tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40578680549652418662024-03-18T12:58:11.601-07:00Behind the Red Light DistrictA real-life Romanian prostitute working in the Red Light District in Amsterdam.
Blogging the truth about prostitution, human trafficking, pimps and politics.Felicia Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.comBlogger119125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-9178607652413199112020-12-11T13:17:00.002-08:002020-12-11T13:30:07.255-08:00How Amsterdam is quietly closing down windows in the Red Light District (and hopes you won't notice)<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-R-giqq4V3tQ/X9Pg9WV8mEI/AAAAAAAABMQ/OThVc06Tu40CQHCBXZki77UPiNz4DY_JwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/2020-06-12%2B22.32.32.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-R-giqq4V3tQ/X9Pg9WV8mEI/AAAAAAAABMQ/OThVc06Tu40CQHCBXZki77UPiNz4DY_JwCLcBGAsYHQ/w320-h180/2020-06-12%2B22.32.32.jpg" width="465" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">A couple of years ago we saw the end of Project 1012, the gentrification project of Amsterdam's Red Light District, which aimed to close down window brothels and coffeeshops. The narrative frame that was used was that closing these businesses down would help fight crime, but in reality had nothing to do with this. Also a report made by the independent Rekenkamer of Amsterdam concluded crime did not deminish, but that the position of sex workers had only been worsened because of a significant drop in legal workplaces, leaving many sex workers to go underground into illegal prostitution.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">But for those who thought this project was over and done with, and that sex workers would benefit from the new city council of Amsterdam, you've got it all wrong. As the city is still continuing the project long after it's officially finish. Because as of the 1st of January until the summer another 37 window brothels will be closed down, still part of the Project 1012 gentrification. The city was wise enough to arrange these closures in silent, as not to attract any attention to itself and create outrage, as the city has tried to give itself a more sex work friendly and inclusive face. But this is just a pure diversion from the fact that they are still closing down windows as part of Project 1012, and even want to close down more windows in the future as part of a new project to make the Red Light District 'less over crowded'.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Meanwhile sex workers who's windows will be closed down as part of Project 1012 will not receive any compensation whatsoever or any alternative workplaces. The city is hereby pushing these sex workers (yet again) into the illegal sector, which has proven to be much less safe for sex workers, due to a high risk of both violence against sex workers as well as human trafficking. It's safe to say closing down these windows will increase trafficking and abuse against sex workers, and the city is directly responsible for this.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now the city of Amsterdam hopes of course that the closing of these windows from the 1st of January will happen silently and will go unnoticed, as it might damage their sex work friendly image. I hope it doesn't, as the city of Amsterdam has not changed one bit in the last decade, and is still out to destroy the lives of sex workers in benefit of real estate investors who will pay a pretty price for all these empty window brothels who just happen to be located in expensive historical real estate buildings. In short, the city is literally selling out women in favor of financial profits over real estate.</span></div><span id="docs-internal-guid-94a99ca4-7fff-2f25-ab0a-d37338f76a41"><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Felicia Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.com86tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-70984524772231733552019-04-11T04:27:00.002-07:002019-04-11T04:37:20.094-07:00Christian youth club Exxpose does failed attempt at Swedish model <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">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.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">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. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">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!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">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.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">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.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">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.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">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.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">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.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">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.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">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!</span></span>Felicia Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.com258tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-32520802335736784072019-03-29T05:58:00.003-07:002019-03-29T05:58:32.060-07:00Sex workers against ban on Red Light District tours<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In december the city of Amsterdam announced to be banning tours in the Red Light District of Amsterdam after 7PM, and last week alderman Udo Kock announced plans to ban all tours completely in the Red Light District from 2020. The ban came to everybody as a complete surprise, mostly to us as sex workers.<br />
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According to alderman Kock the reason for banning tours in the Red Light District is because we as sex workers should not be seen as a tourist attraction, and 83% of the sex workers would be against tours in the area. Also many locals and local businesses would be against the tours, because they would cause too much trouble. The main reason being mentioned is over crowding, tourists being disrespectful and taking pictures of sex workers.<br />
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Funny enough, neither me or any of the colleagues I know, have been involved with this so called 'research', or been involved with designing this policy. We're not the only ones that have not been involved though, the association of undertakings on the Red Light strip, the OVOA, says that none of them have been asked as well, and they oppose these measures. As well as the union for sex workers, PROUD, and the Prostitution Information Center (PIC), who went yesterday to speak to the city council about why they disagree with this measure.</div>
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The research, which was supposedly conducted by the PIC, is far from reliable. Because of the very simply fact that the PIC wrote on their Facebook that they didn't conduct this research, or where involved in it in any way. Which makes things really interesting, because that begs the question how come that the organization that conducted this research among sex workers, doesn't know anything about it themselves?</div>
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This research, by the way, was only conducted with 4 companies in the sex industry and 10 sex workers. In short, it's not a very reliable research if you're only interviewing 10 sex workers. In fact, it's laughable. There are 400 sex workers in the Red Light District, so this is only 2,5% of all the sex workers. But how can 83% of these sex workers be against something, if you only asked 10 sex workers? </div>
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In short, something fishy is going on here. The research is not reliable at all, especially not because me and most of my colleagues completely don't agree with the new policies of the city and also have not been consulted. Banning tours in the evening only leads to more tours in the day time. While the sex workers in the day time work more with locals, and especially for them tours scare away customers more. For sex workers in the evening these tours only bring in tourists into the Red Light District, and considering the fact that our clientele are mostly tourists, we don't mind that.</div>
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What we do mind is the complete bullshit some tour guides tell. Some tour guides tell the biggest lies, sometimes completely fabricated stories. But there are also good tour guides, who tell the right stories, and also inform people not to take pictures and to be respectful to us. We love those good tour guides, because they help raise respect for us, and tell people not to take pictures of us, something I haven't seen the city doing so far. </div>
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Speaking of being respectful to sex workers. Udo Kock, the alderman who came up with these new rules, claims he's doing this out of respect for us. Really?! You are taking away our clientele! And what have you done so far to be respectful to us? Not talking with us? Not listening to us? Not responding to the many tweets I send you on Twitter, about how these rules don't help us at all? Not making pictures of sex workers illegal? But, oh wait, you are banning every tour guide in the Red Light District that tells people not to take pictures of us! How is that suppose to help? </div>
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The tour guides in the Red Light District actually can even get a fine if the people in their group take a picture of us. This rule does not apply for tourists themselves, only for tour guides. So by banning tour guides, they're taking away the only people that are not allowed to take pictures of us. And wasn't our complaint that so many people where taking pictures of us, according to mr. Kock? Then how is this supposed to help?! You're taking away the only people you can hold responsible for taking unwanted pictures of us!</div>
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This ban on tours helps nobody. It does create more problems for us and everybody else. It brings in less tourists for us, which is our main clientele. It bans tour guides who tell people not to take pictures, so we'll end up with more people taking pictures of us. From april till the end of this year the girls in the daytime will be packed with tours, because tours are only allowed in the daytime. And those people doing a tour in the daytime will come back in the evening to see the Red Light District come to life. So in terms of how crowded it is, it doesn't change anything. Basically you're making it worse for the daytime girls now, and from next year you're taking away our clientele and people telling their group that it's not allowed to take pictures. So in stead of making our circumstances better, Udo Kock is making it much worse. </div>
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But what angers me most, is the fact that Udo Kock is going to tell us if we as sex workers can be seen as a tourist attraction or not. He's literally saying that we shouldn't be seen as a tourist attraction. Uhm... excuse me! Can we decide for ourselves if this is a problem or not for us? Because we know this! This is part of the job here. If you don't like it, you're in the wrong place! There are 2 other red light areas, without tourists if you don't like it. But guess what? None of the girls want to move away from here. Because we don't mind being seen as part of a tourist attraction. Because this tourist attraction brings in the money.</div>
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But wait, we can't be seen as a tourist attraction, by alderman Kock? So we should only be seen by locals? What kind of xenophobic bullshit is that? Like only locals would be allowed to see us? Are you ashamed that your city has a Red Light District, mr. Kock? Are you trying to hide it from the world? And what, those local people are better? Many of the local people are much more disrespectful than these tourists! I hear on a daily base Dutch slurs being thrown to my head like 'kankerhoer', 'vieze hoer' and many other things. Almost 3 weeks ago I was almost punched by a Dutch guy, because 'how dare I ask 100 euro for my services'. We have a much bigger problem with Dutch people being disrespectful, especially people from Amsterdam, than most of these tourists! All those people always writing it's the drunk English tourists that cause trouble. That's such bullshit! </div>
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And the work already isn't very good at this moment, because there are simply not so many people on the street to work with. In fact, most of the sex workers including myself don't think it's that crowded at all. We actually think it's much less busy then years ago. This whole story about the Red Light District being too busy is a lie! It's a hoax! It's just a frame used to try and finally destroy the Red Light District, by hitting us where it hurts, by taking away our clientele. They've tried closing down the brothels for 10 years. It didn't work. Their Project 1012 failed. This is just their new excuse to victimize us in the media, so they can try and get rid of us. That's what this is really about!</div>
Felicia Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-56470383237933448802018-11-04T04:56:00.000-08:002019-01-29T10:50:38.141-08:00Amsterdam not listening to sex workers<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Is this really busy?!</td></tr>
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Recently the political parties who are in the city government of Amsterdam announced a plan to reduce the business in the Red Light District. They want to open alternative locations, by giving out new licenses in other parts of the cities, for prostitution in hopes that it will reduce the business in the Red Light District, theorizing that sex workers in the Red Light District are fed up with the tourists.<br />
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First of all I completely don't understand this nonsense that people are complaining about the Red Light District being too busy. I've been working here for 9 years, and when I started out here it was much busier than it is these days. Before every day was like a Saturday in terms of how busy it was on the streets. In fact, it was busy until the early morning in the Red Light District, but nowadays after 2 or 3 in the morning the streets are almost empty. And I work in the busiest part of the Red Light District!<br />
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This isn't just my opinion, we started asking around colleagues and the majority of the sex workers in the Red Light District seem to agree with this. Almost 75% of the sex workers in the Red Light District don't think it's too busy in the street, but are saying it's become less busy. The sex workers that did think it was too busy turned out to be sex workers that haven't worked here for very long, so for them it's all new and they've never seen it how it was before. But even those who thought it was too busy said this wasn't much of a problem for them, as long as they are people with money who come inside with us. Sadly enough however these days there are more people just looking rather then coming in. Partially because they only come to look, partially because they simply don't have any money to come in.<br />
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So the claim that these political parties make about sex workers feeling it's too busy, and thus would prefer to work elsewhere is simply not true, but an opinion they projected onto us. But this isn't just the opinion of sex workers in the Red Light District, I've also asked people who work at the sex shops and at the sex shows, who've been working here for years already, and they say exactly the same thing. It's not busy, it's become more quiet in the Red Light District.<br />
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So the plan that the political parties have to open other locations for prostitution elsewhere in the city, serves no goal. We don't it's too busy, you've been pressured into thinking that because there's a group of residents that keep shouting this out in the media. And this group their voice is very big in the media. But that doesn't make it true!<br />
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It looks like an excuse they can use to kick is out. We've seen the same thing happening in 2013 in Utrecht, another Dutch city, which before also had window prostitution, in total 165 windows. They closed down all the windows over there for a different reason (also a lie), but with the same claim that they would offer the sex workers a new location. That never happened, but the windows where closed down nonetheless. The same thing applied to Arnhem in 2006 already, over there they also closed down 240 windows, claiming they'd open up a new location. Also there it never happened.<br />
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The way that Project 1012, a gentrification project in the Red Light District, was sold to the media as a project to fight crimes like human trafficking was used as an excuse to close down windows, they're now simply using a new frame to get us out, which is over tourism. It's just a new excuse to reach the same goal.<br />
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A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. In other words, I don't believe any of this crap. The city government got betrayed by their own mayor this week, who stated that the windows in the Red Light District that where scheduled to close down as part of Project 1012, are still going to close down. These are 37 windows with windows that are especially popular with sex workers because they're located in narrow alleys which offer more discretion to customers.<br />
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And also when we're talking about this supposed business, closing down more windows in the Red Light District doesn't make any sense, because that means the rest of the Red Light District will just because busier due to the fact that it's getting further reduced in size. In short, this is such a bullshit story. You're so adamant on fighting this business, yet you're still reducing the size of the Red Light District, making it even busier.<br />
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But even the plan itself, to open other locations elsewhere, isn't going to solve their problems. First of all because of the fact that there's simply no other place for it close by. Secondly because the logic of these political parties contradict themselves. After all, if this new plan is to reduce the business in the Red Light District, and at the same time offer sex workers a new place without tourists, then where did all those tourists go to? Either this new location is supposed to attract new tourist, this making it less interesting for sex workers to work there, according to the logic of these parties. Or sex workers would go to this new location because it's tourist free, in which case it doesn't do anything to reduce tourism in the Red Light District. It's one or the other, but this plan can't do both, it's contradicting itself.<br />
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Above all, we already have alternative locations. The Singel area is just a 10 minute walk away from the Red Light District, and there are no tourist there whatsoever. In fact, it's pretty much empty. So why would we need another location, of we already have one, or even in fact two alternative locations, because there's another area with window prostitution on the Ruysdaelkade. In short there are two alternatives to the Red Light District, yet still most sex workers prefer to work in the Red Light District. That doesn't seem to support the idea that sex workers want to move out of the Red Light District, nor does it support the idea that other areas will reduce the business in the Red Light District, otherwise it would've been a lot busier in those other areas as well.<br />
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What I see very much in this plan is that they claim to have listened to us, while in fact they've not listened to us at all. In fact, they're doing exactly the opposite of what we wanted. They're still closing down windows in the Red Light District, which we protested against, and which would only further increase the pressure of tourism in what remains of the Red Light District. Plus they think we're stupid enough to believe that they're going to open up alternative workplaces so in the end they can close down completely the Red Light District, using the new excuse of tourism in stead of trafficking.<br />
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If you really care so much about us, open up those new locations in the Red Light District itself, stop closing down windows in the area, and tourism will spread over more streets in the Red Light District. It's very simple. But they don't want that, they're just trying to deceive us with the promise of a new location, which is never going to work out, we've heard this promise before already in other cities.Felicia Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-17976879873240419922018-08-23T10:27:00.000-07:002018-08-23T11:11:29.659-07:00Lies about debts of prostitutes in Red Light District<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In a recent article published by newspaper Trouw, several Christian organisations talk about how girls in the Red Light District of Amsterdam would have debts of thousands of Euros with brothel operators, due to the fact that the income for us had dropped enormously in recent years.<br />
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And while it is true that the income has gone down a lot, the story that girls would be in debt with brothel operators is largely bullshit. Of course there can always be exceptions, but generally speaking there are no debts with brothel operators for a number of reasons.<br />
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The first and most important reason why girls don't have debts with brothel operators, is that you have to pay your room upfront per day. In short, if you don't have money to pay for the room, you don't get a room, and therefore also can't built up any debts. Brothel operators are not in the habit of giving away rooms for free, with the ‘pay me back later’ attitude, simply because you never know if you'll ever get paid back later. If a girl decides to quit and go back home, she can just leave, leaving the brothel operator with no money for the room.<br />
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In short, no money, no room. If you can't afford to pay the rent, you don't get the room. It’s just like with any other business, if you don’t have the money, you don’t get the place. So this whole story is largely bullshit. And brothel operators certainly won't let any debts run up to thousands of Euros, since that would cost them their income if a girl decides to make a run for it.<br />
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Than this whole story of the prices being so incredibly high for the windows. An average price for a room in the night time is about 165 Euro. The most expensive ones being 190 for the evening shift, the cheapest one being 130 Euro. For the daytime the average rent is about 90 Euro, ranging from 80 to 110 Euro. One brothel operator in the Red Light District works based on a one shift per day system, with a higher price of currently I believe 245 Euro.<br />
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But let's compare the price of these rooms with a hotel room for example, to see if it's really that expensive. A cheap hotel room in the Red Light District is about 220 Euro per night. That's a lot more expensive than the average of 165 we pay for the rooms. And it's basically the same thing, you rent one room with a bed of about the same size our perhaps a little smaller.<br />
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If you'd compare it to other businesses, we're also much cheaper of with our brothel operators. Try and find a business space for less than 165 Euro per day, that you don't have to pay for on the days your business is closed and even allows you not having to pay rent for your business space when you go on holiday.<br />
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Annemarie van Gaal recently complained in another article that the prices of the rent for rooms in brothels in the Red Light District of Amsterdam where extremely high. Interesting that she should claim this, since miss Van Gaal herself is in the board of directors of Start Foundation, the investor in the My Red Light brothel in the Red Light District. And My Red Light charges 165 Euro per night for their rooms. In other words, if Van Gaal complains about the rent for rooms being too high, and accuses the owners of brothels of 'exploitative behavior’, perhaps she should take a look in the mirror, since My Red Light does exactly the same thing!<br />
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In the opinion of most of the girls the rent is not too high, it's much cheaper than a hotel room or business space that other businesses pay for. Plus with the additional security measures of the brothel operators they offer, I'd say it's a fair price. Of course cheaper would always be better, but we don't blame the brothel operators of being exploitative for the prices they charge for their rooms, because in all honesty it's a fair price for us. Real estate in the city center of Amsterdam, where the Red Light District is located, is simply very high. That has nothing to do with the brothel operators, but does have something to do with a gentrification project called Project 1012.<br />
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The whole point of the article in Trouw was a clear example of how Christian organisations try to victimize sex workers every chance they get. Using the frame of how our income has dropped versus the rent we pay for our workplaces, they try to frame the brothel operators (again) as the bad guys. Sadly enough Annemarie van Gaal, who has good intentions I presume, but clearly lacks any knowledge of the Red Light District, follows the frame, not knowing she's riding the bandwagon of sex work abolitionists posing as heroes.<br />
