yes, prostitution does have to do with sex, but it's not a sex museum, it's a prostitution museum. I don't know why these people keep writing on that wall about their own sexual experiences, I'd rather see them writing something about prostitution, and what their opinion about that is after visiting this museum.
My boyfriend, Mark van der Beer, joked for a moment that perhaps we should post a confession as well, stating 'Mark and Felicia Anna where here, if you want the true story on prostitution in Amsterdam follow behindtheredlightdistrict.blogspot.com' But I thought that was pushing it.
Than there was a test you could make about prostitution. My boyfriend took the test, in where Ilonka Stakelborough from Stichting Geisha was giving the answers. My boyfriend got all questions right, except for how many clients visit prostitutes in Holland every year. Though I think my boyfriend was closer to the truth than they claimed.

Overall I think it's better to skip this museum. The museum really isn't that interesting, it's too small, doesn't really show you anything new or special, and above all isn't really realistic. I found there to be a lack of information about the job. If you really are interested in information about prostitution in Amsterdam, I can better suggest the Prostitution Information Center (PIC) near the old church, run by Mariska Majoor, she has more valuable and better information about the reality, because she used to be a prostitute herself for 25 years, and I talk with her on a regular base.
And to be honest, if I would be really interested to see how a prostitute her workplace looks like, I'd rather go to a real prostitute, pay her the 50 Euro, and get to see it for real, rather than spending 7,50 Euro for a preaching lecture on prostitution, filled with false information and stigmatization towards prostitutes as innocent, naive victims. Plus, if you would go to a prostitute, not only do you get to see a real workplace, but you can ask her yourself about her job and experiences.

Dutch version

Poster with the text 'looks can be deceiving'

Recently the GGD (Dutch government health organisation) launched the news that they are going to do a research about prostitution. For their research they are looking for clients of prostitutes who are willing to fill in a form with questions about their experiences (link can be found here). Some of the questions however are about being able to spot if a prostitute is forced. I was curious about what things they would come up with, since in my experience it's virtually impossible to spot this for a client. What came up shocked me, a list of things that could really apply to any prostitute, forced or not, and gives no indication as to whether a girl is forced or not.
So I went searching for what other organisation had listed as signs of forced prostitution, and to my surprise the list was virtually every the same. Stopmensenhandel.nl (Stop Human Trafficking), Meld Misdaad Anoniem (Anonymous crime reporting) and various other Government sources and rescue organisations had a similar list of signs. There was even a whole campaign about it from Meld Misdaad Anoniem, the Dutch government their anonymous crime reporting organisation that went like this:

So I thought it would be important to share with you why these 'so called' signs could apply on almost any prostitute. So let's start with the first one:

1. Prostitute makes a tense, worked up or scarred impression.
At first this may sounds plausible perhaps to many people, but I'll explain why this is not the case. Prostitutes are just like people, in fact we are people as well. And just like normal people, we have emotions as well. We are not always happy, we also have bad days, and sometimes our work is also shit which means we can also be tense or worked up about things. Since our job consists out of working with many different kind of people, from normal people to weird people, from friendly looking people to scary looking people, we can also react in different ways to people. A lot of times I get clients who in the beginning look kinda scary to me, but end up being very nice people (and occasionally not so nice). So yes, I also get scared sometimes by the clients that go to me. That's not weird, it's only natural.
So yes, prostitutes also can be tense, worked up or scarred about things, just like every other person in this world. We do a job that does bring some risks, and therefore we are more careful, and perhaps even a little bit too cautious about who we take in. This could result in the fact that we come over as scared, which in our job is not uncommon.
A prostitute looking tense, worked up or scared doesn't mean automatically that she's forced or exploited, but nearly that we are humans as well and that we have emotions just like everybody else.

2. A Prostitute has marks of physical violence, like bruises or sometimes remarkable tattoos or brand marks.
Let me first of all ask you, how can someone see if a bruise is from physical violence? The answer is simple, unless you are a CSI expert you can't see that. Prostitutes are just like regular people, we live, and therefore we also fall sometimes. Prostitutes can break their legs, just like normal people, but that doesn't mean a prostitute is forced. And prostitutes can get bruises, just like regular people do, from bumping into stuff, that doesn't make us forced either. In fact, I know girls that do martial arts sports, and they regularly have bruises from that, that doesn't make them forced!
And than the old myth of the tattoos. How many people outside of prostitution have a tattoo? In fact, are there still any people left that don't have a tattoo yet? So many people these days have tattoos, from small to large, symbols, flowers, names. So what would be considered a remarkable tattoo?
When I made my tattoo, with the tattoo artist working in the Red Light District in Amsterdam, I pointed out which tattoo I wanted. It was a lotus flower. The tattoo artist asked me if I was sure I wanted to have that tattoo. I said yes. Again he asked me if I was sure, and tried to convince me to take another tattoo. Eventually I decided to change my mind, and choose another tattoo. I didn't know what this was all about, but he said to me: ' you'll find out one day why I'm asking you this.' A couple of months later the police came to my door at work to check my papers. When they saw the tattoo, they looked at at carefully for a moment, and than said to me: ' Oh, for a moment I thought that was a lotus flower.' When I asked them what was up with the lotus flower, they explained to me that it was very suspicious that a lot of girls have a tattoo of a lotus flower, because according to them that was a sign of being forced. Funny enough, I know many girls who have a tattoo of a lotus flower, some of my best friends do, girls I've lived with, know extremely well. They are not forced. So I thought it's very weird the police sees the lotus flower as a sign of being forced, since there are many girls who have a tattoo like that, and they are definitely not forced. Many of them actually already had the tattoo way before they even started working in prostitution.
That a prostitute has bruises, or a tattoo, doesn't make her forced, just as much as an accountant having a bruise from bumping in to something isn't forced to do his job, or a biker isn't forced to drive his bike because he has a tattoo.