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If the problems were really as big as those Christian organisations claim, then why would we still come to work here? After all, we're not making any money according to them, and are only making losses. So then why show up every day to make the loss even bigger? You don't have to go to work there. But of course that's the whole frame they're trying to use. They're trying to make it look like we're forced to work there, without explicitly stating it.<br />
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The funniest thing about the whole article in Trouw is that they still try to hint at large numbers of sex workers in the Red Light District being forced to work for pimps. But if that'd be the case, and so many of us wouldn't be able to even break even from our rent, that'd mean that the pimps also wouldn't be making any money. In short, there's a huge flaw in their narrative. No money for us, would mean no money for the pimps. And if those pimps wouldn't be making any money, than what would be the point for them to be here?<br />
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The flaws in this narrative are so hilarious, they even completely contradict each other. Either the story is that we're independent, but we're not making any money and even would be making losses on the rent. But that can't happen in reality, since the brothel operators wouldn't be making anymore profits, thus everything would die out pretty quickly. Or the story is that we're all forced by pimps, thus the income must still be profitable enough, otherwise there wouldn't be a point for a pimp to exploit us, since there would be no profit.<br />
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The only reason these organisations claim these things, is so they can profit from it themselves financially. After all, these christian organisations their whole reason of existence is based upon the idea that they have to save us. But if there’s nothing to save us from, there’s no reason for them to exist, and thus no reason for people to finance their schemes. So the only reason they claim these lies is so they can profit from it themselves.<br />
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<a href="https://achterhetraamopdewallen.blogspot.com/2018/08/leugens-over-schulden-prostituees-op-de.html">Dutch version</a></div>
Felicia Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.com55tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-71250846463830199632018-05-31T10:06:00.002-07:002018-05-31T11:36:32.501-07:00Dutch government's 'pimp ban' is dangerous<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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For a while now The Netherlands has a new government, a coalition between right winged liberal party VVD, D66 and Christians from CDA and ChristenUnie. And apparently while negotiating about the new Dutch policies, the Christians where able to trade out their opinion in exchange for other things. Thus this new Dutch government came up with a plan for a 'pimp ban'.<br />
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Now a pimp ban might sound like a good idea, but the name is deceiving. Because in reality this pimp ban aims to criminalize anyone that aids and financially benefits from illegal working prostitutes. And just to clarify, illegal working prostitutes are not victims of trafficking, but simply sex workers that don't have a license to do sex work. Those licences are also almost impossible to obtain, since cities in recent years have basically only reduced the number of licenses, in an attempt to clean their cities of prostitution, with the excuse of fighting human trafficking.<br />
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The best example of this is in the Red Light District, where they closed down 128 windows. But also other cities have followed Amsterdam's example. In total 800 windows have closed down alone, leaving now 1200 windows in the Netherlands, in stead of the 2000 windows they had back in the year 2000. And in total there are now 46% less licensed prostitution businesses in The Netherlands since the brothel ban was lifted in 2000.<br />
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New licences are rarely ever given out, simply because cities don't want to. In short, even if you wanted to get a license to work legal as a sex worker, it's virtually impossible to get one. So a lot of sex workers are stuck working illegal, under the radar. Not because they are forced by a pimp, but because the government forced them, by reducing legal workplaces and not creating any new legal alternative workplaces for them.<br />
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Now you might think it's still a good idea to criminalize people that financially benefit from sex workers, because most people often think about pimps when they hear this. But this is exactly where this new upcoming law is so deceiving. Because this law doesn't aim at pimps, but anyone that benefits from sex workers without a license. So also for example the driver of an escort girl, the bookkeeper and the security guy. Literally anyone that financially benefits from a sex worker that works without a license.<br />
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To mislead the public opinion, the ChristenUnie party leader Gert-Jan Segers claimed that the pimp ban aims to criminalize human traffickers, and anyone that benefits from human trafficking. But this is simply not true. Nowhere in the entire proposed law it is mentioned that this law would only apply in cases of human trafficking, but in stead criminalizes anyone that aids and financially benefits from sex workers that work without a license.<br />
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Some people have said that Gert-Jan Segers is not well enough informed about the new law to realize the negative effects of his laws, but the reality is completely the opposite of this. In fact, he designed this law, so he knows very well what he did, and he intentionally designed it this way, so he could mislead people into believing it was about fighting human trafficking, while in reality it serves a different goal: to fight prostitution any way he can. You see, in the end Gert-Jan Segers his goal is not to fight human trafficking, but to try and ban prostitution anyway he can, and this law is designed to do exactly that. So he knows very well what he's doing, and Segers is extremely well informed about the prostitution industry and how things work, for example by Christians saviors Frits Rouvoet.<br />
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And to hive you an idea of what would happen if Gert-Jan Segers would succeed. If this 'pimp ban' gets implemented, it would mean that people who do business with sex workers working without a license don't want to do business with them, out of fear of being caught as a pimp. So bookkeepers, accountant, landlords, security people, drivers and chauffeurs would not do business anymore with these sex workers, making the life and work of these sex workers extremely difficult. Of course these sex workers would love to work legal, but since the cities don't allow them to get a license, their stuck working illegal. Obviously they won't stop working as a sex worker, since that would mean a loss of income, so they would continue working illegal, but can no longer do business with safe people, leaving only criminals to take advantage of that.<br />
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Indeed, this law would lead to more extortion of sex workers by criminals, which is also called human trafficking. So in stead of fighting human trafficking with this law, it would increase it. Obviously Segers knows this, but he simply doesn't care, as long as he gets his way because of his Christian morals. He wants to make the work of sex workers as difficult as possible, in an attempt to reduce prostitution as much as possible.<br />
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For me personally, this law doesn't affect me. I work legal, so for me this law is not a problem. But unfortunately not everyone can work legal, because of the problems of obtaining a license. So there are a lot of other sex workers out there in The Netherlands, who are in danger of only being able to do business in the future with criminals who want to try and exploit them. Obviously this is very bad, and the whole reason why this misleading pimp ban is such a bad idea, and proof of why people should never believe politicians like Gert-Jan Segers about topics like human trafficking and prostitution.<br />
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<a href="http://achterhetraamopdewallen.blogspot.com/2018/05/het-gevaar-van-het-nieuwe-pooierverbod.html" target="_blank">Dutch version</a>Felicia Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-75956851356645018082018-03-17T08:16:00.001-07:002018-05-31T11:35:58.985-07:00The lies of CDA and ChristenUnie about the Red Light District<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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We as prostitutes are getting so tired of all the lies that (mainly) christian political parties are spreading about the Red Light District. Ever since the new elections are coming up, they've been spreading so much bullshit, it's almost impossible to keep track of all of it. Let me first of all state that the christian parties such as CDA and ChristenUnie are not to be trusted in their information regarding prostitution and the Red Light District.<br />
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The problem with the statements of these christian political parties is that they attempt to get rid of prostitution. Not because in reality there's so much going wrong in the sex industry like how they claim, but simply because it's against their christian morals. They manipulate and often just lie as hard as they can about so many things, claiming to protect us, the women working as prostitutes, while in reality they are completely not protecting us at all!<br />
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The biggest bullshit they're spreading is about forced prostitution. They falsely claim that none or very few women choose to do this work. This is downright a lie. They keep coming up with made up numbers of human trafficking, which are simply made up. They constantly spread the lie that 50 tot 80% of us are victims, which is not true. They also claim that 70% of us have PTSD, which is also downright a lie.<br />
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All of these lies are carefully prepared and coordinated in an attempt by these christian parties to ban prostitution in any way they can. Whether this is by closing down more windows, criminalizing customers or just banning prostitution completely, every step takes them closer to their ultimate goal: banning prostitution. And they use human trafficking as a false argument to justify their goals.<br />
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So here are the facts. No, it's not true what they're telling you. Not 50% of the girls working in the Red Light District are forced. This is pure bullshit stories. I've written in the past couple of years a lot about the realities of human trafficking and tried to give more people insight into the (possible) scale of this. But to put it very simply, the Dutch Rapporteur on Human trafficking has received only 2 reports of possible victims in window prostitution in Amsterdam in 5 years time. That's pretty much it. So unless you believe there are only 3 or 4 women working in the Red Light District, you know all the stories of hundreds or thousands of women being forced here are utter bullshit.<br />
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Now I know what some people will say. "But these are just the victims that pressed charges, there are many more victims, but they're scared to press charges because of their pimp." Well, let me first of all say to you, why do you think you know it better than the people like me who works here? Secondly, no, this is not the case. Those 2 possible victims are all the people the police had suspicions about that they could possibly be a victim. So no, these are not victims that pressed charges, they don't even require any bit of evidence, simply the gut feeling that 'something might be wrong' is enough to report a person as a possible victim. In short, there is no more!<br />
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Now another bullshit thing CDA and ChristenUnie keeps spreading is about PTSD. They falsely claim that 70% of the prostitutes suffer from PTSD. This is another downright lie. Their statistics come from an American anti-prostitution activist who did selective research. In short, the research is manipulated to give a bad representation. The researcher hand picked her subjects with the highest probable rate of having PTSD (mainly street workers), to falsely claim this would be representative for all people working in prostitution. But of course the point is that it doesn't.<br />
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Secondly the research wasn't even conducted in The Netherlands, so it says nothing about the Dutch situation, it rather says more about what happens if you criminalize prostitution, like in the US where this research was conducted. So it actually points out more what will happen if CDA and ChristenUnie will get their way.<br />
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But more importantly, there's been various other researches done among prostitutes in the Netherlands as well as the Red Light District which shows a vastly different image, namely that prostitutes are actually feeling quite well and rarely come across any violence or things that cause PTSD, as a result of the fact that prostitution is rather safe and organized in the Netherlands compared to countries like the US where it's criminalized and therefore quite dangerous.<br />
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So no, it's not true that most women in the Red Light District do this job against their will. In fact, many of us chose to do this job, not because it was our dream job, but simply because it pays good money. For us this job is a means to an end, a way to achieve our goal, not the goal itself. So if you ask us if we love doing this job, most of us will answer no. Of course not, but that doesn't mean we didn't willingly chose to do this. For us prostitution is a way to achieve something in life, to get ahead in life. To save up money for our future, for our families, for our children. Not because we do this out of poverty, but because it's the quickest way for us to get where we want to get.<br />
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Prostitution for many prostitutes isn't the dream job. It's the job we do that helps us get to where we want to get in life. It's the road we take to achieve our goals and our dreams. Prostitution helps us to make our dreams come true. Prostitution is our road we willingly chose, so we can achieve our goals in life quicker than most other people would in life. Not because we're forced into this job by some pimp or loverboy. Those things happen, but like the statistics show, these are the exceptions, and not the women willingly choosing to do this work.<br />
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So CDA, ChristenUnie and every other political party or organisation that claims that many of us are forced. You don't speak for us. You don't care about us. You're fakers. You're liars. You're manipulators. You're only interested in your own political agendas, and you don't give a fuck about us! If you want to hear the true story, listen to other political parties like D66, Bij1 and Piratenpartij. Those where the only political parties that actually listened to us. The others just pretend to care about us.<br />
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<a href="http://achterhetraamopdewallen.blogspot.com/2018/03/de-leugens-van-cda-en-christenunie-over.html" target="_blank">Dutch version</a>Felicia Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-76557346326056042512018-02-12T10:33:00.000-08:002018-05-31T11:35:29.878-07:00Fake news from Daily Mail about Amsterdam's Red Light District<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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On the 10th of February the Daily Mail posted an article written by Sanchez Manning about '<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5376077/Amsterdam-call-time-myth-happy-hooker.html" target="_blank">the truth of the women in the window</a>'. The article is however strikingly filled with complete lies and fake news beyond what I've seen before. Even simple things that are pretty well known are lied about, even though for the cause of the article it could've been better to tell the reality rather than some of the lies.<br />
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The article is clearly aiming to paint an extremely negative picture about prostitution and Amsterdam's Red Light District. But the article is so full of mistakes its hard to take serious at times. The article poses a fake interview with a former prostitute and victim of trafficking, but the stuff that she tells in the article are so obviously fake, it just displays their huge lack of information to write a good fake story.<br />
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So, where to begin? I could of course begin with something mentioned in the headline. One of the headlines reads: "Women working in Amsterdam's Red Light District can earn up to 350 pounds a day". If you make as a prostitute in the Red Light District of Amsterdam an earning up to 350 pounds on a 'busy day', you're clearly doing something wrong. It wouldn't even be considered a normal day, let alone a good day, like how it's claimed in the article. A good day a couple of years ago was around 1500-2000 euro, but I even knew girls that made up to 5000 euro on a busy day. Right now 1000 euro or above is considered a good day. But the 350 euro is even considered on a quiet day kind of average.<br />
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Then of course we have to come to their claims about human trafficking, Eastern European girls and pimps, and that 'many' are beaten, raped and knifed into it. What a load of bullshit. I'm not going to explain again why these claims are such bullshit, especially since the article also doesn't provide us with any statistics, so I'll let that be. But it's largely bullshit. If you care to read more about that, just read the other articles on this blog.<br />
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Then we come to the fake story of Angelica, who supposedly would've spend 5 years here in the Red Light District. The fake tale goes that when Angelica came to Amsterdam and saw the girls in the windows, she cried, because the girls looked horrible. This was the moment I just started laughing out loud. The girls looked horrible? Are you kidding me? Any tourist who visits the Red Light District can see this is complete bullshit. Most tourists are even surprised at how gorgeous most of the girls over here are, since they're not expecting this, I guess based on the experiences and ideas they have in their own country. This is just laughably fake.<br />
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The story of Angelica also mentions how her passport was taken away, which would've hold her effectively a prisoner. Well, that might work in London, not in Amsterdam, since you're always required to have your passport with you, otherwise you can't even rent a window. And even in the hypothetical case that she would be able to rent a window without a passport, once the police comes to check her up, which they do frequently (1900 checks on 300 windows alone a year), she can pack her bags and go home, and would immediately have gained the interest of the police to start an investigation. You simply cannot work here without a passport, it's not possible. And let's not even mention the fact that if this indeed would've happened a couple of years ago besides a passport, she would've also needed a permit to work here, since Romanian people where not yet accepted by the Netherlands to work here as part of the European Union. In short, this story is fake as hell.<br />
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Then we come to one of the biggest flaws in this article, which really gave away the story was fake. The price she charged. She claims the clients where charged 35 pounds, which comes down to about 40 euro, even though the price has always been 50 euro. Even most tourists know this. It just shows how the writer who came up with this fake story lacks good information about the Red Light District to construct a believable fake story. If a girl charges 40 or 35 euro, she wouldn't last a week before she got kicked out by the brothel owner, because the other girls would start to complain about it.<br />
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Then the fictional character of Angelica says she was cut on the face with a knife by her captors when she tried to refuse a client's demand to have unprotected sex. First of all the captor would have to be a huge idiot to cut her face, since it would damage his 'property' and devalue her worth in the market, but secondly it's also obvious not just to customers, but more importantly: the police. A cut in the face sticks out like a sore thumb, and would definitely get noticed by the police who walk by every 5 minutes, let alone that they wouldn't keep a sharp eye on her, since this is like the most obvious sign of human trafficking you can get. If this really happened, this girl couldn't have worked longer than a day there, since immediately she would've gotten the attention from the police.<br />
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According to this Angelica, English customers would be the worst. Laughable, since I don't know one single girl who doesn't like English customers. It's actually completely the opposite of what the article claims. English guys are probably the most respectful customers, and even when they get drunk (which happens a lot), they're still very respectful, let alone that they would hurt people. This section of the story is so clearly aimed at scarring off English guys to visit prostitutes. If this article would've been published in the French media, they would've changed them to French guys being the worst.<br />
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Then another thing which was sticking out in this story like a sore thumb. According to the story Angelica slept in her brothel in case a punter (customer) wanted sex early in the morning. I laughed my ass off when I read this, since it's so ridiculous. That's impossible, since brothel owners rent out the windows twice a day, so a different girl would be working there in the day time. So you can't actually sleep here. It's so freaking hilarious to read how poorly this writer did their research, if they did any at all.<br />
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Considering the story, the 350 pounds a day that this girl could make also doesn't add up to the whole trafficking story. Girls that are trafficked are pushed to work hard and make a lot of money, they would make much more than 350 pounds a day. It's just laughable to read such a fake victim story. Honestly I don't understand why they didn't just interview a real victim, or copied a real victim's story. In stead the writer opted to make up their own fake story, which is so full of inaccuracies and impossible things, you can just see the writer did little to no research at all to create this fake story.<br />
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The article also speaks about a protest in The Hague, where 'thousands of protesters' are expected to march to demand the country's brothels to be outlawed again. Again a pure lie. There is no upcoming protest in The Hague to protest against the legalized brothels in 2000. There was a small little protest in The Hague against prostitution in one street there, mainly local residents. Here's a picture of the protest, which as you can see, is not 'thousands of protesters':<br />
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The whole story is pretty much a completely fabricated lie, added with some quotes from mostly anti-prostitution activists, such as Renate van der Zee. In these times of fake news, I cannot possibly understand why the writer didn't put more effort in coming up with a more realistic fake story, and how this ever got passed the editor.<br />
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I urge you all to report this article from the Daily Mail as fake news. Because that is precisely what it is. Write the editor of the Daily Mail, comment on their article, Tweet about it on Twitter, post it on Facebook. It's about time the fake news about prostitution comes to an end, and the people responsible pay for it.<br />
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UPDATE 13/02/2018 18:35<br />
I was just contacted by one of the people interviewed for this article for the Daily Mail. Apparently the journalist, Sanchez Manning, lied about the newspaper they where working for. Manning also lied about the intention of the article, which was supposedly going to be about the tourism in the Red Light District and not about some story exposing the 'myth' of the happy hooker. So apparently the lies in the article aren't the only lies this journalist told people.<br />
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<a href="http://achterhetraamopdewallen.blogspot.com/2018/02/fake-news-van-daily-mail-over-de.html" target="_blank">Dutch version</a>Felicia Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-12583291586907721832018-02-10T05:41:00.000-08:002018-05-31T11:34:57.875-07:00The lies of politicians about the Red Light District<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UhsDH7Nti7I/Wn72J7sjysI/AAAAAAAABCE/uPvnPcWXcJ41g6iQi8yQxlAz33pRpLdGQCLcBGAs/s1600/2017-06-16%2B02.14.06.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UhsDH7Nti7I/Wn72J7sjysI/AAAAAAAABCE/uPvnPcWXcJ41g6iQi8yQxlAz33pRpLdGQCLcBGAs/s320/2017-06-16%2B02.14.06.jpg" width="465" /></a></div>
About 4 years ago I started this blog to fight all the misinformation and lies spread around in the media by politicians and opinion makers about prostitution, human trafficking and the Red Light District of Amsterdam. Working there myself behind the windows, and seeing all these people talking such incredible bullshit on TV, in newspaper or in other media, just makes me feel sick in my stomach. Especially because the most often claim being heard is that 'those Eastern European women are the victims', because they can't believe someone from East Europe would come all the way here just to do this work as a job, and not be a victim.<br />
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In the past 4 years I tried explaining people the truth. I've been working here now for 8 years, and the stories about the Red Light District being some kind of hub for human trafficking are just pure bullshit. Yes, human trafficking can happen, and sometimes does happen. But anyone claiming there are 'hundreds of women' victims here, or being raped, or that's it's more than 50% or all these statistics are just lying their asses of for their own hidden agenda.<br />
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Yesterday was another good example. There was a political debate on TV and also <a href="https://www.trouw.nl/democratie/sybrand-buma-gedwongen-prostitutie-is-moderne-slavernij-~aa5ee202/" target="_blank">an article was published today</a> with the leader of the Dutch christian political party CDA, Sybrand Buma, where he claimed that more than half the women are forced behind the windows. He even claimed that "if you'd ask those women, they'd say they choose this voluntarily, but it isn't the case". In short, he tries to silence our voice, and speaks for us, proclaiming that no matter what we say, people cannot trust our word. And this is coming from a politician, can you believe it? This also begs the question how someone could ever find out that someone is forced if you can never trust a sex worker on what they say? Wouldn't what work both ways?<br />
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He continued his argument by stating that 60% of the women come from East Europe, and stated that "they didn't come here with with a train ticket, but are often lured into this under false pretenses, picked out of the gutter in Budapest." Like I said, the claim is often about girls like us from East Europe, which is weird if you think about it, because we have more reason to do this job, considering our counties economic position, than women from The Netherlands for example, so this reasoning makes no sense. And it's also funny to see how poorly informed Buma is, considering the fact that he mentions Budapest as an example. There aren't so many Hungarian girls working in the Red Light District, let alone from Budapest. But whatever.<br />
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This is a perfectly good example of a lie. Buma is lying because as a christian he opposes the idea of prostitution, and would rather have it forbidden. His concerns aren't really about human trafficking and forced prostitution, he just abuses terms such as modern slavery for his own political agenda. Yes, I know, what a shocker, a politician telling a lie for a political agenda, who would've thought that, right?<br />
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Now of course it's no surprise that a politician with a christian background lies about something to achieve something from being banned which conflicts with his own christian morals. Christians have been doing the exact same things on topics such as homosexuality and abortion. Christians in the US for example claimed for years (and perhaps even today), that homosexuality is a decease. Or that homosexuality is the cause of AIDS. They say these kind of things, because everyone is against deceases and AIDS, so by using it as an argument, they hope to convince people into supporting their cause.<br />
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The reason Buma doesn't make such claims about homosexuality, is because it's much too accepted in the Dutch society. It would rather damage his political career, and cost him voters than gaining any. But prostitution is still a debate that's not been decided yet, plus the fact that unlike gay people, sex workers hardly speak out for themselves because they want to protect their privacy. And even if we would speak out, his argument is that we would be lying anyway, so nothing we say could be trusted. So it's kind of like shooting sitting ducks, it's very easy to do, and because there are no hard facts and little publicly known about the reality of prostitution, it's easy to get away with it.<br />
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Good thing though that a while ago the Dutch Rapporteur on Human Trafficking published this rapport on the relation between human trafficking and prostitution. In this rapport it also specifies how many suspicions there where from for example the police, city officials and any officials that are part of fighting human trafficking or have any dealings with this. And guess what? They specified how may suspicions of human trafficking they had by region and per prostitution form. So, now we can look up how many possible victims there really are according to the people that report this to the government.<br />
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In the rapport "<a href="https://www.nationaalrapporteur.nl/binaries/Prostitutie%20%26%20mensenhandel_Nationaal%20Rapporteur_interactief_tcm23-233408.pdf" target="_blank">Prostitution and Human Trafficking</a>" on page 177, it is specified that in Amsterdam over a 5 year period from 2011 until 2015, there where 2 possible victims in window prostitution. Not hundreds, not thousands like some video from Stop The Traffik claims, not even dozens. No, just 2. In 5 years! That means one victim every 2,5 year. Not 400 women a day, like the previous mayor claimed, not hundreds of woman a day, not even hundreds of women a month or even a year.<br />
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Now I know that people will start claiming that the police doesn't see everything. But then again they don't have to see anything to report it, all they need is a gut feeling, no evidence is required and even than we only come down to 2 possible victims. And trust me, they check things out. Official statistics from the city of Amsterdam show that they do around 1900 checks a year on window prostitution alone in Amsterdam. To put that in perspective, we have 290 windows in the Red Light District.<br />
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So 2 possible victims, that's not 50%, heck, that's not even 10%. We have here on a daily base around 400 sex workers working here, so this is more like 0,10%. Not even one percent, but a tenth of that. And yes, around 60% of us are from East Europe. But just because we come from there, doesn't mean we didn't choose to do this job ourselves. It's a pure lie claiming that most of us where brought here under false pretenses. In fact, I've never met a single girl in the Red Light District who didn't know what she was coming here for. Even victims, and I know some victims, even they knew what they came to do here, and they had no objections to it.<br />
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Because in the end, even for most victims, the problem isn't the job. Very few girls do this job involuntarily, despite the fact that human trafficking sometimes happens. Not as much as people often claim, as you can see, but it does happen sometimes. But abolishing prostitution isn't the solution to human trafficking. After all, if it was, then how come they never propose abolishing other professions where human trafficking exist, if it's such a good solution?<br />
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No, Sybrand Buma is a liar, just like Gert-Jan Segers, Lodewijk Asscher and many, many other politicians and opinion makers often claiming to 'want to do something against human trafficking'. It's not about human trafficking, they don't care about fighting that, it's a scam. They're just using it for their own political agenda. Just look through my blog, there's about 4 years worth of articles with sources. And it's not about denying human trafficking, I don't deny that human trafficking exists. In fact, I wrote plenty of artciles about how human trafficking works in reality, and even how human trafficking in prostitution could really be reduced. But also articles about the reality of working behind the windows in the Red Light District of Amsterdam, which is vastly different from how Buma claims it is. And I should know it, because I work there, and not him or any of the other politicians claiming bullshit about us.<br />
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<a href="http://achterhetraamopdewallen.blogspot.com/2018/02/de-leugens-van-politici-over-de-wallen.html" target="_blank">Dutch version</a>Felicia Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.com115tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-77504451750772692282018-01-12T11:11:00.002-08:002018-01-17T15:27:35.833-08:00Amsterdam forces 100 sex workers to work illegal<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-S50Oq2pSTnc/WleY709qdrI/AAAAAAAABBY/lSedMizen-UBkgNkhnP8meM1ZUixJp9JwCLcBGAs/s1600/1968.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="476" data-original-width="720" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-S50Oq2pSTnc/WleY709qdrI/AAAAAAAABBY/lSedMizen-UBkgNkhnP8meM1ZUixJp9JwCLcBGAs/s320/1968.jpg" width="465" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">Prostitutes in the narrowest alley in 1968, currently scheduled for closure.</td></tr>
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The city council of Amsterdam recently approved the plan of the <a href="https://amsterdam.raadsinformatie.nl/document/5941144/1/01__20171220_Raadsvoordracht_verzoek_onteigening_St__Annenkwartier" target="_blank">expropriation of 12 more prostitution windows in the Red Light District</a> of Amsterdam, and managed to force another brothel owner to change 23 windows into something else. As a direct result, soon about 100 sex workers in the Red Light District of Amsterdam will loose their workplace as a result of these closures, forcing them to work illegal since they do not offer any replacement workplaces or (financial) compensation of any kind for these sex workers.<br />
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The plans are all part of Project 1012, the long running 10 year project aimed to gentrify the Red Light District of Amsterdam into a more profitable area, mainly aimed at tourism, as many former window brothels and coffeeshops that have closed down got turned into touristic shops aimed mainly at selling food to tourists. Doing some research into <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1tKipeEtHnI0ia6d9HmczDuWFJMja5lbn&ll=52.37361690190251%2C4.898050499999954&z=16" target="_blank">128 buildings</a> handled by Project 1012 shows that about 60% of the buildings, (mainly former brothels and coffeeshops) got turned into touristic shops mainly aimed at selling food (waffel, Nutella, ice cream, etc), with the remaining buildings mostly aimed at artsy concept stores that really have no place in this area.<br />
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The results of this project thus far have been disastrous. Illegal prostitution is growing as a direct result of the closure of brothels nation wide, a good <a href="https://www.wodc.nl/binaries/2389c-volledige-tekst_tcm28-73284.pdf" target="_blank">46% of the legal brothels</a> since the legalization have closed down. Residents of the Red Light District have <a href="http://www.at5.nl/artikelen/167518/nu-al-grote-drukte-op-de-wallen-wanneer-is-druk-te-druk-en-wat-doe-je-ertegen" target="_blank">complained about the busyness</a> in the area, mainly caused by being overloaded by tourists, and have criticized the many touristy food shops that have popped up as a direct result of Project 1012 (although most residents don't realize this is the result of Project 1012). The complaints have even become so big, that a couple of months ago the city council decided to put <a href="https://www.parool.nl/amsterdam/amsterdamse-binnenstad-op-slot-voor-toeristenwinkels~a4520250/" target="_blank">an immediate ban on new touristic shops</a>, and have declared war on tourism.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XfZawCosYI4/WlkBeEN1NhI/AAAAAAAABBo/Jd07HOXw5v8rq55u-sNwWUj6JtQYMWIyQCLcBGAs/s1600/business.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XfZawCosYI4/WlkBeEN1NhI/AAAAAAAABBo/Jd07HOXw5v8rq55u-sNwWUj6JtQYMWIyQCLcBGAs/s320/business.jpg" width="465" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">Extreme busyness on the main canal of the Red Light District</td></tr>
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But in stead of pulling on the emergency break, and concluding that the gentrification project of the Red Light District has not just been a failure, but even disjointed the entire city center, the city council apparently decided to continue even further with this project, by closing down another 37 windows in the Red Light District.<br />
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All the windows due to close down are located in the narrow alleys of the Red Light District, once a busy place where many customers would walk around, but now a quiet area that has mostly died as a result of the many window brothels that already have been closed down in this area. The shops replacing the former brothels in this small area have been rather unsuccessful, since they aren't quite located at a very good spot in these narrow alleys. As a result of that, most of the people walking around in the Red Light District have moved to the main canal, where often it get's so busy it's become extreme, with many residents complaining about the busyness as a result.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Z8lPpkj_KEQ/WiiKYafs-eI/AAAAAAAACJI/q3xUPdW9gTs78CCDJSavNFi7Zeje9vrOQCLcBGAs/s640/20171029_022047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Z8lPpkj_KEQ/WiiKYafs-eI/AAAAAAAACJI/q3xUPdW9gTs78CCDJSavNFi7Zeje9vrOQCLcBGAs/s320/20171029_022047.jpg" width="465" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">Very quiet in the narrow alleys of the Red Light District where many windows have closed.</td></tr>
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So it's logical residents of the Red Light District are complaining about the busyness and the tourists, since that's the result of reducing the size of the Red Light District with 40% and concentrating everything on the main canal. Also for sex workers the results are disastrous, not just because many lost a legal place to work, and where therefore forced into illegal prostitution to survive. But also for the remaining sex workers that saw their business going down since the increasing tourism hasn't brought in more customers, but just more people coming to take a look, turning them into more of a touristic attraction than even before.<br />
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The city has a huge problem handling the huge increase of tourism, a result of their own tactical plan to 'clean up the Red Light District' with Project 1012, and promote Amsterdam across the borders as 'the place to be'. Their aim was to turn Amsterdam into the Barcelona of the north of Europe, where they would attract tourists with a bigger budget to visit their musea and experience cultural things, but has backfired into being over flooded with tourists, of whom almost all want to see the Red Light District on a shoestring budget.<br />
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What I cannot understand is how the city council can still agree with the plans to continue the closure of 37 more windows in the Red Light District, increasing the pressure on the remaining main canal of the Red Light District, plus forcing sex workers to go into illegal prostitution. Because yes, closing down these 37 windows will mean the remaining people walking around in the Red Light District in this area will move to the main canal, meaning more people on the main canal, where it's already extremely busy.<br />
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And what to do with those brothels once they're closed down? They can't turn them into more touristy shops like they did before, their own new policy forbids that. So are they to remain empty just like many of the other window brothels that nobody wants because of the limited space available and the fact that the location of these buildings (in the narrowest alleys of Amsterdam) aren't really good for most businesses?<br />
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But worst of all. What about the sex workers? The brothel owners are still trying to fight off this decision, not for themselves, but for the women that work there. One of the brothel owners also wanted to address this during the city council meeting, but the city council voted on it without there being any discussion about it. They just did it without thinking of the consequences for these women that work here. Even the other brothel owners, who are not being threatened with closure, are worried about these closures, because the simply can't supply for 100 sex workers a workplace, thus resulting in many sex workers being forced to go work illegal.<br />
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How the fuck can you do that? How can you make a decision that is wrong from every angle? Wrong for the sex workers, wrong for the pressure felt by the residents of the area, wrong for the increasing pressure on the smaller remaining area. For what, and why? Who benefits from this? Absolutely nobody! Yet it's gonna cost millions to buy out the brothel owners, and change it into another shop, if somebody is interested to begin with. Because if nobody's interested in it, it will just remain an empty building, like many others, and it will just have costs tax payers millions of euro's for a stupid ass decision that nobody profits from.<br />
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<a href="http://achterhetraamopdewallen.blogspot.nl/2018/01/amsterdam-dwingt-nog-eens-100.html">Dutch version</a><br />
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Felicia Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-63298731540702369792017-10-28T13:34:00.002-07:002018-01-17T15:27:22.588-08:00Overestimating trafficking victims to hide the truth<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JUv6W2P2z5M/WfTpY20WmJI/AAAAAAAABAw/v6DJcWLUlY0dVgPK0vs7PKZvSZvWh96eQCLcBGAs/s1600/aantal-slachtoffers-van-mensenhandel-in-nederland-veel-hoger-dan-gedacht.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JUv6W2P2z5M/WfTpY20WmJI/AAAAAAAABAw/v6DJcWLUlY0dVgPK0vs7PKZvSZvWh96eQCLcBGAs/s320/aantal-slachtoffers-van-mensenhandel-in-nederland-veel-hoger-dan-gedacht.jpg" width="465" /></a></div>
<a href="https://www.nationaalrapporteur.nl/binaries/Slachtoffermonitor%20mensenhandel%202012-2016_Nationaal%20Rapporteur_tcm23-285357.pdf" target="_blank">Shocking numbers</a> from the Dutch Rapporteur Human Trafficking where presented last week. According to the Dutch Rapporteur the number of trafficking victims are even higher than they thought, an estimated 6,250 people according to her. But what most media and people missed was the fact that the number of people that were reported as possible victims are the lowest numbers in years, and the estimations are highly flawed.<br />
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<b>Estimations based on flawed numbers</b><br />
First of all, the estimated number of victims of human trafficking in The Netherlands is 6,250 people according to the Dutch Rapporteur. Those numbers are highly questionable, since they are based on flawed numbers, and basing an estimation based upon flawed numbers is not very reliable. Interestingly enough the Dutch Rapporteur herself claims the estimations are very reliable, but then again, who wouldn't say that if they made the estimations themselves?<br />
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<b>Flaws in reporting victims</b><br />
The estimations are based on reports. Not reports of the number of victims of human trafficking, as people often thing. No, they're based upon the number of people 'they' have suspicions about that they could be victims. In short, they're not all real victims, some could be, many other may not be, it's all purely based on loose speculation. No proof, no evidence or even solid signs are required. No, in fact, even the slightest suspicions are used to beef up the number of 'possible' victims. In short, the number of 'possible' victims are flawed by default, since they're not based on anything other than what some people 'think'.<br />
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<b>Proof of flawed reports from the past</b><br />
I'm not just claiming the reported number of 'possible' victims are flawed, I also have proof that this happened frequently and on large scale in the past. For example, in 2012 the Dutch Rapporteur reported a record number of possible victims. According to the Dutch Rapporteur 'the tip of the ice berg'. In total 1,711 people where reported as 'possible' victims. A large part of that coming from prostitution, in total 1,216 people where reported in prostitution as possible victims.<br />
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This year however the Dutch Rapporteur wrote in her report that those numbers where basically incorrect. The numbers of 2012 have now been adjusted to in total 1,256 possible victims, in stead of 1,711. A small mistake of 424 people being 'mistaken' for victims. And funny enough, they're all people from the sex industry. Meaning, the number of possible victims from prostitution in 2012 shouldn't have been 1,216 but rather 792 people.<br />
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<b>Reporting innocent sex workers as victims</b><br />
In the past 5 years they reported in total 1,314 sex workers incorrectly as possible victims of human trafficking. That is in total 19% of all the reported possible victims in the last 5 years, almost a third of all the 'possible' victims in prostitution they reported incorrectly. All of the incorrect reported victims were migrant sex workers, and in the latest report of the Dutch Rapporteur she explains how they were able to make such a huge mistake.<br />
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<b>Migration was mistaken for trafficking</b><br />
Basically what happened is that they were mistaking migration with human trafficking when it regarded sex workers. In fact, the Dutch Rapporteur even wrote a couple of years ago an article, claiming how sex workers that were not being exploited or coerced should still be considered victims of human trafficking if they received help to migrate. The Dutch Rapporteur even called out judges to uphold this, and presented the number of convictions of people who were convicted only for helping migrating sex workers, and the number of people that went free because the judge ruled that helping someone migrating was not human trafficking if there was no form of coercion or exploitation.<br />
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<b>High Court ruled migration is not trafficking</b><br />
It wasn't until the summer of 2016 when all of this changed. The Dutch High Court ruled in a court case that helping a sex worker migrating was officially not human trafficking. Immediately this changed a lot of things, since especially the Dutch Royal Marshals that do border patrol at the airports, where trained to report any sex worker that might have received help, as a possible victim of human trafficking. They had been doing this since around 2012, because the number of possible victims they reported before was almost non-existent. Apparently they found it hard to believe that there were so few sex workers trafficked, and thus they trained the Royal Marshals into spotting and reporting any migrant sex worker as possible victims that might have received any help.<br />
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<b>Excuse for lower numbers</b><br />
As a result of the fact that now they can't count migration as human trafficking anymore when it comes to sex work, the number of possible victims in 2016 were a lot lower than in previous years. In fact, they reverted back to the same size we had before they started reporting migrating sex workers as victims. This is especially noticeable if you look at the number of possible victims only reported working in prostitution. You'll notice how in years before they started doing this, it was never even above 1,000 possible victims, but when they started reporting migrating sex workers, the numbers went up to even around 1,200 victims in prostitution. But since now that has been reverted, they had to come up with an excuse why the numbers got lower, resulting in a flawed estimation based upon vague suspicions, which are far from reliable, as you can read here.<br />
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<b>The system is flawed</b><br />
Basically the whole system of reporting 'vague' suspicions is a flawed system if you want to get a reliable estimation of the size of human trafficking, especially when it comes to prostitution. After all, right now they are 'assuming' that every vague suspicion is correct. And even worse, that they are only reporting a very small portion of the total size of human trafficking, basically based upon no information at all. Because there is literally no indication that the size of human trafficking is as big as the number of possible victims they report, let alone much bigger.<br />
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<b>People are biased when it comes to prostitution</b><br />
The big problem with reporting possible victims, is the fact that people are often biased when it comes to prostitution. Often people by default assume that women are victims of trafficking, thus resulting in incorrectly reporting sex workers as victims based on 'vague' suspicions, rather than actual evidence or any proof. The stigma of sex work as something a women would never want to do, is reinforcing the number of 'possible' victims, thus resulting in an incorrect image about human trafficking in prostitution.<br />
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<b>Real statistics even far lower</b><br />