3. Has clearly no fun in her job, in other words: is hardly not or not capable of ' playing the game' 
This goes back a little bit to the first point I made, about that we prostitutes also have emotions. Just like normal people, we can't always smile. Especially if the work is not so good for a period, we can even be very grumpy, just like how everybody would get a bit grumpy if their work wasn't going so good for a period. With ' playing the game' they obviously mean smiling and being happy to the customers, since that's the game apparently we have to play all the time. But nobody simply can be happy 24/7 at their work, and smile all day, all night long. And why should we? Do we have to smile to every idiot that walks by our windows? Remember, we can pick out our own customers. I don't smile to people I don't want as a customer. I only smile to someone when I do want them as a customer, and since a lot of girls pass on a lot of people passing by, this means a lot of girls don't smile to people and even customers, if they don't want that person to be their customer.
And even if that person does come in to be a customer. That doesn't mean I have to keep smiling to him, like I'm some kind of idiot. I also have feelings and emotions, and I just want to do my job. If I don't want to smile to my customer, that's my problem, and not because I'm forced or something like that. And that goes the same for most of the girls I know.
And there's another thing. With many of my customers I'm nice, I smile to them, I try to treat them nice. But when you tell them they can't do things I don't want to do, and they keep pushing for it, than indeed I can also become unfriendly, and if I have to, even aggressive. It's my body, and my work, and I decide what happens inside the room. If I don't want to do something, it's not going to happen. And yes, sometimes that means I will not ' play the game' anymore with them. Not because I'm forced, or don't like to do this job, but because I don't like how those people are treating me.

4. Cannot move freely, cannot go alone on the street, there's always someone with her.
This is an interesting one, since how can a client see if a girl stands behind a window, if she cannot move freely and cannot go alone in the street? Are they supposed to keep waiting all night long, until a girl goes home, and than follow her like some sort of stalker, to check if she's with someone or not?
And let's be honest, the Red Light District in Amsterdam, is not the safest part of town. I know a lot of girls that are scared to walk alone in that area. So what happens often, is that their boyfriend comes to pick them up. That doesn't mean her boyfriend, or sometimes even husband, is forcing them, but simply that he wants to protect her and make her feel safe.
Should all prostitutes now choose to walk alone in the Red Light District in Amsterdam, which is filled with pickpockets, Moroccan people trying to steal you, drugs dealers on the street, just to prove we're not forced, with the chance of getting robbed, beaten or even abused? There are many Moroccan people out there in those nights, who know the prostitutes make a lot of money, and are just waiting for you to go home. Often (80% of the time) I get followed by some Moroccan asshole, hoping he can steal me, or even worse. And it wouldn't be the first time that a girl would get beat up and end up in the hospital because of these guys.
I go home alone, because my boyfriend works in the day, and he needs to sleep. I live close to the Red Light District, so I'm quick home, and it's not so much a problem. But there are many girls who don't live as close by like me, and they still have to get home in the middle of the night. Some girls therefore choose to stay there all night, until the early morning (which of course would also been seen again as a sign of being forced), but most of the girls have someone picking them up to bring them home, for safety.
Of course these girls could also choose to get a taxi (public transport doesn't go in the middle of the night). But why should you pay 20 or 30 euro's for a taxi, when your boyfriend or husband can pick you up with a car for free, and make sure you get home safe? Let's be honest, how many guys out there, would let their own girlfriend out alone in the Red Light District in Amsterdam in the middle of the night?

5. Works for an extremely low price
To be honest, I don't know many girls that work for a low price. The office (exploitant), sets a minimum price that the girls have to stick to. If they don't stick to the minimum price, they can get kicked out of their room by the office. This is to prevent a competition for the price under the girls themselves. There's an interesting debate going on, among prostitutes themselves, about other girls working under the minimum price. Often this revolves around Dutch girls and Eastern European girls complaining about each other that they work under the minimum price. In my opinion this is not so much about the price, as it is about jealousy. One group is simply jealous about the other group, because they work more. Also girls that have a personal vendetta with another girl, will often accuse the other girl of working under the minimum price, as a stab in the back and hoping the office will kick her out.
One thing is really funny though. If there are really so many prostitutes, either Dutch or Eastern European girls, working for under the minimum price as they always claim. Than why do I get so many times people asking for 30 or 40 euro's, which I refuse, and than I see them walking around all night, trying to find a girl who is willing to work for under the minimum price of 50 euro's? Especially since those guys repeatedly come back to me asking if I really don't want to take them in for 30-40 euro's? It should be easy for them to find a girl who would be willing to do that, right? Since there are so many girls that do that, as people claim. So than why do they walk around all night long, if there are so many girls that do that?
But I'm sure some girls work for under the minimum price, I've experienced it myself, one time with a girl from Eastern Europe, and one time with a Dutch girl. So in my opinion it happens with both Dutch and Eastern European girls. The myth that mostly Eastern European girls work under the minimum price I cannot verify. I know many of them, and don't know any girl who does that at this moment. I'm not saying there never where, but simply that it is not bound to where the girls is from, it happens on both sides, though these are rather exceptions than majority.
But that a girl works for under the minimum price would be forced, I cannot say that. The few girls I've experienced working for under the minimum price where certainly not forced. I think it has much more to do with the fact that some girls don't make much to almost no money at some point, and that therefore they are willing to work for less in order to make some money at least. Personally I think this is stupid, but obviously not every girl thinks like me. The girls that do this, often have a bad period at work financially, and therefore are willing to drop the price, in order to stay financially healthy. This is not so much about being forced, as it is about survival.
And also, let's think about it. Girls that are forced always make a lot of money according to court cases and many stories out their, since their pimp demands this. So why would they work for less money, which would only bring them home less money for their pimp? It doesn't make any sense. These girls would be focused one maximizing their income, by taking in everyone for at least the minimum price, and not for less, since than they would get in trouble about how much they make. Plus, on top of that, if the forced girls would do this, they have a big chance of loosing their room, which they certainly don't want to do, since this would create a problem with their pimp who would get angry with them.

6. Speaks only her own language. No Dutch, German or English
This is a funny one, since when I first came here, I also didn't know any Dutch, German or English. In fact, many girls that come here in the beginning, don't speak Dutch, German or English, since they didn't get it in school. In Romania for instance, people where taught for a long time French, and not English. My mother only learned Russian in her school. And let's be honest, most French people also don't speak a word of English, German or Dutch, does that make every French person forced because of that?
I quickly picked up on it, since you're kinda forced to learn it when you do this job, as do all the other girls. How else are you going to explain how much the price is, what you offer, and what you don't want to do?
The reason why many girls don't speak Dutch, English or German, is simply because they didn't get (much of) it in school. But in reality you'll find out that most girls actually do speak at least English, since without English you can't even ask for a room from the office. You learn English as you go, and quickly pick up on it. But in my experience, there are many girls that speak (enough) English for a small conversation. It's not perfect, but enough for the work.
And why would only forced girls not speak English, Dutch or French? Do they have a monopoly on not having it in school? Did they get picked out in school already to be forced? And let's be honest, I also didn't speak English when I first came here, but I learned it by talking to my customers. So can the forced girls learn English, just like me.

7. Has no place to live, sleeps at work
This one is just laughable. First of all, you can't sleep at your work, since the office isn't open 24/7. You will find no girl in the Red Light District in Amsterdam, living at her workplace. It's simply impossible. The offices close between 3 and 6 'o clock (depend for which office you work), and get cleaned every day by a cleaner. On top of that, isn't the story of forced prostitutes always that they can never leave the house, and the pimp beats them in the house, and counts his money there?
It's true that many prostitutes have trouble to find a place to live. Often girls will live together, which again the police sees as a sign of human trafficking. This is not the case however. The reason is much simpler. The reason many girls live together, is because they have trouble to find an apartment. This is because many landlords are very hesitant to rent out apartments to prostitutes, because of the stigma that we have.
Also I have trouble every time to find an apartment. Last time I had been looking for an apartment for 6 monthst, and every single time I was refused as soon as they heard what my job was. One time even a landlord got into a discussion with me, saying he wouldn't give me the apartment because he was afraid I would bring clients into the apartment and basically work home. These people are such idiots. There's a reason I work in the Red Light District and not home, because I want to keep my work separated from my private life. If I wanted to take clients home, I wouldn't need to rent a room from my office for 150 euro a day, and could save a lot of money with that!
I also lived together with other prostitutes, not because I was forced, but because we have trouble getting apartments. The apartments we often do get, are from people that don't mind having a prostitute in their apartment, which is usually because of one very simple reason, which is because the apartment is shit! The previous apartment I lived in cost me 1500 euro's a month (all incl.) and it was a disgusting place, filled with mouse (around 20 of them running around), dirty, the wash machine didn't work, the sink was broke etc. But since it's hard to find a place at all, I was already happy that I got a place.
And how come the police always thinks that more girls living in one place is a sign of being forced? How many students live together in one place? Let's be honest. I came here into this country, to work for myself. After I finished paying off the people that helped and invested in me to come here, I was on my own. I didn't speak Dutch, just a little bit of English, I don't have any friends or family here, I was all alone. If you had to choose between living all alone in a country you don't know, or you could live with someone else you can talk to, what would you pick? Plus, on top of all, you can split the rent, which would not only make it more pleasant to live with someone you can talk to, but also cheaper to live with.
I lived one year alone here in Amsterdam. I paid 1500 euro, and was lonely. I didn't have anyone to talk to, nobody to do something with, and had to pay the 1500 all by myself. If I could pick between that, or living together with someone else who also does this job, and therefore understands me, someone I can talk with, and someone I can split the 1500 euro rent with, they choice is easy.
And let's not forget the fact, that many times there are groups of girls coming here to work in prostitution. They are a group of girls that are friends, and therefore share one apartment, because they are friends, it's cheaper and they don't have to be lonely.
But sleeping at work? No, that's not even possible! And on top of that, how are customers supposed to know where I sleep? Do they have to follow me around, like a stalker, wait until I finish work, to see where I sleep? I don't want my clients to know where I live! I have my privacy as well!

8. Doesn't know on which address she works
Let's be honest, Dutch is a very difficult language. In fact, it's the second most difficult language in world, after Chinese. Most street names are very long, and very difficult to pronounce of foreign people. While most prostitutes do know which address they work at (at hookers.nl they where surprised to hear the girls know this), I can imagine that for some girls it's very difficult to remember the name of the address. Street names like Oudezijds Voorburgwal and Sint Annedwarsstraat, Dolbegijnensteeg and Oude Kennissteeg, they're not very easy to pronounce for foreign people.
In fact, I lived for more than a year at an address of which I now still can't pronounce the name, since it's so damn long and complex. The fact that some girls don't know what address they work at, doesn't prove their forced, it just proves that Dutch is a damn hard language to learn.

9. Looks unhealthy
How does someone look unhealthy? Is that defined by how fat or skinny they are? Is it defined by how much they take care of their own personal hygiene? Is it defined by looking like a person with AIDS? This sign is depending on how the person reading it, defines looking unhealthy. The only people who can tell you what they mean with this statement, are the people that came up with this sign.
Let me ask you people another question. How many of you, would have sex with someone that looks unhealthy? Would you? I don't think so. And why not? Because you don't want to have sex with someone that looks unhealthy, you don't want to risk your own health, plus it's not attractive. And let's be honest, why would a pimp force a girl into prostitution, who looks unhealthy? It would be better for him to pick someone that looks healthy and would make a lot of money, than someone that looks unhealthy that nobody wants to fuck. Because simply nobody would go to a prostitute that looks unhealthy.
This is again one of those myths, that prostitutes are unhealthy, full of scary deceases like HIV, AIDS and other STD's. This is bullshit. The prostitutes in the Amsterdam Red Light District get regularly a health check up from the PG292. A lot of girls are very skinny, since that's the demand a lot of men have, but also simply because a lot of girls are just very skinny because they can't gain anymore weight. I know girls that look even skinnier than me, yet they eat 4-5 times a day french fries and other fastfood, and they just don't get any fatter. I also get a lot of people asking me why I'm so skinny, and the truth is, I really don't know. I eat a lot of fastfood, pizza, McDonalds, KFC etc. And I like to look skinny, I don't want to become a fat person.
This sign is truly bullshit, since it leaves up the definition of 'unhealthy' to the person spotting it. They don't define what is unhealthy according to them, which means it could really be used in any way you want to.