And no, I'm not just trying to put a bright face on things. I have good reason to suspect the number of possible victims isn't even close to the number of real victims. Because if you look at the total number of cases the Dutch justice system handles, it doesn't even come close to the huge number of possible victims they report. Every year the Dutch justice system handles around <a href="https://www.nationaalrapporteur.nl/binaries/Monitor%20mensenhandel_cijfers%20vervolging%20en%20berechting%202011-2015_tcm23-117801.pdf" target="_blank">250-300 cases a year</a>. Compare that to the 1,100 possible victims they averagely report every year in the last 10 years, and you can see there's a huge difference that doesn't make sense. And I'm not even talking about the number of actual convictions of human trafficking, which is even far lower, around 120 convictions each year.<br />
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<b>Invisible victims nobody can find</b><br />
Everything is based on the assumption that victims are scared, and would never or rarely ever go to the police, and therefore never or rarely press charges. But if that would be true, and every year we would have around 1,100 victims a year, that's in 10 years around 11,000 victims. Yet the number of cases each year is somewhere around 275 average, meaning this would be around 2,750 victims that got free. If we therefore have to believe the Dutch Rapporteur there are still around 8,000 victims who never went to the police to press charges for over 10 years, and I find that very hard to believe, especially if the number of reported 'possible' victims is going down in stead of up as well as the number of cases. It's like everyone is chasing a ghost, that everyone is convinced of exists, and they keep chasing it, but they can never find. Well, let me tell you, if after 10 years you're still not able to find it, there's a big chance it never existed.<br />
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<b>The 'hidden ice berg'</b><br />
But the big problem is that people find it difficult to accept the truth that women most of the time choose to do prostitution out of free will. People still have trouble accepting the fact the women can have a free choice, and not everything is being controlled by men. And people apparently also find it very difficult to accept that women are okay with sex, and can take control themselves, rather than men. It's so hard for them to accept, that when actual statistics don't match up with their own ideas, they think they're missing something, thus resulting in manipulation of numbers to uncover this 'hidden ice berg' that doesn't exist. And that's exactly what the Dutch Rapporteur is doing. She has no reason to assume there is more human trafficking than the number of people they report as possible victims, but because they simply can't believe that, so they multiply the number until they get a number that matches their own imagination.<br />
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<a href="http://achterhetraamopdewallen.blogspot.nl/2017/10/mensenhandel-overschatten-om-de.html" target="_blank">Dutch version</a><br />
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Felicia Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-60979282127495450882017-10-08T14:24:00.000-07:002017-10-30T12:57:17.386-07:00New Dutch government criminalizes prostitution further<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The Netherlands is forming a new government, and seems to be nearly finished with it's proposals. The last details of their agreement are now being worked out, and one of them regards the new prostitution policy. The new prostitution policy could have gone either way, either in favor of sex workers or against them, since the new coalition exists out of VVD (liberals), D66 (democrats) but also two christian parties, CDA and ChristenUnie. And especially the ChristenUnie is a hardliner against prostitution, although they cleverly disguise it as an anti-human trafficking policy.<br />
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Today however it got announced that the new prostitution policy will include a pimp ban, criminalizing any pimp without a license. And yes, I know what you are thinking. Could pimps get licenses in The Netherlands? Well, no. At least, not what most people think are pimps. Because this is exactly where the ChristenUnie has the upper hand, they are much better informed about prostitution, and they're using it against us. While other pro-prostitution parties such as D66 in general are less well informed, and the ChristenUnie is playing that card very well during the negotiations.<br />
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Even the newsreports don't even know what the new plan actually is. Some newsreports are reporting that the pimp ban will be re-introduced. Others report that 'illegal pimps' will not just be fined, but even will get jail time. But the question of course becomes, can you also be a legal pimp? Because is there something as a pimping license? Well, no. There's no licence for pimps in The Netherlands, so by definition all pimps are illegal.<br />
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Now for those of you that are thinking now: how come The Netherlands never criminalized pimps? Well, if you're thinking about people who force women into prostitution and/or exploit them. They are already criminalized, since this is called human trafficking. So if this is what you're talking about, than a pimp is simply called a human trafficker, and that person is already a criminal by the Dutch law. In short, this new law doesn't fight human trafficking, forced prostitution or exploitation. But it seems to be talking about something else than just a human trafficker.<br />
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It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what the new coalition means with a pimp, since often people have no idea what the definition of a pimp is. But if we have to believe the newsreports, they are talking about 'people who financially profit from prostitutes'. And the new plan is to criminalize people who do this without a license.<br />
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So who exactly will be targeted with this new law? Well, the list of people that could be considered 'people who financially profit from prostitutes without a license' is very long. For example, my bookkeeper financially profits from prostitutes, and he doesn't have a prostitution license. Or for example my mother, whom I frequently send money to, to support her.<br />
But the list becomes much longer. For example chauffeurs who drive around escort girls. Or what to think about security guys, who protect prostitutes from harm, they also don't have a prostitution license.<br />
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In short, there are a lot of people who profit from prostitutes financially without a license. But that doesn't make them bad people. In fact, many of these people help us. But that just might be exactly the plan of the ChristenUnie, to make our work much more difficult, and slowly reduce prostitution in The Netherlands this way.<br />
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But most importantly, it doesn't help fighting human trafficking. After all, just because you criminalize a larger group of people, doesn't make it easier to find evidence in human trafficking cases. The only thing it does, is putting a lot more people in jail for no reason. The other thing is that it just makes the lives of a lot of sex workers more difficult. And the more difficult their lives will become, the more they will be depending on others, and that makes them vulnrable to human trafficking. In short, this law will only increase human trafficking dramatically.<br />
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Of course, this will also result in more people being arrested and eventually convicted. And once that happens, the ChristenUnie will have statistics showing that the number of convicted people profiting from prostitutes have increased a lot, claiming they're approach works, and more people ending up in jail who are actually innocent. In short, this law is extremely dangerous, and makes me wonder how far they will go with labeling people 'profiting from prostitution'. I mean, will they soon also arrest the clerks at the bank, because the bank is profiting from me as a prostitute, and they don't have a license for this? So would that mean that banks will start to refuse me out of fear of being seen as an 'illegal pimp'.<br />
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And things can go very crazy. For example, even the supermarket profits from me being a prostitute. So are they going to arrest people from the supermarket as well? And does that mean they will refuse me as well if they would find out I am a prostitute? In short, do I need to start hiding the fact that I am a prostitute more, out of fear that the people that profit from me won't let me buy stuff from them anymore, or use their services? And doesn't this make us much more vulnrable? Especially if there will be a prostitution register, like how the new coalition is proposing right now, to register all the prostitutes.<br />
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Because after all. If nobody wants to do business with us anymore, because they would be considered criminals. The only people that still would want to do business with us, are the real criminals, because they will know we are vulnrable, so they can exploit us much easier. In short, isn't this just a short cut to handing over the entire industry to criminals?<br />
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The weirdest thing is the fact that they used the fact that illegal prostitution is growing as an argument. After all, the reason why illegal prostitution is growing in The Netherlands, is because of the fact that cities such as Amsterdam, has closed down so many window brothels for example. In short, this is a result of their own policies, not because so many prostitutes love to work illegal. Sex workers want to work legal, but cities make that impossible by reducing workplaces for prostitutes with over 40%.<br />
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In short, if they really want to reduce illegal prostitution, they shouldn't be targeting people profiting from prostitutes, but they should give us back the workplaces we have lost due to gentrification projects such as Project 1012 in Amsterdam, and the closure of the windows on boats in Utrecht.<br />
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<a href="http://achterhetraamopdewallen.blogspot.nl/2017/10/nieuw-kabinet-criminaliseert.html">Dutch version</a><br />
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Felicia Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-15356695401870599302017-08-16T08:41:00.000-07:002018-01-17T15:27:01.993-08:00NY Times twisting truth about Red Light District Amsterdam<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A couple of days ago the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/world/europe/amsterdam-netherlands-prostitute-cooperative.html" target="_blank">NY Times posted an article and a video</a> about the Red Light District of Amsterdam and the prostitution policy in The Netherlands. The video and the article gives an incorrect image about the Red Light District, as it also used only a very small portion of my one and a half hour interview with them, of which they only used the parts of me explaining how human trafficking works in reality.<br />
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Initially I was approached by them to do an interview, reluctantly I agreed, since this was the NY Times and they claimed they wanted to "show a different side". That turned out to be a lie, since they cut out all the positive things I've said during that one and a half hour, and the only thing they left in was about human trafficking. That is definitely not "showing a different side", in fact that's showing exactly the same thing that I oppose to. The interview was supposed to be about My Red Light, but none of the things I've said during that interview about My Red Light was ever used.<br />
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So let's start with the beginning of what's wrong with this, and that's a lot. The video states that after the legalization of prostitution in 2000, the Red Light District of Amsterdam was overrun by human trafficking. That's simply not true. First of all because the legalization of prostitution already took place in 1809 and not in 2000 as is stated in the video. I repeatedly stressed this fact, but somehow it got left out.<br />
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Secondly the Red Light District was NEVER overrun by human trafficking. This is simply not true. Yes, human trafficking does occur like in any other industry, but these are incidents. The explanation that is given by me in the video therefore also only applies to those situations where people have become victims of trafficking. Which certainly applies to my comment about helping victims of trafficking, and how these women should get help to enter the industry before they become a victim, because if you're starting to help these workers after they've started working, it's already too late, and they've already become victims. But I cannot stress this enough, that this only applies to those that need help with this and have nobody else to turn to, and therefore become a victim, which is only a small portion of the workers. The majority are not victims!<br />
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The video continues with my protest against the closure of prostitution windows in the Red Light District, saying I helped organized it. No, I didn't help organize it, I was the organizer. It was my idea, lots of people, including other sex workers weren't supportive of this idea and didn't think it could be done. I proved them wrong by organizing the largest demonstration of sex workers in the Netherlands ever!<br />
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The video also incorrectly states the response to that demonstration was My Red Light, and the article writes about how the protests led to 'regular meetings between the city and protesters'. This is bullshit. First of all, My Red Light was already <a href="https://behindtheredlightdistrict.blogspot.nl/2015/02/sex-workers-to-run-brothels-in-amsterdam.html" target="_blank">announced in February of 2015</a> under the working title Project Own Window on nation wide TV. The demonstration came after this in <a href="https://behindtheredlightdistrict.blogspot.nl/2015/04/414-prostitutes-begin-war-against-mayor.html" target="_blank">April of 2015</a>. So the project was never a response to a demonstration that had yet to take place. And I also was never invited after this demonstration by anyone to come and talk about anything. In fact, the mayor promised us a letter he never wrote. So none of this is true.<br />
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One of the interesting things someone from My Red Light says in the video, is that because of My Red Light sex workers don't have to hide anymore what profession they're doing. But this is simply not true. My Red Light hasn't de-stigmatized prostitution in The Netherlands, and the women that currently work there still hide it, because of the stigma on sex work. In fact, all the media outings of My Red Light thusfar, has only increased the stigma on sex work, by claiming that they're the only 'pimp free' brothel, furhter stigmatizing all the other sex workers as victims. And this was also what most of my interview was about, about how My Red Light has only further stigmatized sex workers as victims.<br />
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One of the people featuring in this video is also Jolanda de Boer, former public prosecutor on human trafficking in Amsterdam. She's a prostitution abolitionist who's already made a lot of false claims about prostitution in the Red Light District. She claims not every women is forced, but 'a lot of women are'. She fails to mention however what she calls 'a lot', because of course than she would have to admit that she handles only around <a href="https://behindtheredlightdistrict.blogspot.nl/2016/09/human-trafficking-decreasing-in.html" target="_blank">30 cases of human trafficking in prostitution in Amsterdam a year</a>. And to give you guys some notion of scale, the Red Light District is only about 10% of the entire prostitution industry in Amsterdam, which is estimated to be around 4000 sex workers. And in the past 5 years(!), they have reported suspicions of human trafficking on an additional 7 sex workers in window prostitution in Amsterdam!!!!<br />
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The voice-over then incorrectly states that I would agree that 'some sex workers are connected to pimps, but that for many of them it's a necessary evil'. That's simply not true. I said some sex workers need help to get started in this work, and that's how some of them end up in the hands of pimps, but that many sex workers don't have a pimp. Most girls simply start working here without becoming a victim. Also because helping a sex worker is not a crime, as long as people don't exploit or coerce them. Just because you help a sex worker to get started, doesn't mean you're a pimp. And with pimp in this article I of course mean human trafficker, because the interviewer apparently doesn't know there's a difference between a pimp and a human trafficker.<br />
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Jolanda de Boer gets a say about why supposedly the sex workers initially involved with My Red Light where turned down. She mentions all sorts of serious crimes, such as money laundering, terrorism, drug dealing, fraud on a huge scale etc., none of which apply to the sex workers that where initially promised a position in My Red Light. So she makes it sound like there was a good reason to turn these people down, by mentioning all these serious crimes, but these sex workers didn't do any of those serious crimes.<br />
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Interestingly enough, the same background check they did on the sex workers that where turned down for My Red Light, also applies to existing brothel operators, and yet Jolanda de Boer and the city still claim these brothel operators are criminals or used to be criminals, even though they always passed the test to secure their license. And the only one time one brothel operator didn't at first passed the test, he sued the city for this, because he was falsely being accused of crimes he never committed and finally got his license renewed because the city lost the court case. In short, the explanation Jolanda de Boer just have in this video opposes the claims the city and Jolanda de Boer have made in the past about dirty money being involved in the Red Light District and how the Red Light District had 'criminal elements', and thus why it should have been gentrified.<br />
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Of course Jolanda de Boer, being the abolitionist, loves to question 'how many sex workers there would be in the Red Light District if there wouldn't be any pimps'. Well, the answer to that is quite simple Jolanda, just as many as there are right now. Because even though some are victims of trafficking, and occasionally it happens that one of these victims did not have the intention to start doing this job, fact is that more than 99% of the girls consciously chose to do this job, and there are plenty of other girls waiting to take over the window of others that do not want to work here.<br />
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The article further talks, like the video, about how Project 1012 would be focused on removing the criminal elements. I had an extensive talk about the fact that there where hardly any criminal elements in the Red Light District, which is also the reason why none of the brothel owners ever got their licenses revoked due to any criminal activities. Project 1012 has literally not removed any criminal elements at all, since they where hardly there to begin with. We have to thank for that, the strict screening Jolanda de Boer talks about in the video.<br />
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Furthermore the article also incorrectly states the fund behind My Red Light bought the buildings from the city, and thus all the ties between the brothel and the city are now cut. This is simply not true. In fact, my fiancé even send the journalist from the NY Times the official documents proving the city is still the owner of the property of My Red Light, and is official the owner of these brothels, and not the fund like how it's claimed in this article. So the the ties between the city and My Red Light was never cut!<br />
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Furthermore the article continues about the beautiful design of My Red Light. I also gave my opinion about this extensively during my interview. None of that was used however. Because the fact is, that the design is the biggest flaw of My Red Light. Window prostitution works because you draw the attention of people passing by with red lights in your room. My Red Light however has made all their rooms black with black tiles, resulting in the fact that all the rooms are extremely dark, and thus does not attract the attention of people passing by. It is the reason many sex workers tried My Red Light for a couple of days, before leaving those workplaces again. They simply don't make money there, because the rooms are too dark, and people can hardly see them.<br />
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I am extremely disappointed in this interview. The promises of what they said the interview would be about where never used. Of all the good things I said, all the criticism on Project 1012 and My Red Light, none of it was used. The only thing they used of my interview was my explanation about how human trafficking works in reality, in relation to how My Red Light doesn't solve this issue in any way, as opposed to how they claim.<br />
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This proves to me one more time that journalists are liars. I dare the NY Times to publish the full interview I did with them, uncut, so people can hear the real criticism and realities of the Red Light District, rather than this fake news article.<br />
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Felicia Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-53151705698520056792017-07-27T13:37:00.000-07:002017-10-30T12:56:59.551-07:00Original Tours making fun of trafficking victims and prostitutes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Ever wanted to have a fun time with friends? Well, how about visiting the <a href="https://escaperoom-amsterdam.nl/" target="_blank">Red Light District Escape Room</a>, where you have to escape from a window brothel before your 'pimp' returns, isn't that a fun idea?! Yes, this is now possible in the Red Light District of Amsterdam. A great way to profit over the existence of prostitutes in the area, as well as profiting over victims of human trafficking, plus as as a bonus you get to increase the stigma of sex workers as victims!<br />
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This is something that <a href="https://www.originaltours.nl/" target="_blank">Original Tours & Activities Nederland B.V.</a> is now offering in the Red Light District. A fun experience, where you get locked up in a fake window brothel, and you have to 'escape' by following the clues in the room within 60 minutes, before your 'pimp' comes back. According to the website the hilarious rating is 8/10, with a difficulty degree of 4 stars and an escape ratio of 63%. The costs? Only €14,50 per person, or €12,50 with 13 people or more. Or you can book the room with 7 people or less for €100,-.<br />
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Apparently Original Tours things it's hilarious, I think it's the most disrespectful thing you can do to make money on. <a href="http://www.amsterdamsebinnenstad.nl/nieuws/index.html?nieuws=90" target="_blank">Original Tours signed on the 3rd of April of this year a convenant</a> with other tour guides and the city. The goal of this convenant, among other things, was to respect sex workers who are working in the Red Light District. It's one of the reasons why some of the rules include not taking pictures of prostitutes behind the windows, not to stop in front of the window brothels or in narrow alleys where there are windows.<br />
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But Original Tours doesn't seem to care about the sex workers. They only seem to be interested to make profit over them, and even further stigmatize them as victims with this 'fun activity'. But worst of all, think about how those victims of trafficking must feel that now people can have 'fun' experiencing what they experienced, and that people are even making money over this. In fact, they seem to think it's hilarious to have to escape from a pimp with a rating of 8 out of 10. I wished the people behind this company would experience it for real to see how much fun it is to be a victim!<br />
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This is the most disgusting way of profiting from sex workers I've ever seen. Not only are they making fun of trafficking victims, and stigmatizing the sex workers that aren't. They make it sound like having a pimp and escaping one is an 'exciting' thing to do. This company is absolutely disgusting for offering something like this. It shows they have absolutely zero respect for us as sex workers, and I sincerely hope the politicians in this city are going to do something about this. This company should be banned from the Red Light District forever!<br />
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Scrap these people from the list of companies that signed the convenant, ban them as a company to organize any activities having to do with the Red Light District or prostitution or human trafficking. Whether you care about sex workers right's, or about the victims of human trafficking. Whether you support prostitution or not, this should not be allowed!<br />
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Please share this post and raise awareness over the disgusting way these people are making money over our backs, and raise more awareness over sex workers right's.