As you can see, the list of signs of forced prostitution, is a list that just shows how bad the organisations are informed about prostitution. It just proves how little they know about our world, and our job. They are signs that could either apply to anyone, or could never even happen. It worries me to see that organisations give such bad advice to our clients and other people, and inform them so badly about our job. Truth is, a customer really can't see if a girl is forced. Even organisations themselves can't tell the difference between forced and non-forced prostitution, just like the police can't spot the difference, than how could a client ever be able to?!
Many customers ask me if I'm forced, and even after I tell them that I'm not forced, they still won't believe me. I don't understand these people, they ask me thousands of questions to find out if I'm forced or not, and when I tell them the truth, than they still won't believe me. Than why the fuck do you ask these questions, if you're not gonna believe my answer anyway?
There are plenty of customers out there that are looking out for girls who could possibly be forced. But there are also many customers out there who just come in, pay for what they want, and want to go out without any trouble. They don't want to ask us a thousand questions to check out if we're forced or not, and this is also a ridiculous idea, since a client could never find it out anyway if a girls is really forced.
If organisations (that are specialized in this), and the police even can't get it straight, than why do you demand clients to able to?

Dutch version

When I started on Twitter, speaking out for prostitutes, immediately there where people claiming that I was fake and a liar. But after one of them identified me at work (article can be read here and also on hookers.nl), by one of the most suspicious people about the truth of prostitution, that storm quickly went down. It's hard to continue saying someone is lying and a fake, when one has been identified already.
But lying and fake people do appear in the conversation about prostitution. So how do you know, which stories are true, and which stories are not, when constantly the debate about forced prostitution is being invaded by fake people telling lies?

What's interesting to read, is that the people who are fake and are lying about prostitution, are always self-claimed prostitutes who tell juicy stories about forced prostitution and how big the problem is. Examples of people like this are Maria Mosterd, writer of the book Echte mannen eten geen kaas' (Real men don't eat cheese), about where she tells how she was forced into prostitution by a loverboy at the age of 12. There was a lot of attention from the Dutch media about this book, and Maria Mosterd was invited into several TV shows to talk about her story. About a year later several people, among which Dutch crime reporter Peter R. de Vries (famous for winning an Emmy for his documentary about the Nathalee Holloway case), came up with some evidence that proved that the story of Maria Mosterd was a hoax. Also the fact that Maria Mosterd claimed she had missed classes because of her loverboy, where proven to be false, since the school itself, and a number of her girl friends, had testified that in the first year she had never missed a class, and also in other school years, she was not missing as many classes as she claimed. But the biggest prove was perhaps, the fact that Maria Mosterd herself, who had claimed she had been forced into prostitution, never went to the police with the story, and never pressed charges against her loverboy. By that time, the book had already become a bestseller, and the mood had been set already.

Another example of someone like this is Patricia Perquin. I've written before a little bit about her in other blogs, since she was the main adviser on the project that is currently closing down prostitution windows in the Red Light District in Amsterdam. Patricia Perquin, claimed to have been a prostitute in the Amsterdam Red Light District, and claimed the Red Light District was a world of sex, violence, humiliation and exploitation. Her stories where first posted into two newspapers Het Parool and the Algemeen Dagblad, and afterwards where published in book form under the name ' Achter het raam op de Wallen' (Behind a window in the Red Light District).
Patricia Perquin soon after became the adviser to alderman Lodewijk Asscher, and advised him to strongly reduce the number of prostitution windows in Amsterdam, to prevent prostitutes from human trafficking and being forced. Also mayor Eberhard van der Laan was very impressed with her book, and claimed afterwards that this was the reason they needed to continue the project 1012, of closing down the windows in the Red Light District in Amsterdam.
It wasn't until the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant revealed her identity to be Valerie Lempereur and not Patricia Perquin, that people started to wake up. Lempereur had tried to stop the Volkskrant from revealing her identity, but had failed (which begs the question why), and the article proved that the story was a hoax. Lempereur had worked before as a journalist for several gossip tabloids (Story, Nieuwe Revu), worked for a while for crime reporter Peter R. de Vries, who had fired her for fraud and deceit on multiple occasions, and even ran a publishing company at the time she claimed to had been working as a prostitute (also Maggie McNeill has written about it on her blog here).
The big question of course now is, where did Patricia Perquin go? How come we never heard from her after she got her identity revealed? Her book got published, she made money with that, and now all of the sudden she disappeared? Why? Doesn't she care anymore about all those forced prostitutes she was mentioning in her book anymore? Apparently money and power interested her more. She was fighting so much for it, so where is she now?

There are more cases like this, in where people pretending to be prostitutes tell horrible stories about forced prostitution, exploitation and incredible violence, and later turn out to be fake. Still people keep believing these stories, like Shari van den Hout (politician for the ChristenUnie) today proved on Twitter here, while in this blog here it was already proven that also the person writing this was a lying.
What's funny is that there has never been a person claiming to be a prostitute with a positive story about prostitution. All the people that always been revealed as liars, frauds and fakers, have all told stories about how bad the situation in prostitution is. And that begs the question why. How come all the liars and fake people always tell bad stories about prostitution, and there never are any liars or fakers telling good stories about prostitution? Well, the answer is simple, these people are either interested in money (by selling books), or are against prostitution on itself, and use a fake story to motivate it.

In the end it very simple comes down to this. It have always been the people with bad stories about prostitution, that have been revealed as fake and liars, and never any with positive stories. That's because those stories don't sell books, and because nobody wants to hear good stories about prostitution. Also a lot of people are trying very hard to make prostitution look bad, by telling stories about forced prostitution, exploitation and violence, and don't care if these stories are real or not. They only care about destroying prostitution, for whatever cost.
It's interesting that people always claim prostitutes with positive stories about prostitution are fake and liars, since history has proven that it have always been the people telling bad stories about prostitution that have been fakers and liars. So next time, when you think someone is telling a lie about prostitution, think about it if it's a good or a bad story about prostitution. Because since only people telling bad stories thus far have been identified as liars, while people telling positive stories about prostitution, like me, have always been proven to be real. Don't believe the people telling lies that the prostitution industry is bad, they're just trying to get you convinced to ban it, and that doesn't help anyone, not the prostitutes, not the victims, and certainly not the truth. All these people are doing, is trying to influence the debate about prostitution with bad stories, in hopes people will think prostitution is bad or filled with crime and getting your support for it.

In a lot of ways, the discussion about prostitution is a lot like the discussion about homosexuality. Also in that discussion people are constantly trying to get people convinced that homosexuality is wrong, even using lies that get those people convinced about it. We see this happening in countries like Russia, the U.S., but also France, in where Christian organisations try to influence people with scary stories about STD's, AIDS, HIV, the danger of loosing marriage as a meaning of love for men and women, etc. These stories are bullshit! People telling these stories are often the same people that are against prostitution, and also use lies to influence the debate in their. Don't let prostitution in Holland become the homosexuality of Russia.

Dutch version

Update: All the rapports about forced prostitution are now together in my blog post here, for a complete overview so you can form your own opinion.

There are many people out there who think (and claim) that most prostitutes, are forced in the Amsterdam Red Light District. Most of them are politicians and people from the rescue industry, but since a lot of normal people hardly hear any different stories out there, they've also become convinced this is the truth. Often you'll hear them say percentages like 50, 75% or sometimes even 90% of the girls. Especially politicians and people from the rescue industry tell terrible stories about how women are raped, beaten, threatened every day to show to people how terrible it all is. Often they'll mention how many court cases there have been, and than they'll mention a couple of recent cases as an example.
This gives people the idea that on a daily base hundreds, or even thousands of women are being raped by naive clients in the Amsterdam Red Light Districts. But of course the real question is: Is this really true?

Most politicians and people from the rescue industry base their numbers on the famous rapport from the KLPD (National Police) called ' Schone Schijn' (Keeping up Appearances). This report is a research about human trafficking in the legalized prostitution. In this report it is mentioned that about 50 to 90% of the prostitutes could be victims of human trafficking. What they often forget to mention is the fact that these numbers are based upon people from the police their own personal estimations, and do not represent any solid numbers, and are not based upon any scientific research. In fact, for the research they only talked to 2 prostitutes, which all where victims of forced prostitution. Other than those 2 prostitutes, the only people interviewed where mainly people from the police (about 20 people!), government (34 people!) and a couple of people from the rescue industry. In other words, if you only talk with those people with bad experiences, than you shouldn't be surprised that the end result is a bad experience.
It's like doing a research on airplane safety (statically the safest way to travel), and only interviewing the clean up crew of airplane crashes and on top of that interview less than a hand full of actual passengers and pilots, of which all had been victims of an airplane crash. No wonder that a report of that would give the impression that flying is extremely dangerous!

Of course the KLPD report is not the only report out there. There are a few other reports that have been done. One of them is a survey from Scharlaken Koord, a Christian rescue organisation. They did a survey among 202(!) prostitutes, and the end conclusion was that only 8% of the prostitutes where victims.
This of course is a very big difference with the report that the police came up with, so in order to give some clarity about things another report was made. This report was called Kwetsbaar Beroep (Vulnerable Profession), and was done by a research agency. Basically what they did, is they looked at both of the previous reports, talked to a few people from the prostitution industry themselves (and only 8 prostitutes themselves), and based upon those people's opinion, together with the results of the previous two reports, came up with an estimation of somewhere between 30 and 40%. Not a very accurate number of course, especially since they again didn't do a survey and spoke to very few prostitutes, and again came up with just estimations, which doesn't say that much.

In 2010 another research was done among 94 prostitutes called De Amsterdamse Prostitutie Monitor. This report showed that 10% of the girls in the Amsterdam Red Light District are victims. This number comes close to the other research done bij Scharlaken Koord of 8%, and both are done by interviewing (a large number of) prostitutes themselves. While the other two reports Schone Schijn and Kwetsbaar Beroep, who did much less interviews, and based themselves much more on simple estimations, came up with numbers that are very far apart from each other and are also much higher than the reports that actually spoke to a lot of prostitutes themselves.
Looking back at these 4 reports, and the big difference between them, and how the research was done, I think it would be safe to say that the numbers of around 8 or 10% is much more accurate than estimations of 30-40% or even bigger 50-90%.

Looking at my own experience of working in the Red Light District in Amsterdam for more than 4 years, seeing and talking with my colleagues, I think indeed a number of between 8 and 10% is much more realistic than numbers of 30-40% or even higher 50-90%. I know that percentages of 50-90% aren't even possible, for the very simply fact that I know more than half the girls myself, and they are not forced. Also numbers of 30-40% seem highly unlikely in my eyes, since I think I know most of the girls working there in the night, and none of them are forced. The chance that I in 4 years time never met these girls from a group of 30-40% seems highly unlikely to me, especially since I know almost everyone working in the night there. This would mean that the only way 30-40% could be forced, is if most of them work in the day, but that doesn't fit in the stories people tell about forced prostitution. In those stories about forced prostitutes, girls are always forced to work long hours of 12 to 16 hours a day, so both day and night, to maximize the income for their pimp. That would mean that I would have had to have met them at some point in those 4 years time, but I never seen, heard or met any of them.
This leaves only one option, which is that about 8-10% of the girls are considered to be forced prostitutes, which sounds plausible. It's a small enough group for me to have missed in 4 years time, and it's also the only real numbers that are based upon facts rather than estimations of what people think.