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Felicia Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-65716793950410194452017-06-22T07:15:00.000-07:002017-07-06T07:33:32.092-07:00First tour company co-founded by a prostitute<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I have some exciting news to share! After a long time of thinking about this, I've finally decided to be a part of a tour company that offers guided tours through the Red Light District of Amsterdam. Which means that from now on you can actually book a tour and get to meet me!<br />
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I came up with this idea already more than a year ago. Every day I see tour guides showing the Red Light District of Amsterdam and talking about us, like they know a thing about us. Often talking complete bullshit, it has become a hassle for many girls. Even more so because some of these groups are quite large (even up to 80 people!) and they more and more often stand in the wrong places (in front of the windows for example), and don't respect the rules of the neighborhood. And it wouldn't be so bad if it would bring in some customers for us, but reality is that they don't. They show the neighborhood, they point us out, talk about us, but leave with the group and you never see those people back anymore.<br />
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So basically it comes down to the fact that they're making money from our existence, while we don't get a single cent from it. After all, if we wouldn't be there, there wouldn't be a Red Light District, and they wouldn't be able to ask people money for a tour through the Red Light District. So they're profiting from us, without sharing that profit with any of us.<br />
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So I thought, why not do it myself? But because there are so many tour guides already in the area, I needed something unique, something no other tour guide is offering. So I talked the idea over with someone else a while ago who also does tours, and he suggested that I should be a part of the tour to talk about my experiences during the tour. After all, there is no tour out there that features a real prostitute. And to make things even more exclusive, we talked with my brothel operator if we could show a window brothel on the inside during our tour, which he was happy to do.<br />
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And now, after a lot of hard work on the website, we're finally open for business. It's the first tour company co-founded by an active window prostitute. We offer daily tours through the Red Light District with several options. Our standard Red Light District Tour is offered with our tour guide. If you want a meet and greet with myself, and hear about my experiences working behind the windows and ask me questions, you can book the Meet A Prostitute Tour. You can also pay a visit with a tour guide to a real window brothel, and take a look behind the scenes inside our workplaces. And for those that want everything together, we offer the ability to meet me inside one of the window brothels, where you can take a look inside a window brothel, and I'll explain how everything works, and I'll talk about my experiences.<br />
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I'm really excited about this new business, because it gives everyone the opportunity to talk with a real working prostitute from the Red Light District, and even to take a look inside a real window brothel. So no more bullshit stories, no more false information, but the real story behind the Red Light District from a real prostitute who actually works there!<br />
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Tours can be booked on our website, which you can find at <a href="http://redlightdistrictamsterdamtours.com/" target="_blank">RedLightDistrictAmsterdamTours.com</a><br />
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<a href="http://achterhetraamopdewallen.blogspot.nl/2017/06/raamprostituee-begint-eigen-rondleiding.html">Dutch version</a><br />
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Felicia Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-49656199780673281032017-05-12T12:21:00.000-07:002018-01-17T15:29:00.819-08:00The bullshit of My Red Light<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I promised myself that I would never pay anymore attention to My Red Light. But today again there's a media storm about My Red Light, which bugged me so much that I simply have to write about it, in order to set a lot of things straight.<br />
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Let's start with the first and most important thing. My Red Light was supposed to be a brothel run by sex workers. Well, that failed. It's as simple as that. There's an entire board of so called 'experts' in a 'Council of Supervision' who have the real power and control over this brothel. These people include people from aid organisations such as the SOA Aids Fund, HVO Querido, a former public prosecutor, a bar/restaurant owner and people like this. But no sex workers apparently because we're not smart enough to do this, right? We're not educated enough, right? Because everybody always try to offer us some form of education, like we're dumb or uneducated or something. Little do they know that many sex workers working in the Red Light District finished their college, have a degree or even finished university!<br />
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Sex workers that participated in this project since the very beginning where turned down jobs to run the brothel, because they didn't get through the 'screening'. In other words, they wouldn't be 'good enough' to run the brothel. In stead of picking a sex worker with experience behind the windows at least to be the manager, they actually picked one of the other brothel operators as the manager in My Red Light. I'm confused. I thought these where the people that treated us so bad that we needed to start our own brothel, and now you hire them as manager?<br />
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The claims about My Red Light being a brothel where women don't need a pimp and wouldn't be depending on brothel operators are a lie. First of all, women in the Red Light District don't need a pimp, that's why we have the police. It's also implying that other brothels are full of girls with pimps, and they wouldn't be, but also that is complete bullshit. They have just as much chance to have girls working there with a pimp as any other brothel.<br />
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The argument that because of My Red Light sex workers wouldn't be depending on a brothel operator anymore is an argument that even a 3 year old can see through. My Red Light IS a brothel operator. So yes, we're still as depending brothel operators now with My Red Light as before, nothing has changed! They're just pretending to be better, which also makes me kind of wonder why they need to do that, if they really are better. Trouble finding girls to rent your rooms, people? Is that perhaps the reason you need to attract so much attention? And is this perhaps the reason why none of the girls I know want to work there?<br />
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The working conditions would be better? That's also bullshit. The working conditions are the same, since they do exactly the same thing as other brothel operators. There is absolutely nothing new about this. They're just another new brothel, that's it. The rental conditions are mostly either the same or much worse than with other brothels.<br />
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For example:<br />
I want to rent a room. At My Red Light this will cost me 160 euro. But two of the biggest brothel operators offer me a room for 150 or 155. So they're more expensive. Heck, there are even brothel operators that rent out rooms for 130! So that's not certainly not an improvement, they're the avarage price. So no improvement there.<br />
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Second example:<br />
I want to rent a room for the whole week, but want one day free. At other brothels they give me one day free and I don't have to pay, some even offer 2 days free. At My Red Light this is the same.<br />
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Third example:<br />
I want to go on holiday for a month. At My Red Light I can't, because they only allow you 3 weeks of vacation max. But with my current brothel I could even go for 2 months maybe and it wouldn't be a problem. So that's much worse.<br />
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Fourth example:<br />
I want to quit my job, because I really don't want to do this anymore. At my current brothel operator I can just leave, just like that. But at My Red Light you have to cancel your room one week in advance! In short, they're actually forcing you to work one more week! I thought this project was aimed to be against forcing women to work, not actively doing it!<br />
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Fifth example:<br />
I get sick and need to stay in bed for a couple of days. With my current brothel operator I don't have to pay for my room. But at My Red Light I have to pay the first two days that I'm sick. How is this better?!<br />
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So the rental conditions aren't much better, but slightly worse at best. They're even forcing you to work when you want to quit, by having to cancel one week in advance, a rule that no other brothel operator has!!!<br />
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And of course also they will offer you again courses to do something else, an exit program basically. As if there aren't enough exit programs and organisations offering prostitutes to find another job. People, seriously! Is that the only thing you can think about? She's a prostitute so we have to rescue her? Because the rental conditions certainly aren't any better than other brothels and neither are your prices or the way you treated the sex workers involved in this project.<br />
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And then let's talk about the decoration of My Red Light. An 'architect' designed it, as if it was a NASA space program. Come on people, it's a window brothel, it's not that fucking difficult! But guess what?! They managed to even fuck up that! They made rooms black! From all the colors they could've picked, they chose black as a color for a profession during the night! And the only way they could've compensated for their black rooms, was by pumping in a shit load of light to gain some attraction. But the lights are hardly noticeable!!! In a black room!<br />
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Or what's even worse. The alley which they have, there are no red lights on the outside. Just a big lantern with white light. So people will just pass that alley thinking there's nothing there, because there's no red light in that alley. Especially because there hasn't been anything in this alley for years. Heck, there used to be big red TL lights on the sides of the building in this alley. Why didn't they just leave them there? Why did they take them out? Or at least replaced them, with red led lights or something? But no red lights on the outside? Just one giant white lantern? Maybe you guys should've called this project My White Light. It's the only really noticeable light that you have anyway.<br />
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And I also don't get it. You use the same huge lanterns on the other buildings. But the red lights you've put in them give much less light. And the led strips with red light on the inside are also hardly noticable. What are you guys scared to put red lights in your brothel or something?<br />
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Seriously everything about this project is fucked up. The working conditions are worse. They're pushing down other brothel operators as criminals, but you hire them to work for you as managers. You pretend to be a better brothel than others, while your rental conditions are either the same or worse? And I'm getting really fucking tired about the fact that you keep pushing other brothels, and with that other sex workers, down to promote yourselves. If you're really as good as you claim, you wouldn't need that. But apparently it's the only way you guys know how to work. Because a good business doesn't need promotion, it's business promotes itself.<br />
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<a href="http://achterhetraamopdewallen.blogspot.nl/2017/05/de-onzin-van-my-red-light.html">Dutch version</a><br />
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Felicia Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-39143478585745789532017-04-26T13:29:00.000-07:002017-07-06T07:35:59.806-07:00Mariska Majoor knighted for her contribution to sex workers rights<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Today was a special day for sex workers rights in The Netherlands. Mariska Majoor, founder of the Prostitution Information Center (PIC) and PROUD, the Dutch union for sex workers, got knighted in the Order of Orange-Nassau. She received her knighthood for her contribution to sex workers rights in The Netherlands which she has done for more than 20 years. Mariska dedicated the honorable award to all sex workers.<br />
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She received the royal decoration from the mayor of Amsterdam himself. The knighthood is not just a well deserved recognition for all the work Mariska has done in the past decades for sex workers in The Netherlands. The award is hopefully also another step into the direction of sex workers becoming more accepted by society.<br />
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Mariska has been one of the few people who really understood me. Both having worked in prostitution behind the windows, we had a connection like few other people would understand. Mariska has been on of my biggest supporters for the last couple of years in writing this blog and for organizing the demonstration against the closure of windows in the Red Light District. Last year she sadly had to quit her activities at the Prostitution Information Center and PROUD because of health reasons. But her fight for sex workers rights have not been in vain, as it's now also been recognized by this award.<br />
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Seeing Mariska leave the PIC and PROUD left me feeling lost. One of my biggest supporters was gone, and I'm so happy that now she's being rewarded for her fight for more rights for sex workers. I wish Mariska all the best and I am so proud of her and of what she's achieved, and I hope this reward and her hard work inspires more sex workers to stand up for their rights. She truly deserved this award, a recognition of all her hard for sex workers in the Red Light District, The Netherlands and world wide.
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Felicia Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-22567142756196368162017-02-28T07:17:00.002-08:002018-01-17T15:28:45.244-08:00Fake news about home prostitution<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Legal brothels closed down by the Dutch government</td></tr>
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Yesterday the Dutch newspaper NRC came with a <a href="https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2017/02/27/ze-ontvangt-thuis-maar-is-het-vrijwillig-7032751-a1547952" target="_blank">sensational article</a> about home prostitution. The headline of the article was (again) disputing whether or not prostitutes work voluntarily. The article showed very much how the police works, but mostly how they think. Searching online for sex advertisements to make a fake booking with a prostitute, to 'check' if the prostitute is working voluntarily. And if they can't find anything, they just take away your passport apparently, as is written in the article, because FUCK YOU!<br />
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But besides the fact that it just show more how the police thinks, rather than what's wrong with prostitution, since in the article they don't find any victims at all, although the police constantly doubt everything. The most interesting things are the statistics mentioned in the article itself.<br />
Part of those statistics come from the police themselves. For example they claim that 95% of the Eastern European women don't press charges. But than again, in the past 5 years there were only <a href="https://www.nationaalrapporteur.nl/binaries/Prostitutie%20%26%20mensenhandel_Nationaal%20Rapporteur_interactief_tcm23-233408.pdf" target="_blank">45 suspected victims of trafficking</a> in home prostitution from the European continent excluding The Netherlands itself. In short, this does not just include Eastern European prostitutes. So it's not so weird that 95% don't want to press charges if there are so few women suspected to be victims in the first place.<br />
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Another interesting statistic they mention is that according to the police in 60% of the cases they find 'wrongs'. But than again, this doesn't say anything about human trafficking, because the wrongs they speak of include not paying your taxes and children who are present in the home while the prostitute is working. But last time I checked there's no law against having your children at home while you work, also not in prostitution. So why do they call these 'wrongs', if there's nothing wrong with it? Or is it perhaps just another way to cranck up their number to 60% to make sensational claims?<br />
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But the most interesting thing about this article is the statistics used from the National Rapporteur Human Trafficking in The Netherlands. According to the article between 2011 and 2015 there would be 4100 suspected victims of human trafficking working in home prostitution. According to the article about 25% of all home prostitution. Really? That's interesting! I didn't know we knew how many prostitutes where working from their own home. Last time I checked we had no idea at all, not even the slightest. But based on this article we should assume there would be 16.400 prostitutes working from their own home? Really?<br />
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The statistics in the article are made up. Checking the numbers of the National Rapporteur it turns out there where <a href="https://www.nationaalrapporteur.nl/binaries/Prostitutie%20%26%20mensenhandel_Nationaal%20Rapporteur_interactief_tcm23-233408.pdf" target="_blank">582 suspected victims</a> of human trafficking in home prostitution from 2011 till 2015, and not 4100. That's a big fucking difference. In fact, it's 7 times a big as the actual number! So in that case it would be 3,5% of all the home working prostitutes, not 25%, assuming 16.400 prostitutes would be working in 5 years time in home prostitution.<br />
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It's sad to see that people will just make up numbers to make sensational claims about prostitution. And it begs the question why they would do this. But than again the article itself gives us some indication as to why this might be the case. After all, the last piece of the article is about the legislation for prostitution, which is now in the senate awaiting approval. The new legislation would allow prostitutes working from home without a license, basically allowing them to work like any other person that is self-employed. But the police fears this idea, that prostitutes can work without a license, and calls it a 'disaster'.<br />
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Ironically the police point out the fact that home prostitution without a license makes them loose sight of the prostitutes. That's true, and that's also what we warned the government for, for years already! But let's not forget why so many prostitutes these days work from their own home illegal, without a license. That's the because many cities closed down brothels all over the country, in total 46% of all the legal brothels, like for example also in the Red Light District in Amsterdam. So how are you supposed to work legal, if they close half of the places where it is legal down? That was legal, but they wanted to kick us out.<br />
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Now that they got about 50% of the prostitutes to loose their legal workplaces, prostitutes start working without a license from their own homes, because they still need a place to work. So who's fault is it really that they are loosing sight on prostitutes? The government's their own fault, because they closed 46% of the legal places down, yet make it impossible to work legal. For example, In The Hague you can't work at all from your own home. So how are these women supposed to work legal if you're not allowing them to? Maybe they should not close down so many brothels, and make it easier for prostitutes to get a license, than we wouldn't have this problem in the first place!<br />
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Felicia Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-85542762155842637032017-02-03T13:16:00.000-08:002017-07-06T07:36:48.939-07:00The Blue Light District<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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There's this myth that there's a Blue Light District in the Red Light District in Amsterdam. This apparently ended up one time in a travel guide once in the US, and ever since then people have been telling the fable of this 'Blue Light District' being located somewhere in Amsterdam's Red Light District. This blue light district is supposedly an area featuring only transgender sex workers, which could be identified by blue light (aka blacklight) in their windows instead of a red light.<br />
The information from this travel guide apparently found its way to many of the tour guides that these days that walk around in the Red Light District, because many misinformed tour guides mention this. But fact is there is NO Blue Light District in Amsterdam.<br />
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So here are the facts. There's no Blue Light District, there are a couple of streets here and there where sometimes (but not always), transgender sex workers work. But since they're scattered around the Red Light District, you can't really speak of a 'Blue Light District'. Also the fact that it's called the Blue Light District is misleading. It comes from the idea that transgender sex workers would use blue lights to identify themselves as transgender sex workers, in contrast to the red lights that would be used by female sex workers. But fact is that this isn't true a all. All sex workers, both female and transgender, both blue and red lights. So the idea that a transgender sex worker can be recognized by a blue light is simply wrong, since every sex worker has blue light.<br />
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The use of blue light, or actually a blacklight as it is really called, is necessary to give some contrast to the otherwise completely red look you would get if you'd only use red lights. Otherwise everyone would look like a freaking tomato.<br />
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The misinformation that is out there, mostly coming these days from tour guides is huge. Many tour guides have no idea what they're talking about. They have no real knowledge about the area, no good information, and only based their story on what they heard from others, without verifying if it's true or not. So don't let yourself be fooled by many of these tour guides giving out wrong information, often it's only partially true or not true at all. Especially many of the big tour operators seem ignorant and uninformed. But even worse, they don't seem to care. It are also these big tour operators that lead around very big tour groups around, sometimes even up to 80(!) people, groups which are way too big for the small area that is the Red Light District with its narrow streets and alleys.<br />