But now there is a second problem between what many politicians and people from the rescue industry say and the reality. Because they are talking about forced prostitution, but use numbers that tell us how many prostitutes are victims of human trafficking. And the problem is, not every victim of human trafficking is a forced prostitute. There are basically three types of victims of human trafficking:

The real forced prostitute
This is the prostitute the politicians and the rescue industry always talk about. This is the girl that doesn't want to work as a prostitute, but is being forced by a pimp to work for him. This is the worst case of human trafficking. Often girls can be physically and mentally abused, raped and blackmailed. The pimps exploit the girls for money, and will therefore make them work as many hours and days as possible, to make the most money with them. Most of these cases happen in countries where prostitution is illegal, since it all happens underground, and out of sight of the police and other authorities, and nobody has control over it.
It can also happen in countries where prostitution is legal, but than mostly happens in places where it's out of sight for the police, like illegal prostitution. It has happened before in legal prostitution (case of Saban B.), and perhaps is still happening now, but since there's a lot of control of the police in the Red Light District in Amsterdam, it makes it very dangerous for the pimps to do it here. Therefore they'll often choose for the illegal prostitution, since the chance to get caught there is much smaller, because there is not control of the police over there.
These girls are victims of human trafficking, and will also see themselves as victims. Still, once the police catches the pimps, they only have to go to jail for a few years, which in my eyes is terrible because they destroyed the lives of these girls.

The exploited prostitutes
These are the prostitutes that are not forced into prostitution, but choose it for themselves. To get started in prostitution, they need help from someone (like I explained in my second blog post here), to help them get into the country, set up their own company, get a place to live etc. The person helping them invests money in them, since he/she pays for everything and puts a lot of time into helping the prostitute. The deal is made to pay that person the money back (perhaps with a commission for all the work and time), but once they're here that person changes the deal and asks for more money. Basically it's a scam, like how you get promised a nice vacation from a website, but once you get on location it turns out that it doesn't look like how it was shown on the website.
The prostitute sometimes manages to escape from this person, but sometimes also it happens that it ends up in a court case (an example here and here). Often the girls afterwards continue working in prostitution, even after a court case, since that's what she came here for by her own free will.
These women do not consider themselves to be forced prostitutes, since nobody forced them into prostitution, they actually wanted to do this job. Still the media, politicians and people from the rescue industry, and sometimes even the judge will still claim this as forced prostitution. Of course it's very sad what's happened to these girls, and these people should go to jail for it, but they should not be treated as a victim of forced prostitution, as they are often treated now.

The free trafficked prostitutes
These are the prostitutes that are not forced into prostitution, and also choose it for themselves. Also they need help to get started in prostitution, and therefore get help from someone else. The person helps these prostitutes the same way as the exploited prostitutes get helped, with the only difference being that the person helping them doesn't change the deal afterwards. This means the girl doesn't get forced, and doesn't get exploited, and basically nothing wrong happens, she simply gets help from that person. So you think nothing wrong is happening here. The girl got what she wanted, she wasn't harmed, forced, exploited, scammed or anything. Still by law this is considered to be illegal, since according to the human trafficking law 273F 1.3, everyone helping a person to travel from one country to another, knowing that person will become a prostitute, even though this person agrees with it, is considered to be human trafficking.
This is what is wrong with the law. For every job in the world, it's perfectly legal to recruit and help another person to get a job in another country, but the only job where this is illegal is in prostitution. Why is it illegal to help someone into prostitution, even if that person wants it herself? Is it perhaps because the politicians that made this rule are against prostitution itself, and therefore want to prevent anyone from doing it? Or is it perhaps because the politicians think that nobody wants to do this job out of their own free will? In my opinion this rule only exists to make it impossible for girls to start to work as a prostitute. This is really weird, since prostitution is considered by law to be a profession, and even politicians say that this profession needs to become more independent. But how can you become more independent if you don't get any help from the government? The government doesn't help girls to become a prostitute, and that's why the girls look for help from other people.
These girls are not forced prostitutes, they're not being exploited, they don't consider themselves to be exploited or forced and also shouldn't be treated as a victim. Still the law sees these girls as victims, and also the police, rescue organisations and politicians. These girls are also counted as victims of human trafficking, and sometimes even see the person helping them going to jail for it. What's wrong with this country?!

So as you can see, not every victim of human trafficking is a forced prostitute. In fact, the 8-10% of human trafficking that get mentioned in the reports, are not just real forced prostitutes but also exploited prostitutes and free trafficked girls, since they are also victims of human trafficking by law. This means that the number of girls that are really forced into this job against their will, must be lower than at least 8-10%, since the other two group of girls are also counted in these reports as victims. On a total of the 700-1100 prostitutes that work in the Red Light District in Amsterdam, this would come down to about 50 to 90 girls in total, and not the hundreds or thousands of girls some people suggest.
I have no idea how many real forced prostitutes there are, since reports only talk about human trafficking, which is much bigger than just forced prostitution. One thing I can tell, is that it must be at least smaller than the 8-10% the reports show, since they include not only forced prostitutes, but also girls the are not forced. This also matched with my 4 years experience of working as a prostitute in the Red Light District.

The claim that politicians and people from the rescue industry make, that 50% or more of the prostitutes in the Red Light District in Amsterdam are raped on a daily base, because they are forced by a pimp to prostitute themselves, is simply false. First of all the number is way too high, and secondly they use numbers of human trafficking, which includes more kind of groups than just the forced girls. In my opinion the only reason they are telling this story, is to close the windows in the Red Light District. This means taking away workplaces of girls (of which 90% is working not forced!), leaving them no other option but to move somewhere else, or to start to work in the illegal prostitution, where it's much more dangerous and much more forced prostitution is happening than in the Red Light District in Amsterdam where it's legal and protected. So, in fact, the only thing politicians and the rescue industry is doing, is forcing women into forced prostitution, in stead of  'saving us' from it, like they always claim.

The best advice I can give the girls to stay out of trouble in the prostitution industry, is to never trust any guy who comes over to you with a nice talk about how beautiful you are. Never do something you don't want to do, even if people will hate you for it (like people will hate me for writing this blog).
And my advice would be to the politicians and opinion makers out there, to listen to the prostitutes and work together with them. The prostitutes have more experience in this industry, and a better knowledge about it, than any rescue organisation could ever offer. And the government should start to think about creating a safe way for prostitutes to start this job, to prevent people from exploiting the girls who want to do this job. Preventing things before they happen are better than fighting the problems that happen afterwards.