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But the misinformation about this so called Blue Light District also has had a very negative side effects for the girls working behind the windows. Because potential clients have been misinformed about the use of blue lights in the area, clients often walk around for hours, searching for sex workers without a blue light, because they have been taught that a blue light means it's a transgender and not a female sex worker. This eventually leads to clients either giving up on their search for a 'female sex worker', because they can't find any, because they think every sex worker with a blue light is actually a transgender. Or they walk around for hours, and become confused as to who is transgender and who is not, making them scared to come in, because they don't know who is female and who is transgender.<br />
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Especially for the female sex workers that work in the Bloedstraat, that is often called out to be the 'Blue Light District, this is difficult. The confusion about this street comes from the fact that during the day this are is almost predominantly transgender sex workers. However, during the night behind a portion of those windows are just regular female sex workers, leaving clients confused who is female and who is not. The misinformation from the tour guides therefore often has as a consequence that many clients looking for female sex workers avoid this street, making it very difficult for the female sex workers in this street to make some good money.<br />
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Basically there are a few places where transgender sex workers can be found, and not one specific area or only in this area. The Bloedstraat during the day is pretty much all transgender, but during the night it's a mix between female and transgender sex workers. But the Barndesteeg is both during the night and the day also mostly transgender sex workers. But even a popular street such as the Stoofsteeg has some transgender sex workers, even though most people don't even know this. But also on the Oudezijds Achterburgwal during the day and night you can find transgender sex workers, although the majority are female.<br />
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With all this misinformation about who is female and who is transgender, sex workers often loose clients for no good reason other than being poorly informed. There is actually not one area with only transgender sex workers. There are streets where they sometimes are in the majority, but there's no area specifically that can be dubbed a Blue Light District. Nor is it true that only transgender sex workers use blue lights, or that you can recognize them by the use of blue lights. All sex workers use blue lights, so don't keep walking around for a sex worker without a blue light, because you'll never find it.<br />
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<a href="http://achterhetraamopdewallen.blogspot.nl/2017/02/de-blue-light-district.html">Dutch version</a><br />
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<br /></div>Felicia Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-37672281811910174222016-12-24T06:14:00.000-08:002018-01-17T15:29:37.621-08:00How brothels operate in the Red Light District<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In the last few months I criticized two projects which aim to start a new brothel, Amsterdam's <a href="http://behindtheredlightdistrict.blogspot.nl/2016/09/my-red-light-not-what-they-claim-to-be.html">My Red Light</a> and the plans of <a href="http://behindtheredlightdistrict.blogspot.nl/2016/12/non-nobis-has-plans-for-humane-brothel.html">Non Nobis</a> for a so called 'humane brothel'. The reason for criticizing them comes from the fact how they are presented in the media opposed to existing brothels. In both cases the media coverage claims these brothels will be different: more humane, no pimps, making sexworkers less dependent and more freedom. The fact that they're presented in the media like this, comes from the fact that people have very little knowledge about what a brothel is and what they do, they often get confused for pimps and traffickers, and are often seen as the bad guys. So I thought I'd write a post about how brothels operate, to show you this image is wrong, and that the plans of the new brothels isn't as new or different from how they claim it is.<br />
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In this post I will focus on window brothels in Amsterdam, since covering other types of brothels will require more explanation, but keep in mind that most of these things apply to all brothels, but not everything. A window brothel is basically nothing more than a company that rents out workspaces to window prostitutes. See it as a salon, where hairdressers can pay rent to work from, or a real estate company who rents out business space to a shop for example. Some people compare it with a hotel, since the workplaces are rented out for short periods. But basically a window brothel operator is nothing more than a company that rents out rooms, that's it. In the Red Light District in Amsterdam there are about 19 different window brothel operators who rent out in total 278 rooms, also referred to as windows. </div>
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<b>Destination of the building</b></div>
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You're not just allowed to open up a brothel anywhere. In order to run a brothel, the building it is situated in needs to be assigned a prostitution destination in the city's building destination plans. Only a limited amount of buildings in Amsterdam have such a destination in the city's plans, based on the amount of brothels from years ago, but since that time the amount of buildings with a prostitution destination has only diminished as part of <a href="http://behindtheredlightdistrict.blogspot.nl/2014/06/why-amsterdam-really-closed-red-light.html">Project 1012</a> to close down brothels in the Red Light District. Once a destination plan of a certain building has been changed from a brothel into something else, the current brothel can remain in the building until it changes owner, after which it is not allowed to be a brothel anymore, unless the destination plan of that building is changed back by the city council.<br />
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As part of Project 1012 in Amsterdam, the city's gentrification project that was sold to the general public as a crime fighting project, but in reality was all about real estate, many of the current brothels in the Red Light District of Amsterdam lost their prostitution destination. This means that if those current brothel owners sell their real estate, it's not allowed anymore to be a brothel. No new buildings have been assigned a prostitution destination, making it also impossible for brothels that have to move, to continue elsewhere. In short, they're just reducing the amount of legal places where prostitution has been allowed, they're not moving prostitution elsewhere, they're simply forcing it to go underground.</div>
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<b>License</b></div>
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If you do have a building which is allowed to be a brothel according to the city destination building plans, you still need a license as a brothel operator to start one. Gaining a license is difficult and expensive. Just applying for a license for example costs about €1700, and there's no guarantee that you will also be accepted after applying for it. A license is given out by the city itself, after a thorough check done by the government in what is called a Bibob procedure to check the brothel operator's integrity. This procedure will look into someone's past for any criminal activities or ties, to ensure the person doesn't have any criminal intentions or past.<br />
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The bullshit stories that people are spreading about brothel operators, including those of Lodewijk Asscher in te past for example, about brothel operators being criminals or having anything to do with crimes is therefore also pure bullshit. After all, if those stories would even remotely be true, they would've never even gained their license in the first place, and they certainly would've lost their license if any of these things would be true. The fact that people constantly conflate brothel operators with criminals is completely unjust, since they have absolutely no criminal ties or history, this has been thoroughly checked by the government itself! The clean up of the Red Light District was therefore also not to fight crime, since if that would be actually the case, they would've simply lost their license, and the city wouldn't have to buy these brothel operators out for millions of euro's.<br />
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Cities in The Netherlands rarely ever give out new licenses, making it nearly impossible to start a new legal business, while at the same time many cities, including Amsterdam are revoking licenses of existing brothels, creating a nation wide shortage in legal places to work for sexworkers. Since brothels where legalized in 2000 in The Netherlands there have never been this many brothels closed down, in total 46% of all the legal brothels have closed down since 2000. And this has caused many sexworkers to start working illegal, since they want to work legal, but the expenses of gaining a license and the fact that they're often refused make it almost impossible to get one.<br />
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Besides the Bibob check brothel operators also need to present a complete business plan for their brothel, which has to be approved by the city according to their own local laws (APV). And they need to get a hygiene report from the government health care organisation GGD. Of course they also need to be registered at the Chambers of Commerce as legal business owners, pay taxes and if any abuses are found in their brothel, the city has the right to immediately withdraw their license. </div>
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A prostitute under the age of 21 working in a window brothel in Amsterdam is immediately a reason to revoke the license of the brothel operator. Not following correctly any of the (many) local rules for prostitution businesses will result in a penalty, which eventually can have them loose their license. These penalties could even be about not replacing an empty soap pump, as brothel operators have got penalties for those in the past. If the brothel operator knows a prostitute is a victim of trafficking, and does not report it to the police, they can loose their license. However, if they do report it they can also loose their license, because than they've let a victim of trafficking working there, so there's really no way for them to act good in a situation like this. Whether they report the victim of trafficking or not to the police, in both cases they're fucked and they risk their license, a paradox created by the city out for the blood of brothel operators, eager to close them down for whatever reason.</div>
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<b>Renting out windows</b></div>
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Window brothel operators are only allowed to rent out their rooms to people who have registered themselves at the Chambers of Commerce as either a prostitute or under personal services, who have a valid European passport, and are at least 21 years of age. Everything gets checked by the brothel operators, since not following these rules would result in them loosing their license. The Chambers of Commerce registration gets checked every day by the brothel operator online to see if it's still an active registration. Passports get verified with a scan for authenticity every day. They check your registration of the city you live (GBA registration) in every day. So the stories of there being underage prostitutes working in the Red Light District are 100% bullshit.</div>
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Before a window brothel operator will rent you a window, he will do a mandatory intake interview with you, something the city has made mandatory to all brothel operators. The intake interview is to ensure that the prostitute in question is 'self reliant' enough to do this work, in short, it's just a way to find out if you work for yourself or for a pimp. The questions violate the privacy laws of The Netherlands, but brothel operators have no choice, since it's a requirement from the city to do so. Questions vary from why you want to do this job, to when you went on vacation the last time, how you got here, if you have a boyfriend, to even questions about your sex life etc. etc. </div>
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The intake interview gets done only the first time a prostitute wants to rent a window and doesn't have to happen every day, unlike the registration checks. Any suspicions that the girl might be a victim will result in the brothel operator refusing girl, out of fear of losing his license. If a girl turns out to be a victim later, the brothel operator should report it to the police, but because that would result in them loosing their license this is problematic. However, if they don't report the girl to the police as a victim, they can also loose their license if the police or the city ever finds out, so the brothel operators are stuck. Either way they will loose their license, whether they do the right thing and report it to the police or not. So there's no way for brothel operators to do the right thing, because of these city rules. It is a completely idiotic system, purely built on the idea that the city can close down windows easier, just looking for any reason to close them down.<br />
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Once the story of the prostitute seems okay, all her papers are checked out and validated, the girl will usually sign for the house rules. Those house rules usually consist out of explaining what the prices are for the rooms during their shifts, from when to when the rooms are available, what is included in the agreement, how things work when you want to take free, etc. Girls are not allowed to work more than 6 days a week, and are not allowed to work double shifts. Also the use of drugs in the room is usually forbidden. The girl will pay for the room for that day, after which she will receive the key to the room, very much like how a hotel works. The rooms are rented out by shift, so each day the same ritual happens. The girl comes into the office, the brothel operator checks out all the paperwork and verifies them, the girl pays for the room, and she gets her key to the room.</div>
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<b>The rooms inside the brothel</b></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RKXLDiiqjcg/WF6A8o_6_FI/AAAAAAAAA7U/HOz9VK5WhTgtVP7cGxkrEodTC3eWB-MNQCK4B/s1600/2016-02-20%2B22.06.31.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RKXLDiiqjcg/WF6A8o_6_FI/AAAAAAAAA7U/HOz9VK5WhTgtVP7cGxkrEodTC3eWB-MNQCK4B/s400/2016-02-20%2B22.06.31.jpg" width="225" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7ZOpsDKztoE/WF5_5vdKUHI/AAAAAAAAA7A/JnMKz8xJrEYyfTCol-isnSsM7L11YXfUACK4B/s1600/2016-02-20%2B22.06.00.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7ZOpsDKztoE/WF5_5vdKUHI/AAAAAAAAA7A/JnMKz8xJrEYyfTCol-isnSsM7L11YXfUACK4B/s400/2016-02-20%2B22.06.00.jpg" width="225" /></a>The room consists out of basically a bedroom, some are really small, others are much bigger, this all depends on how the building was constructed. Because the buildings are centuries old most of the times, they weren't designed to be brothels. So basically they've turned it into a brothel by dividing different rooms into one workplace for a girl. Each room will have of course a bed, with a plastic matras for hygiene reasons. A sink with a water tap, with paper towels, a soap pump and an alcohol spray and a cleaning spray. A trash can for all the trash (used paper towels, used condoms etc.). Usually the toilets are shared with the other rooms, as well as the shower. The lighting in the room is arranged by the brothel operator, if a light doesn't work, or you want to change the lighting in your room, the brothel operator can change this for you, although many girls change the lights themselves according to their own preferences. Sometimes girls change the lighting in the room, meaning the colors of the lights, by swapping them around with other lights in the room, to achieve the best lighting effect for themselves, so they look at their best in the room.<br />
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Each room has an alarm button, some rooms have multiple. If the alarm button is pressed, it will notify the brothel operator of any troubles, and the rule of the city is that they have to be present within 12 minutes. Some of these alarms are silent, others are incredibly loud and even have a yellow light on the outside of the building going off, to notify the people outside there is a problem. The police can also respond to the alarm going off, it's basically a matter of who gets there first. And if the brothel operator can't handle the situation (they're not allowed to fight), they will call the police.</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-m-MA2jS3uKs/WF5_jCUGTDI/AAAAAAAAA64/pDFyzXFcwMgRrY31BmG-51CjQECpE8hrQCK4B/s1600/2016-04-23%2B00.13.03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-m-MA2jS3uKs/WF5_jCUGTDI/AAAAAAAAA64/pDFyzXFcwMgRrY31BmG-51CjQECpE8hrQCK4B/s400/2016-04-23%2B00.13.03.jpg" width="300" /></a>In the room the brothel operators usually hang a list of rules and hygiene guide lines. Often they'll hang up a list of phone numbers you can call, such as the phone number of the police, of the office of the brothel operator, health care and other important phone numbers. Things such as condoms, sextoys, working clothes, lubrication, bed sheets, pillows etc. are all things the girl needs to bring herself. The rooms are cleaned each day by cleaners the brothel operator hires, who follow strict guidelines from the city's health care to ensure hygiene.</div>
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Most brothel operators in the Red Light District are really nice people, not the pimps they're often made out to be by the media, politicians, opinion makers and people with other interests. If a girl needs help they will help her, but the rules of the city often block how much they can help a girl. Most brothel operators have run their brothels for decades already, and often they're family businesses. Recently Vice Nederland did a really nice job of making a Dutch documentary about how brothels are run, which you can see here:<br />
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<a href="http://achterhetraamopdewallen.blogspot.nl/2016/12/hoe-raambordelen-op-de-wallen-gerund.html">Dutch version</a><br />
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Felicia Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-82652631491133896532016-10-21T01:11:00.000-07:002018-01-17T15:29:58.177-08:00Amsterdam police says no prostitute works voluntarily<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This week there was a lot of commotion about a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/politie-amsterdam/deze-vrouwen-worden-soms-wel-tien-keer-per-dag-verkracht/1774880219418448/">Facebook post the police of Amsterdam</a> did on their page. The post was centered around the European day for Human Trafficking, and was supposed to be about human trafficking. In stead the police of Amsterdam choose to single out only human trafficking in prostitution, and they where very stigmatizing and plain dumb with their statements.</div>
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The choice to pick (yet again) prostitution as a way to talk about human trafficking is interesting, since the last known statistics from Amsterdam show us that the majority of the possible victims don't even work in prostitution at all, but are exploited in another industry. In fact <a href="http://mensenhandel.nl/files/CoMensha-rapportage-jan-september-2014-def-versie.pdf">last known specified statistics</a> show us that 62% of the possible victims in Amsterdam (43 possible victims in total) where exploited in another industry than prostitution, leaving only 38% of the victims coming from the prostitution industry itself (or 26 possible victims in total).</div>
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But besides the fact that the choice of the police to write about human trafficking in prostitution is an interesting choice, considering the fact that the majority of trafficking happens outside of the prostitution industry in Amsterdam, and the fact that prostitution is far more often associated with trafficking compared to any other industry, making it already stigmatizing on itself to yet again talk about only trafficking in prostitution. The article itself made the <a href="http://www.wijzijnproud.nl/press/press13.php">Dutch union of sexworkers PROUD angry</a> by claiming that 'no 12 year olds would dream of becoming a prostitute' and that 'nobody does this voluntarily no matter how much they claim to be'. So PROUD filed an official complaint with the police of Amsterdam demanding a rectification. </div>
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Due to the <a href="http://www.wijzijnproud.nl/media/media24.php">media attention</a> the response of PROUD caught the police quickly formulated <a href="https://www.facebook.com/politieAmsterdam/posts/1775598186013318">a response</a>, claiming that they didn't meant that 'nobody would voluntarily become a prostitute', but that 'nobody would voluntarily become a victim'. Of course that goes without saying, I mean, have you ever heard anyone claiming they voluntarily would become victim of a crime? Of course not!<br />
So of course the police meant that they didn't believe any prostitute would willingly do this job voluntarily, which corresponds with what they mention as motives to become a prostitute in their article, namely: poverty, loverboys and abuse. Applying those same motives to becoming a victim wouldn't make any sense, since nobody would voluntarily become a victim in the first place, but more importantly, you cannot become a victim of trafficking by poverty!!! Doing your job because otherwise you have no money is not a crime, and certainly not human trafficking.</div>
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And even than, they still wrote, and I quote: 'There's no 12 year old girl that answers to the question what you want to become when you grow up: I want to become a prostitute.' A pretty clear example that they weren't talking about victims, but about how they can't believe that women do this job voluntarily, and even stating that women who do this job to financially support themselves (out of poverty) are forced in their eyes. This also corresponds with almost all of their previous reports, in which they often make very high estimations, purely based on their own gut feelings, about how many prostitutes are forced into prostitution, as for example their report '<a href="https://www.om.nl/publish/pages/17709/klpd_sneep_low_res_tcm5-968601.pdf">Schone Schijn</a>' does, which estimated for example that between 50 to 85% of the prostitutes where forced, without doing any research about this.</div>
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So yes, the police their claim that they meant to talk about victims rather than prostitutes is purely a lie they told to avoid public blame. But there's so much more wrong with this article. For example, they claim that many women, often minors, are forced into prostitution. But looking at the most recent statistics from the police of Amsterdam itself, it shows that this is not 'often' the case as they claim. Last year they reported in total <a href="http://mensenhandel.nl/files/CoMensha-jaaroverzicht-2015-web.pdf">59 possible victims in Amsterdam</a> of which 4 where under the age of 18, so that's in total 6,8% of all possible victims in Amsterdam. By all accounts that cannot be called 'often', but more occasionally.</div>
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But probably most of all I'm angry about the tone of this article. The headline of the Facebook post of the police alone reads 'These women sometimes get raped 10 times a day'. The article purely makes it look as if trafficking victims in prostitution are all women that get raped day after day. But simple fact is that this does not apply to all victims. In fact, many victims are women that choose voluntarily to become a prostitute, unlike how the police chooses to believe, but got into a situation in which they became exploited. Often this involves women who needed help getting into prostitution, often in combination with migrating from another country to The Netherlands, and paid a high price for this to people offering this help, functioning almost like a job agency. Women in these kind of situations choose very consciously for this profession, but simply needed help because the Dutch government made it so difficult for women to enter prostitution. This is done on purpose by the way by the Dutch government, which is called the barrier model, which is supposed to prevent victims from easily getting caught in prostitution. But in reality this barrier model actually creates a lot of human trafficking, because now women that want to enter prostitution have to rely on others, making them vulnerable to exploitation.</div>
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The police obviously didn't think anybody would notice how stigmatizing their article would be, and thought they could a small lie here and there to exaggerate the story a little bit to gain more attention for this problem. They didn't actually think anybody would object to it, since few people have in the past, and they rarely ever got any attention. In fact, they wrote like how most other organizations often write about trafficking in prostitution; stigmatizing and filled with incorrect information, false statements and purely creating a negative image about prostitution. This is the stigma that we as sexworkers are constantly fighting, coming from organizations who are trying to help victims, but in doing so increasing the stigma and thereby making sexworkers more vulnerable to trafficking. </div>
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It should also come as no surprise that the negative image in the media about prostitution was the <a href="http://www.pic-amsterdam.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/rapportage-enquete-PIC-9-juli-2015-def.pdf" target="_blank">most often mentioned problem by prostitutes</a> themselves in <a href="https://www.wodc.nl/images/2389a-volledige-tekst_tcm44-585874.pdf" target="_blank">researches</a>. And in those same researches it also is shown that sexworkers themselves are least happy about the police of all the contacts they have, which just shows the troubling relationship there is between the police and the sexworker. But that should come as no surprise when you read that the policeman thinks he can judge for us if we're doing this job voluntarily or not. This tunnel vision from police officers (not all, because there are some good ones as well), causes the police to distrust our honest answers when we answer why we choose this profession. And their distrust in us caused sexworkers to distrust the police. For example, I know one girl that was a victim of trafficking, and she strongly doubted to call in the police after exactly these kind of bad experiences. And you guessed it, once she did call the police and they got involved, she got into <a href="http://behindtheredlightdistrict.blogspot.ro/2014/12/why-prostitutes-dont-press-charges.html" target="_blank">more trouble</a> than she was before. And than the police keeps wondering why victims don't want to press charges?</div>
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Sadly though the police does not want to rectify their incorrect statements about trafficking in prostitution. They'd rather stigmatize an entire profession, rather than giving in to the fact that what they said was wrong and untrue. This partially also shows how deep the believe of the police is in how right they think they are. They really do think they can tell which prostitutes are forced or not, even if this is not the case. And because they believe this, other people from other organizations or even other police districts will believe this as well, causing them to do the same thing. And this has been going on for years already, and this simply needs to stop!<br />
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<a href="http://achterhetraamopdewallen.blogspot.ro/2016/10/amsterdamse-politie-claimt-dat-geen.html">Dutch version </a><br />
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Felicia Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-85700676725820037622016-09-29T08:01:00.002-07:002017-07-06T07:37:55.548-07:00My Red Light not what they claim to be<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Today was the press presentation of My Red Light, the new name of Project Own Window. This project aims to let sexworkers in Amsterdam's Red Light District run their own brothel. Or at least, that's what they claim, because here's the truth.<br />
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I've already talked about <a href="http://behindtheredlightdistrict.blogspot.nl/2015/02/sex-workers-to-run-brothels-in-amsterdam.html" target="_blank">this project</a> <a href="http://behindtheredlightdistrict.blogspot.nl/2015/11/only-15-sex-workers-show-interest-in.html" target="_blank">before</a>, and criticized the framing of the mayor on this project. He proposed this project to be a <a href="http://www.parool.nl/amsterdam/gemeente-amsterdam-wil-samen-met-prostituees-seksbedrijf-oprichten~a3845322/" target="_blank">'pimp free’ brothel</a>, insinuating with this that other brothels were not pimp free, and that this brothel would be the first brothel without pimps. A complete bullshit story, since first of all there are very few girls that actually have a pimp (I'll go into that further below) and since this brothel has just as much chance of renting their windows to a girl with a pimp as any other brothel.<br />
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Today's publicity about the project even stated that the current brothel owners are <a href="http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/sociale-investeerder-gaat-met-gemeente-amsterdam-peeskamers-exploiteren~a4385645/" target="_blank">an increasing risk on abuses</a> (aka trafficking). A complete bullshit story, which is just the reason why many girls don't trust this project. First of all there are hardly any abuses to begin with, as the numbers from the city of Amsterdam themselves prove. With <a href="http://zoeken.amsterdam.raadsinformatie.nl/cgi-bin/showdoc.cgi/action=view/id=297492/type=pdf/4._Bestuurlijke_Monitor_2015_Programma_Prostitutie.pdf" target="_blank">only 1,5% (102 sexworkers)</a> of all the 6750 estimated sexworkers in Amsterdam there are suspicions that they might be victims of trafficking. In fact, only about 30 woman anually press charges for human trafficking. So this is not really a big problem, unlike how people (like the mayor for example) often claim.<br />
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It's again the mayor trying to frame the current brothel owners as the bad guys in favor of this brothel, just so he can have an excuse to close down the other brothels. Current brothel owners don't increase the risk of abuses at all, and this project also doesn't reduce it. It's bullshit. Who runs the brothel has nothing to do with who's being exploited or forced. In fact, giving this project to the wrong sexworkers could even result in a pimp invested brothel, where the real people who are pulling the strings aren't the sexworkers, but the pimps controlling them. So than you'd basically be giving the pimps full control over this 'pimp free' brothel.<br />
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What people should really be asking themselves is which problem this project solves? It doesn't prevent any abuses, that's a fact. Girls working in this brothel could just as well have a pimp as the ones working with any other brothel, you can't see that on the outside, it's something that happens in someone's personal situation. As someone who runs a brothel you can't see this on the outside.<br />
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So if it doesn't stop the trafficking they claim to be stopping, than what problem does this project solve? Sexworkers would have more control over the brothel. Very nice, but the vast majority of sexworkers are already happy with how things are going in the current brothels. A research done by the PIC in the Red Light District itself shows <a href="http://www.pic-amsterdam.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/rapportage-enquete-PIC-9-juli-2015-def.pdf" target="_blank">only 5% is unhappy</a> with their brothel operator, 50% is happy and 43% are neutral about it. Another research done by the Dutch government nation wide shows <a href="https://www.wodc.nl/images/cahier-2015-1a-full-text_tcm44-588919.pdf" target="_blank">79% being happy</a> with their relationship with their brothel owner. So that's not a problem that needed fixing.<br />
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In fact, <a href="https://www.amsterdam.nl/publish/pages/746068/haalbaarheidsonderzoek_eigen_raam-webv.pdf" target="_blank">only 6 sexworkers</a> showed an interest in working in this brothel at all, which shows just how small the demand for this project from the sexworkers side is. In the newspaper <a href="http://www.parool.nl/amsterdam/eigen-bordeel-moet-positie-van-de-prostituee-verbeteren~a4386006/" target="_blank">Monica</a> talks about that there's a lot of interest from the prostitution industry itself, but that's not true at all, which is also the reason why she doesn't want to say how many sexworkers are involved in this project. Well, here's the truth: In total 15 girls where interested to work on this project, but most of them didn't want to work there, resulting in only 6 girls who actually want to work there. We're talking about only 6 sexworkers, even though in the Red Light District alone there are already an estimated 600 sexworkers working, so that's about 1%!<br />
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So if it's not the trafficking problem, and not how the brothel is being run, what other reason could they have to start this project? So sexworkers themselves can decide how they work? Well, we already can! I decide which days I work, how long I work, how I work. The mayors claim that <a href="http://www.parool.nl/amsterdam/eigen-bordeel-moet-positie-van-de-prostituee-verbeteren~a4386006/" target="_blank">girls are forced to rent a window 7 days a week, and pay for their room during vacation</a> is largely bullshit. First of all it's not even allowed anymore to rent 7 days a week a room, so every brothel gives you at least one day off a week for which you don't have to pay the room. Secondly, just some brothels demand you to pay for your room if you go on vacation if you want to keep the rooms yours. This does certainly not apply to all brothels.<br />
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Just to give you an example. I don't work 7 days a week, I work 5 days a week, and also only pay for my room 5 days a week. So it's not that true that we have to pay for 7 days a week. I also can get as much vacation as I want, with a maximum of 6 weeks, and even more if you can find a girl who wants to work in my room during that period. In short, if another girl works in your room during your vacation, you can take as much vacation as you want. So this is just a lie!<br />
And just to give you a little hint at how much better the rental conditions are for My Red Light, they only allow you to take <a href="https://myredlight.nl/faq/rental-conditions-lease-of-indefinite-duration" target="_blank">maximum 3 weeks in a row vacation</a>. My own brothel does not for example have a maximum on this. So this is not better, this is less!<br />
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Than they come up with the excuse that sexworkers can now decide <a href="http://www.parool.nl/amsterdam/eigen-bordeel-moet-positie-van-de-prostituee-verbeteren~a4386006/" target="_blank">how the brothel should look like</a>. For example, so they can have a shower. Newsflash, every brothel where sexworkers work already have a shower, this is not something new! A mirror in our brothel? Please, come on, we already have those as well! In fact, my room has two big mirrors! It's nice that they can decorate their own brothel now, but if that's the reason for doing this project, than why didn't they just subsidize the current brothel owners to redecorate their brothels? Would've saved up a lot of money in stead of this very expensive project, which so far isn't really tackling any problems.<br />
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Than they mention the fact that we as sexworkers demanded more safe workplaces. That is absolutely correct, we even demonstrated for that last year. But than why are they still closing down more than twice as many windows as they're opening up now? If the problem is that there aren't enough safe workplaces, than why are you closing down twice as much of them as you're re-opening?<br />
Chairperson of PROUD, Yvette Luhrs, said it correctly in the <a href="http://www.noordhollandsdagblad.nl/stadstreek/metropool/article28561856.ece/Eigen-bordeel-goedmakertje_?lref=SL_1" target="_blank">news article</a>. This project is just being used as a small bandage on the huge gaping wound the city created themselves by closing down so many windows. It's a tiny discount on how many windows they're going to close down. It's like they first steal everything from you, and than you get one small piece back from them, and you should be happy about that.<br />
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Even worse is that this brothel is claiming to be the first prostitution company where sexworkers themselves are in control. Besides the fact that this is an insult to every sexworker that is currently running their own business, it is also incorrect. In fact, every single window prostitute IS running her own prostitution company. There are in Amsterdam alone already approximately 1000 sexworkers running their own business of which I'm one! So this is a huge insult on every other sexworker, as if we would not be running our own businesses, as if they would be the first, which is absolutely not true!<br />
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But even more ironic is the fact that their claim of a brothel being run by sexworkers isn't even true! Several employees from current brothel operators have already been in talks to start working there to run the brothel on a daily base! These are the same people who are currently working in the brothels the mayor is claiming to be increasing the problem of abuses. So how they fuck can you be claiming sexworkers would run their own brothel, if you're in talks with other people to run it, which are even the same people running the other brothels right now?!<br />
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Than they try to rip off from other brothels. For example, by creating a place where sexworkers come together and drink a cup of coffee. Well, I guess it's better to steal something good, than to come up with something shit yourself. Because they've simply stole this idea from several other brothels in Amsterdam's Red Light District. For example in the Sint Annenstraat there's a brothel who has the same thing, also two other brothels on the Oudezijds Achterburgwal have the same thing. This isn't new! You're just stealing the ideas from other brothel owners and claiming you're the first!<br />
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The community feeling they want to create is something for example they stole from my brothel operator. He frequently organizes parties and barbeques for example for all the girls working there. At New Year's Eve for example we had a party, we went one time to a pancake restaurant on a boat with all the girls, in the summer we had a barbeque, they even went with some girls to Sensation White! So this also isn't anything new!</div>
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But probably the worst of all things, is the fact that banks such as Triodos and Rabobank, who are notorious for refusing sexworkers, now all of the sudden want to be part of this project. <a href="http://wijzijnproud.nl/press/press05.php" target="_blank">Triodos even refused sexworker lead organisation PROUD</a>, who stands up for the rights of sexworkers! But now when the mayor gets involved they all of the sudden pretend to be sexwork friendly. Good for those 6 girls who are going to be working there, but they're still refusing all other sexworkers. It's the worst form of hypocrisy. The banks that refuse sexworkers most often, are just trying to make a good name for themselves. But make no mistake, they still are refusing sexworkers, so it's just a privilege created by the mayor specifically for this project, and nothing else!</div>
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The more I find out about this project, and see how they present themselves (first prostitution business run by sexworkers) and the mayor (a pimp free brothel), the more I'm starting to dislike it. They're only interested in their own brothel, but not in any of the other hundreds of sexworkers working at other brothels. They're still closing down dozens of windows, and are using these 14 windows as leverage. While they're claiming it to be a brothel run by sexworkers, while in reality it will be the same people who are running the current brothels now.<br />
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<a href="http://achterhetraamopdewallen.blogspot.nl/2016/09/sekswerkers-niet-achter-het-stuur-bij.html">Dutch version</a></div>
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<br /></div>Felicia Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-31049078471602480592016-09-25T13:02:00.000-07:002016-09-26T06:24:19.563-07:00Project 1012 in Amsterdam's Red Light District has failed<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g8IhS3N_53E/V-gs03tAOTI/AAAAAAAAA5E/YoO9YagY6HYVQv-oHZfnDgpJOcBqGia8gCLcB/s1600/a84e227a-94aa-4f46-9b21-469574c8a4ae.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g8IhS3N_53E/V-gs03tAOTI/AAAAAAAAA5E/YoO9YagY6HYVQv-oHZfnDgpJOcBqGia8gCLcB/s320/a84e227a-94aa-4f46-9b21-469574c8a4ae.jpg" width="465" /></a></div>
In recent years there have been a lot of <a href="https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2016/04/11/toeristisch-succes-amsterdam-bijt-zichzelf-in-de-s-1609911-a688952" target="_blank">complaints in the media</a> about the crowds of tourists in Amsterdam. The many <a href="http://www.volkskrant.nl/koken-en-eten/-ijsconisering-amsterdam-zet-door-met-duo-penotti~a4263782/" target="_blank">cheese-, ice- and wafel shops</a> that popped up all over Amsterdam. More burgerbars,<a href="https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2015/10/04/amsterdam-zucht-onder-de-nutella-a1494846" target="_blank"> more Nutella shops</a>. At the same time in recent years the number of prostitution windows as well as the number of coffeeshops have been reduced heavily, as part of gentrification project: Project 1012, to 'clean up' the Red Light District. The neighborhood had to become livable again, less crime, less 'unwanted' businesses.<br />
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In a newspaper <a href="http://www.parool.nl/amsterdam/drukte-en-overlast-nemen-toe-op-de-wallen~a4382784/" target="_blank">article yesterday</a> in the Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool however it turned out that the situation in the neighborhood hasn't improved at all, in fact, it's just gotten worse. Where there used to be plenty of things to do for the visitors that came to the Red Light District, now it's largely disappeared. Now more than 25% of all the window brothels have been closed down by the city. Also the number of sexshops has been heavily reduced, plus they have to <a href="http://www.ad.nl/wetenschap/sekswinkels-op-de-wallen-moeten-definitief-vroeger-dicht~a32062fa/" target="_blank">close down earlier at 10 pm</a>, in stead of the 2 am like how they had it before. <a href="http://www.nu.nl/binnenland/2642189/horeca-in-amsterdam-niet-later-dicht.html" target="_blank">Bars and clubs close down earlier</a>, meaning drunk people end up half way through the night on the street with nothing to do.<br />
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At the same time the number of <a href="http://www.rollingstoned.nl/25-08-14-mr-veldman-coffeeshops-wallen/" target="_blank">coffeeshops have been heavily reduced</a> by the city. Partially forced by the city government under Project 1012 (19 shops), partially using the argument that they can't be too close to schools (11 shops), to reduce drug use under the youth these days. Not that this has any effect, so researched in order of the mayor proved, because it turned out this had <a href="http://www.at5.nl/artikelen/148036/burgemeester_zet_sluiting_coffeeshops_door_ondanks_rapport_over_softdruggebruik_scholieren" target="_blank">no effect at all</a>, since people under 21 never went into coffeeshops in the first place because this is not even legal.<br />
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At the same time the number of street drugsdealers in the area is increasing. They see their chance to sell their stuff to tourists looking for some drugs after the coffeeshops are closed. After all, there are now far fewer coffeeshops than before and they close down early, <a href="http://www.at5.nl/artikelen/150485/coffeeshops_in_de_problemen_door_sluiting_andere_shops" target="_blank">but the demand isn't less</a>, and so they see a brand new market opening up for them. The consequence is that there are much more street drugsdealers than before, that operate <a href="http://www.at5.nl/artikelen/144195/toeristen_continu_lastiggevallen_door_dealers_koop_cocane_of_ik_steek_je_in_je_buik" target="_blank">very aggressively</a>.<br />
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The approach of the city towards the Red Light District, to reduce the so called 'unwanted' businesses, and replace them with 'high class' businesses has failed completely. Many of these so called 'high class' businesses don't last very long at all, move to another area because they don't make much money in the Red Light District, or <a href="http://www.parool.nl/amsterdam/winkeltjes-rukken-op-in-de-amsterdamse-rosse-buurt~a3822423/" target="_blank">complain in the media about the lack of customers</a> for their shops. My gosh, who would've guessed that visitors of the Red Light District would not be interesting in fancy fashion and artsy stuff and other bullshit!<br />
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Meanwhile also the police station near the Red Light District has been closed down, and the police has moved to the other side of the city's center on the Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal. Try and explain a drunk tourist in the Red Light District where that is! The situation has therefore become much less safe, with more fights, as also <a href="http://www.nu.nl/binnenland/4323316/politie-arresteert-negen-mensen-vechtpartij-wallen.html" target="_blank">recent incidents</a> have proven. A consequence of reducing the size of the Red Light District under Project 1012, closing down shops and bars earlier, causing drunk people to start hanging on the streets in the only area where there's still something to do: near the window brothels. With as a consequence that with more drunk people packed in higher concentrations hanging out on the streets having nothing to do, there are more fights.<br />