Update 11-05-2014 18:48: I reviewed the report Schone Schijn again, and came to the conclusion that 2 victims where interviewed for the report (correspondents 56 and 62), and not 4 like I've written before in this blog post. Therefore I updated the numbers in this post.

Dutch version

Before I started to do this job I heard many stories about prostitution. That you would have to have sex many times a day, you would have to take in all the people and that the people would treat you bad. Basically I thought the same way many people think about prostitution, and this is also enforced by a lot of stories in the media. But when I started to work here, I was surprised at how different the job was from what I expected, and that's it not all about sex.

First of all, many of the clients that come to me often don't end up having sex with me at all. Many guys come inside and have what we could describe as 'performance issues', often caused by drinking too much, smoking too much weed or just because they're very nervous. In fact, if I think about it, about 40% of my customers have trouble to 'keep it up'. But besides the guys that have performance issues, you also have guys that don't even want to have sex. A lot of guys that come to a prostitute just because they want to talk, about problems they have at home, issues with their wives or girlfriends, some people are just curious to come inside and ask you about the work. In fact, a large part of my time revolves more around playing a therapist than a prostitute.

Than you have people that do have requests, like giving them a normal massage (without the happy ending), or just give them a simple handjob, or a simple blowjob. Than you have the people with weird requests, like people wanting to be walked around like a dog (no sex), people who want to be beaten or sometimes even have their balls squeezed by my high heels until the point they're almost bleeding. Most of these guys come to me because they have requests that their wives or girlfriend don't to perform on them, and they have no where else to go with these requests.

And than you have the guys that actually come in to have sex and actually also end up having sex, which is around 30% of the guys. But a lot of guys that come in with the intention to have sex, often don't even end up having sex for various reasons. And there also a lot of guys that come in saying they want to have sex, but do it more to prove to their friends how macho they are, and once they're inside often are too scarred to even take their clothes off. And last but not least you also have guys that come in for another reason, which is because they're doubting their own sexuality, and they want to find out if they're gay or not. This usually ends up with me doing nothing at all but taking a dildo in my hand and putting it where they like it.

Everyone these days talks about human trafficking, and the people who exploit and force a girl into prostitution. We prostitutes just like call these guys 'pimps'. The pimps are for us the bad guys, the human traffickers. By definition of course a pimp is something a little bit different than 'our' version of what a pimp is. By definition a pimp is anyone a prostitute does business with for her job that is not a client of hers. So technically these are brothel owners, people who protect the girls, even my bookkeeper. But since we don't like call the people that help us a 'pimp', we only use this word for the people that do human trafficking. For the police it doesn't matter much, in their eyes everyone that is connected to a prostitute is a pimp.

According to the Dutch law, a human trafficker is someone that recruits, transports, takes in or houses a person with force (in the widest sense of the word) with the goal to exploit that person. Human trafficking does not just happen in prostitution, but happens in many other industries as well. Still the media uses the word human trafficking most of the times when it's about prostitution, and they change it to 'exploitation' when it's about another industry. Therefore it often looks like human trafficking only happens in prostitution, but it happens in other industries as well.
But there are more exceptions when it comes to prostitution and human trafficking. For example: in prostitution it's also called human trafficking when a person transports someone from one country to another country, knowing that person will work there as a prostitute, even when it's voluntarily. In other industries it's perfectly legal and not called human trafficking to transport a person to work in another country knowing what job he or she is going to do.
In my eyes that's a weird thing. People can do any job they want, traveling from one country to the other for jobs, after all we're talking about the European Union, in where any citizen is allowed to work in any of it's countries. Many people are recruited from one country to work in another country, for instance as truck drivers, or strawberry pluckers, by professional organisations or individuals. But when someone agrees to work as a prostitute in another country, and you transport them than all of the sudden it's illegal. It's an example which shows that even though the Dutch government has legalized prostitution and claims it's a normal job, in reality they still treat it like it's criminal.

When I came here to Holland I had help from people. The people that helped me knew I was going to work as a prostitute over here, and therefore by law are considered to be human traffickers. A strange thing, since without their help, or any help for that matter from anyone, it simply would not have been possible for me to come to work here. For example, to live in another country you first need a place to live. Now the problem is of course that not many prostitutes when they come here, including myself, speak English very well. And if you can't communicate with someone, or read a contract for that matter, you can't get a house.
Secondly, you also have the problem of money. The reason most prostitutes from Eastern Europe come to Holland, and especially to Amsterdam, is because they can make a lot of money. They come from poor countries like Romania and Bulgaria, and simply don't have the financial means to rent an apartment for themselves over here. The average income for a person between 20 and 30 years old in Romania for instance is between 150 and 250 euro's a month. The rent in Amsterdam alone however comes closer to 1000 euro's or more, especially when you want to live closer to the center. On top of that comes the fact that when you rent an apartment for the first time, you need to pay not just the rent for the first month, but also pay the deposit (the same amount as one month's rent) plus you pay the agency (also the amount of one month's rent). So in total you pay about 3000 euro's for an apartment, while you only make about 200 euro's average a month. In short, it's unaffordable for any person to come from a poor country to Holland, without any financial help. And since the banks don't give out loans to prostitutes, that leaves only one option, you need to get someone to help you.
So it basically comes down to the fact that no matter what, even if a person wants to, you can't help that person to travel to another country to get a job as a prostitute. And why is that? How come it's legal to help someone become a truck driver in another country, but it's not legal when that same person wants to become a prostitute? Are they trying to demotivate people from becoming prostitutes? Is there something wrong with being a prostitute if you want to?