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The supervision of the police is besides that minimal. Many prostitutes complain about the lack of supervision from the police. We see how tourists have taken over the area, making fun of us, just coming there to watch us without any intention of going inside, while <a href="http://www.at5.nl/artikelen/160482/prostituees_wallen_zijn_fotograferende_voorbijgangers_zat" target="_blank">taking unwanted pictures of us</a> that end up on social media. Police that is present often doesn't do much, and just hangs around on the bridge near the Old Sailors pub, staring at tourists, but barely doing anything. On top of that comes the fact that the city of Amsterdam is having financial problems, and has admitted that there's simply <a href="http://www.at5.nl/artikelen/160399/burgemeester_" target="_blank">less money available for police protection</a>. The consequences? Less supervision of the police!<br />
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Despite the financial problems however, <a href="http://www.parool.nl/amsterdam/amsterdam-sluit-minder-prostitutieramen-gemeentebordeel-gaat-door~a4190483/" target="_blank">the city still has plans to close down 37 more window brothels</a>, closing down pretty much the entire Sint Annenquarter, and reducing the size of the Red Light District even further. The plans to close down 83 more windows already was changed to close down just 37 more windows due to financial problems. But with an even smaller area and less stuff to do, resulting in more people starting to hang on the streets in a smaller place, this will only cause more reason for conflicts. And although the buildings of the brothels that still will be closed down, will be bought by 1012 Inc., which isn't funded anymore by the city itself, the city is going to have to pay the brothel owners themselves huge damage payment for closing down their businesses, like how <a href="https://www.businessinsider.nl/sluiting-prostitutieramen-kost-de-gemeente-amsterdam-108-miljoen-euro-547642/" target="_blank">they've paid other brothel owners</a> before.<br />
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That money could've been better spend on more police protection in the area, in stead of buying off brothel owners. Especially since the only result less brothels will have, is an increase in illegal prostitution, which again means more work for the police, for which they don't have the money. We've already learned from all over the country, that less legal prostitution doesn't mean it stops, it simply <a href="http://nos.nl/artikel/2130432-honderden-sekswerkers-zonder-vergunning-in-oost-nederland.html" target="_blank">increases illegal prostitution</a>. Also in Amsterdam this is the case, where since 2012 the number of illegal prostitution reports have almost doubled, from <a href="https://centrum.notubiz.nl/document/1524483/1" target="_blank">41 reports in 2012</a> to <a href="http://www.at5.nl/artikelen/152375/meer_meldingen_van_prostitutie_in_amsterdamse_woningen_" target="_blank">79 reports</a> last year.<br />
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Meanwhile the policy of the city of Amsterdam for the Red Light District have created a more family friendly image. Less prostitution, less drugs, more art, culture and fashion is what they promoted the Red Light District with, if they promoted the Red Light District at all, which they often don't want to do, because they'd rather not promote the Red Light District at all. They wanted to get rid of the image of Amsterdam as the city of drugs and prostitution, something they obviously didn't succeed in, because still the area is being overrun by tourists, just now they come to party and drink, in stead of visit the prostitutes. On top of that they've gotten more tourists, since they promoted it for a larger audience, causing the Red Light District to be completely overrun by tourists that just come here to watch, and mainly causing more problems.<br />
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It's no wonder that things are going wrong in the Red Light District. More and more drunk tourists, in a smaller area, things closing down earlier, causing people to start hanging out on the streets earlier because there's nothing to do, in the only area which still is fun in the middle of the night. It's no wonder this is creating problems. Higher concentration of people in a smaller area with less things to do, under the influence of alcohol and (sometimes) dangerous drugs, with less police to uphold the law. Who would've guessed this could've gone wrong, right?<br />
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<a href="http://achterhetraamopdewallen.blogspot.nl/2016/09/project-1012-op-de-amsterdamse-wallen.html" target="_blank">Dutch version</a>Felicia Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-73994822786766247792016-09-10T07:22:00.000-07:002016-09-10T15:40:33.815-07:00No more pictures in Amsterdam's Red Light District!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Today the <a href="http://www.metronieuws.nl/nieuws/binnenland/2016/09/jolige-toeristen-op-wallen-kosten-prostituee-klanten">newspapers</a> reported that politicians in Amsterdam are finally going to do something about <a href="http://www.parool.nl/amsterdam/gejoel-op-de-wallen-kost-prostituees-klanten~a4373928/">people taking pictures of sexworkers</a> behind the windows. This already has been a big problem for a long time, and I've also <a href="http://behindtheredlightdistrict.blogspot.nl/2014/08/dont-take-pictures.html">wrote about this</a> almost two years ago already, which with the coming of cellphones has grown completely out of proportions. It's probably one of the biggest complaints from sexworkers in the Red Light District, but one we can't do anything about. After all, we already have in each window a sticker saying it's not allowed to take pictures.<br />
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After coming across some disturbingly sharp, and close-up pictures of some of my colleagues online, of people who think they are photographers, and think they have the right to do that, <a href="http://wijzijnproud.nl/">PROUD</a> took some action. PROUD dropped this problem at politician Ariella Verheul of D66 in Amsterdam, and last week she decided <a href="https://amsterdam.d66.nl/fotograferen-sekswerkers-intimiderend-en-ongewenst/">to do something</a> with this in the city council. One of our ideas is to make it illegal under the local laws in the APV, which is also being used to put all kinds of other rules on prostitution. Simply make it illegal and fine people that take pictures, with a pretty high price tag on it to scare people to do it at all.<br />
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The mayor of Amsterdam said in the newspapers he knew about this problem. This makes you wonder why he never took action if he already knew about this and 'cares so much about us'. After all, the mayor came up with all kinds of bullshit regulation, which we never asked for and which just makes our lives more difficult, so if he knew about this already, why has he never done anything about it. But of course the mayor had to imply that supposedly trafficking was a bigger problem, by claiming 'there are bigger problems' than this. Indeed there are bigger problems than this, which are mainly being caused by the mayor himself, like for example <a href="http://behindtheredlightdistrict.blogspot.nl/2015/04/are-there-enough-window-brothels-in.html">a huge shortage of prostitution windows</a> due to the many closures of window brothels. Or how about the fact that illegal prostitution (prostitution without a permit) is growing due to the fact that there are less legal working places thanks to those closures. In fact, illegal prostitution has almost doubled, going from <a href="https://centrum.notubiz.nl/document/1524483/1">41 cases in 2012</a> to <a href="http://www.at5.nl/artikelen/152375/meer_meldingen_van_prostitutie_in_amsterdamse_woningen_">79 cases in 2014</a>.<br />
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I remember when we did the <a href="http://behindtheredlightdistrict.blogspot.nl/2015/04/414-prostitutes-begin-war-against-mayor.html">demonstration at city hall</a> in April 2015 with more than 200 sexworkers, and how the mayor claimed to have done so much for us. Like what you say? Well, like being accepted by banks for example, which still isn't the case however. Like getting mortgages, which still isn't the case. Like accepting debet and credit card payments, which still isn't the case. Wait, what has he done for us again? He claimed to have done things for us which hadn't changed at all. Banks and financial services still refuse us, as I've also <a href="http://behindtheredlightdistrict.blogspot.nl/2016/07/how-banks-discriminate-sexworkers-in.html">recently been reminded this of again</a>. The only thing the mayor has done thusfar, has been closing more than 120 workplaces, making a shit load of bullshit regulations for our brothel owners about how they should run their business, violating our privacy with mandatory intake interviews and talking about how 'at least <a href="http://behindtheredlightdistrict.blogspot.nl/2014/06/every-day-400-prostitutes-are-being.html">400 women a day are being raped in prostitution</a>', even though the city's officials statistics don't come any further than <a href="http://behindtheredlightdistrict.blogspot.nl/2016/09/human-trafficking-decreasing-in.html">roughly 100</a> on about 6750 sexworkers in all of Amsterdam, meaning about 1,5%.<br />
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Yet the mayor said he's willing to do something about this, which is a good thing. Politician Jorrit Nuijens from GroenLinks says he believes more in a soft approach. He believes that putting a hand on someone's shoulder and asking them to stop making pictures will be a better approach. If things where that easy however this problem wouldn't exist anymore. These people know we don't like taking our pictures behind the windows, they've seen the stickers on our windows, but they choose to ignore those and still take pictures. So we've already tried the soft approach, but that doesn't work, which is why this problem exists in the first place. They simply don't give a fuck because there are no consequences.<br />
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A soft approach won't work. What would work is if police and city officials would actually get of their asses and do something, in stead of hanging around on the bridge all the time, watching people and doing nothing. Control isn't the problem, the problem is that they don't do anything about it. If police and city officials would actually walk around more, looking out for this problem, this would help way more than if they just sit on the bridge near the Old Sailor's pub doing basically nothing, like how I see them doing most of the time. Now it's more occasionally that they'll speak up to people not to take pictures, but that's more occasionally. Some police officers even claim it's allowed to take pictures, because we would be in a public place, even though I'm still not standing in the middle of the street, but in a room inside! So put in a zero tolerance policy towards taking pictures of us, and just write that fine, than people will stop making pictures.<br />
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I see police sometimes running after people because they have a beer outside in their hands, because according to the local regulations (APV), it's not allowed to drink outside. But sometimes they have people taking pictures right next to them, and they don't do anything about it. Just like with the zero tollerance on drinking alcohol outside, there should be a zero tollerance policy towards taking pictures of sexworkers. That's how simple and easy it is, but you do actually have to do it, and not sit on your ass or think that a soft approach will work, because we've already been there and done that.<br />
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<a href="http://achterhetraamopdewallen.blogspot.nl/2016/09/geen-fotos-meer-van-prostituees-op-de.html">Dutch version</a>Felicia Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4057868054965241866.post-55026559079840211852016-09-04T12:45:00.000-07:002017-07-06T07:38:22.499-07:00Human trafficking decreasing in The Netherlands<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This week new statistics on human trafficking in The Netherlands where presented by the Dutch National Rapporteur Human Trafficking. At the same time the city of Amsterdam published their annual report on prostitution in Amsterdam, also with some trafficking statistics.<br />
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<b>Less human trafficking than last year</b></div>
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The numbers the Dutch Rapporteur reported where from 2015, and they reported <a href="https://www.nationaalrapporteur.nl/binaries/Monitor%20Mensenhandel_cijfers%20slachtoffersM%202011-2015_interactief_tcm23-91804.pdf" target="_blank">1,321 possible victims of trafficking</a> in The Netherlands. That is 15% less than the year before, when they reported 1,561 possible victims. About 66% of the possible victims come from the sex industry. In 2015 there were 827 possible victims in prostitution, which is 19% less than in 2014, when it where 1,026 possible victims. In short, less people are being reported as possible victims in the prostitution industry, almost 20% less.</div>
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The Dutch Rapporteur reports solely 'possible' victims. In short, these are not proven victims, but simply people of whom other people (police, marshals, city officials and social workers) have (slight) suspicions about that perhaps they could be victims. Of course the real question is, are they reporting only a part of a much larger group of trafficked victims, or are they reporting too many people incorrect as possible victims as a result of the hype on human trafficking from the past decade.</div>
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Interesting is that the largest decrease in possible victims come from the Dutch Royal Marshals (KMar). They reported 46% less possible victims than they year before. This is especially interesting since before they were responsible for reporting a large portion of the possible victims from prostitution under an article that <a href="http://behindtheredlightdistrict.blogspot.nl/2016/02/how-prostitutes-that-arent-forced-or.html" target="_blank">does not require the victims to be coerced or exploited</a> in any way. In fact, simply receiving help to cross the border, without being coerced or exploited in any way, was enough to become a victim of human trafficking. This only applies to people working in the sex industry. It is mainly this portion of 'possible' victims that are being reported less. </div>
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The Dutch National Rapporteur claims the decrease in reported possible victims is no reason to assume there are less victims. This is kind of weird, since what she reports are assumptions, in other words, there's absolutely a reason to assume there are less victims because she reports them. The Dutch Rapporteur blames the Dutch Royal Marshals and police for this, claiming that there is '<a href="https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2016/08/29/te-weinig-aandacht-voor-mensenhandel-te-weinig-expertise-bij-de-politie-a1518558" target="_blank">less attention</a>' for the problems of human trafficking. I sincerely doubt this, especially since there's no evidence to support this claim, and also because the attention for human trafficking has not diminished at all if you simply look at the media attention for trafficking from both of these sources. </div>
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But the Dutch Rapporteur on Trafficking claims this all has to do with the huge stream of people fleeing from war from the Middle East. According to her the problems of smuggling people across the border has taken away the attention from human trafficking. This is very weird, since border control has become much tighter because of these problems, which should result in also more possible human trafficking victims being uncovered, and not less. After all, if you check more people, the chance is also bigger that you'll actually find something. So there's a big flaw in her logic to explain the decrease in her own statistics. </div>
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More likely either the National Rapporteur really believes this herself, which just shows how tunnel visioned she works. Or she knows this is not really the case, but simply claims this in hopes that she'll still get enough attention and funding from the Dutch government. After all, if the problem is smaller, this might affect the budget the government is giving you.</div>
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For those who want a percentage of how many prostitutes might be forced or exploited. Since there are about 827 possible victims in prostitution, and the total amount of sexworkers in The Netherlands are estimated at around 20.000 (some people claim 25.000 or 30.000), it would come down to about 4,1%. This is quite far away from the numbers that often dominate the Dutch media, in which (interestingly) often public prosecutors and politicians claim much higher numbers (70%, 50%, 90%, 95% etc.), even though there's not a shred of evidence or even a slight hint that these percentages hold any realistic value. All these numbers are always based on pure estimations, without any research at all.</div>
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<b>Very little victims in prostitution in Amsterdam</b></div>
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In Amsterdam there are an estimated 6,750 sexworkers working, which means they hold about more than a quarter of all the sexworkers working in The Netherlands. Amsterdam is of course famous for it's Red Light District, even though this is only a small portion of the total amount of sexworkers in Amsterdam. There are about 1,000 sexworkers working behind the windows, of which about 600 in Amsterdam's Red Light District of which I am one.</div>
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So one might think that a large number of possible victims come from Amsterdam, considering the fact that about more than a quarter of all the sexworkers in The Netherlands work here. So you'll probably surprised to hear that only <a href="http://zoeken.amsterdam.raadsinformatie.nl/cgi-bin/showdoc.cgi/action=view/id=297492/type=pdf/4._Bestuurlijke_Monitor_2015_Programma_Prostitutie.pdf" target="_blank">102 possible victims</a> in prostitution where reported in Amsterdam, according to the numbers of the city itself. This would come down to about 1,5% of all the sexworkers in Amsterdam.</div>
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Now of course, just like with the numbers of the National Rapporteur, these 'possible' victims are just suspicions. In short, just because the police or a city official thinks a girl might be a victim doesn't make it true. Especially considering the fact that prostitutes are often being portrayed in the media as victims, while in reality a lot of them are definitely not (speaking from own experience). So what's interesting is to compare the suspected victims with the actual number of victims that annually actually press charges. And in 2015 we where talking about 33 victims actually pressing charges for human trafficking, which is almost the same as the year before (29 in 2014) and the year before that (32 in 2013). In short, quite a bit lower than how many people are being reported as 'possible' victims.</div>
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And for those who think that indeed the Dutch Rapporteur could be correct about there being less attention for human trafficking. Or that perhaps the police and city officials don't do enough to track it down. On window prostitution alone city officials checked windows about 1321 times (they report it by location, which was 436 times on 130 locations, but there are 394 windows, so I had to made a rough calculation). On top of that comes the police who check windows about 545 times, plus an additional 75 times from the GGD (Dutch Governmental Health Care). That brings us in total to 1941 times that 394 windows where checked. And than I haven't even talked about the other checks they do in other prostitution forms. The 18 sex clubs in Amsterdam where checked in total 93 times for example. And on top of that come the 2196 contacts that the Amsterdam Health Center for prostitutes (P&G292), who also report possible victims to the police, had with sexworkers themselves.</div>
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Looking at the previous year, the number of checks done by both the police and city officials has remained roughly the same. In 2014 for example there where 1765 checks by police and city officials, so it's even a bit more than last year. In short, the conclusion of the Dutch Rapporteur that there would be less attention for human trafficking does not seem to be supported at all by the numbers from Amsterdam. In fact, there's slightly more attention for this problem. This is especially interesting since Amsterdam is responsible for a large part (more than 25%) of the sex industry in the Netherlands. </div>
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As you can see the numbers of trafficking in Amsterdam are very low, despite the fact that there's a lot of control from the government on it, and despite the fact that Amsterdam is responsible for about 25% of the entire industry in The Netherlands. Numbers and statistics that some politicians, like for example <a href="http://www.trouw.nl/tr/nl/4328/Opinie/article/detail/2970925/2011/10/17/We-moeten-ophouden-prostitutie-normaal-te-vinden-het-is-te-vaak-mensenhandel.dhtml" target="_blank">Lodewijk Asscher</a> or <a href="http://www.parool.nl/amsterdam/-zeker-400-mensen-per-nacht-verkracht-in-amsterdam~a3544051/" target="_blank">Eberhard van der Laan</a>, or even public prosecutors such as <a href="http://www.at5.nl/artikelen/136371/te-weinig-capaciteit-voor-aanpak-mensenhandel" target="_blank">Jolanda de Boer</a> or <a href="http://behindtheredlightdistrict.blogspot.nl/2015/08/dutch-public-prosecutor-lies-about.html" target="_blank">Werner ten Kate</a>, have spoke of before are absolute nonsense. Looking at the facts, you can clearly see who has a hidden agenda. Politicians such as Asscher and Van der Laan just claim such nonsense because they want to close down windows. And unfortunately public prosecutors such as Ten Kate and De Boer are apparently just very much against the idea of legal prostitution. </div>
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This is also the reason why the numbers they call out always differ so much. For example before in Amsterdam they claimed that more than half of the prostitutes where forced, while later they claimed that it is about 400 a day in Amsterdam, quite a big difference. The numbers are not even close to what's being reported, it's more like 100 tops, since only 33 a year actually press charges and suspicions about possible victims could be wrong. They always use completely different numbers, which should already be a reason to be suspicious, because once their previous numbers are being debunked, they need to switch to new ones until those are being debunked as well. For Amsterdam especially their claims are interesting, since the numbers that come from the city itself show a completely different image from what they claim themselves.</div>
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And if you don't believe me. Just click on the links I posted in this article, they'll hook you up directly to the statistics published by the Dutch Rapporteur and city of Amsterdam itself.<br />
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<a href="http://achterhetraamopdewallen.blogspot.nl/2016/09/mensenhandel-in-nederland-neemt-af.html">Dutch version</a></div><br />
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Felicia Annahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03948108030376424994noreply@blogger.com1