And now we've only covered the housing. I haven't even added in the costs of transport (airplane tickets), setting up your own company to be a prostitute at the Chambers of Commerce, and I haven't even covered the non-financial part of getting all the papers you need and your permit. Especially in Holland, where everything is very complex and complicated to get, even if you know the Dutch or English language, it's virtually impossible to get started as a prostitute when you're not from here.
The incredible amount of paperwork needed to get started as a prostitute is already so much work, that you simply can't do it without any help. And since there are no prostitution-agencies to go to, like you have employment agencies for other jobs, help is required.
It's strange to make a job legal, but than making it virtually impossible to become one without help, and than subsequently making anyone that does help you a criminal by law. It's strange really, there are so many organisations out there to fight human trafficking, but there are no organisations that help you become a prostitute without the help of (what they legally call) human traffickers. There's no organisation that helps you 'safely' to become a prostitute. And of course, if you use these kind of terms to describe human trafficking, by criminalizing any help to become a prostitute, than indeed I understand why the number of human trafficked prostitutes are so high. That however doesn't mean we're forced, but simply that the government doesn't support prostitutes in their career, and rather discourages it. To me it's strange that a government says a job is legal and normal, but on the other hand discourages any to pursue a career in it.
And of course these anti-human trafficking organisations gladly use these, basically false, numbers of human trafficking to connect it with the worst cases or sometimes even pure lies of women being forced, beaten, tortured and exploited into prostitution. It's not so strange that they do this by the way, after all, they're funding and financing depends on the need for help, and therefore depends on the size of human trafficking. The more human trafficking they can report, the more financing they will get to 'fight this problem'.

And now we even haven't talked about the police their involvement in 'fighting' human trafficking. For the police basically every guy who's close to a prostitute is a pimp, and therefore a human trafficker. 'A guy will never love you for who you are, but for your money' a policeman once said to me. He made it sound like it wasn't possible for prostitutes to get someone to love them. However, I know plenty of girls, including myself, who have a boyfriend that loves them for who they are, and not for what they do or how much money they make. In fact, I know many girls who came here with their boyfriend before she was a prostitute, and years later return home together after she quits the job. Many prostitutes are even married, have children, and of course there are also prostitutes that break up with their boyfriend and get a new one. In fact, it's almost as if prostitutes have normal lives like everyone else!
But the police has a very different view on this. 'Never share your money with a boyfriend, because you worked for that money and not him!' a policeman once said to me. It sounds very logical to a lot of people who know little to nothing about prostitution. But if you really think about it, it's actually really weird. How many husbands work for the money to support their wives and families? How many football-wives spend the money of their husbands on expensive clothes, bags and shoes? Isn't it a classic household, where one person works, and the other person does the house-holding? Than how come it's so weird for a prostitute to share her income with her partner? All couples do this, but when prostitution is involved it's all of the sudden 'wrong' and even illegal! Does that mean all couples and families in Holland are forbidden to share their income with the rest of their family and partners? Why is it just illegal for a prostitute to share her income with her partner, and not for an accountant?
No, when a prostitute shares her income with someone else, it's called exploiting, and it's called human trafficking according to the police. Many boyfriends and even husbands have been arrested by the police, and some have even gone to jail, simply because their girlfriend or wive is a prostitute and shares her income with him. If you ask me, that comes pretty close to discrimination in my eyes, in where the same rules don't apply to one specific group of people. Plus let's not forget the fact that nobody from Romania or Bulgaria until this year was allowed to work in Holland, except if they started a company for themselves over here. So what where these boys supposed to do? They can't get a job, because the Dutch government doesn't allow them access to the Dutch employment market, yet they also can't survive on the income of their own partner, simply because she's a prostitute. Should all these prostitutes let their boyfriends and husbands starve to death, because some idiot calls this human trafficking? What a madness!
But of course in the eyes of the police it's all very different. The boyfriend that came with you here to this country, is a human trafficker and a pimp. The boyfriend you get here, is a guy who's only after your money, and therefore a pimp and human trafficker too. Even the boy who's not your boyfriend, but just a friend is a human trafficker, because he spends time with you but you don't love him, and therefore obviously must be a pimp. And even when you're single, and you don't have a boyfriend and never had one over here, you're still a victim of human trafficking, like how the police thought in my case.
In the end, the police basically thinks every girl is a victim of human trafficking, it doesn't matter if she's single, married, has a boyfriend, or already had a boyfriend before she came here, they're all victims in the eyes of the police. You can't have a normal life like any other couple or family, because you can't share your income with your partner, and the police constantly suspects your partner to be a criminal. A good friend of mine who also works here gets stopped every single day by the police, because her boyfriend brings her to work. She lives a couple of miles away from her job, and therefore her boyfriend drops her off at work, much like many other people would give their partner a ride to work. And afterwards, in the middle of the night, he picks her up again. They have a car, so why would they need to pay a taxi to bring her back in the middle of the night? Or why would she need to take public transport of they have a car of their own? And since you can't park so good here in the center of Amsterdam, you're not gonna leave your car in an expensive parking garage, with the chance of someone stealing your car or breaking in to it. It's much more logical if he just brings her to work, and picks her up afterwards. But in the eyes of the police, this is very suspicious, and therefore they get pulled over every single day, in where every single day the girl has to explain the same things over and over again.

Yes, there are human traffickers in prostitution, just like there are human traffickers in the transport industry, agriculture, house holding etc. But just like in these industries, not every partner of a truck driver is a human trafficker, and not every husband to a strawberry plucker is a criminal.
And yes, human trafficking should be stopped, but not by treating each worker as a victim, or each partner as a criminal. Prostitutes want to fight human trafficking just as much as everyone else wants, but it works better to work together. The police should see us as an ally in the fight of human trafficking, in stead of a victim. And people should start treating us like people, in stead of naive dumb girls who got forced into this by a pimp!

Dutch version

Some of you may have heard about me through Twitter or from my boyfriend Mark van der Beer, some of you may not have. I'm Felicia Anna, a 27 year old prostitute from Romania working in the heart of the Red Light District in Amsterdam. I've been working there now for more than 4 years, unforced, unexploited and completely on my own free will. I know many of the girls on the Red Light District, either because we're from the same country (which easily forms a closer bond with someone), or because we work for the same window owner (or office as we call it), or just because they're my friends.