Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2005
To: witness@ex-oriente-lux.org
From: *****@*********.**
Hi, I’m from the Netherlands.
I have visited prostitutes too. While I did that, every time I visited a prostitute, I read an article in magazines about human trafficking. As if I was sent messages from ‘above’. I visited window-prostitutes in the red light district of Amsterdam (“de Wallen”). I have visited three prostitutes. One prostitute I visited came from Latvia. She was very friendly and even gave me compliments. Strange foreign men stood before her window. I only later realised those men could be her pimps after I read an article shortly thereafter about a victim of human trafficking from, you guessed, Latvia. I even fantasised about rescuing her, but obviously that plan didn’t materialize. I didn’t want to have such an experience again. I started to read books about prostitution and human trafficking. I was trying to find information about which spots I could avoid best. There was one book about human trafficking in which it was said that there were only a 1000 victims of human trafficking in the Netherlands. There are 20.000 prostitutes in the Netherlands. That means only five percent of the prostitutes is a victim of human trafficking. I felt relieved. I went to the red light district again. After I had sex with the prostitute I asked her if she had a pimp. No, she didn’t have……but, then came the revelation, she said many girls who work there have a pimp. I was totally shocked.
I frantically looked for more information about prostitution, especially window prostitution. I read about a Christian organisation of aid-workers called the “Scharlaken Koord”. They have contacts with many prostitutes in the red light district of Amsterdam. They revealed half of the prostitutes hand over all of their income to their pimps. Of the Dutch window prostitutes, 87 percent was introduced into prostitution by so-called loverboys(pimps who use romantic techniques to persuade a girl to work for him as a prostitute). And those are the Dutch prostitutes.
I have found much more evidence in literature to prove what the Scharlaken Koord and the prostitute I’ve spoken with are true. A ‘loverboy’ who worked in the red light district of Amsterdam even estimated 80 percent of the prostitutes who work there have a pimp. He even said the Dutch government made it too easy for pimps and human traffickers by legalizing prostitution.
It was difficult for me to find information about indoor-brothels (window prostitution not included). Suddenly I found a web-log of an ex-prostitute who has worked in 2 brothels. She revealed that the majority of the prostitutes who worked there were forced. Either by a drug-habit or by their boyfriends. I previously believed forced prostitution in indoor-brothels occurred much less than in window-prostitution. I was enraged.
I turned my attention to a large consumer-site for prostitute-clients. I went into discussion with them. I believed most prostitutes are forced, and I believed it would be better if men don’t visit prostitutes anymore. If men don’t visit prostitutes, there would be no forced prostitution anymore. A real prostitute responded, and she said she rarely met prostitutes who were coerced into sexwork. But aside from that, what I find shocking is that basically most clients aren’t interested if a prostitutes has been coerced or not. And the reason is horrific and in a sense awfully true. Their line of thinking goes like this: if I buy a bar of chocolate. Do I wonder where the cacao comes from? Well….the cacao is made by slaves in Ivory Coast. Do I bother about them when I eat chocolate? As a matter of fact, many products you buy in the store are made under almost slavery-like conditions. Do I bother about the workers who made this stuff when I buy all these things in the store??? Of course not!!!!.......... Then why should I bother about the prostitute?
And the funny thing is that the ‘voluntary’ prostitutes who also joined the discussion basically agreed with them. Their line of thinking is that a client is not responsible for the prostitute being forced or not. It’s not his fault.
I believe if so many people think in this manner, that as long men keep visiting prostitutes, human trafficking is here to stay.
I’m cynical.
And oh, by the way. It’s very difficult for a prostitute-client to distinguish between a voluntary and a forced prostitute. I am busy for almost a year to find out which place I can go best to visit a prostitute without risk of visiting a trafficked woman. I have a box full of books about prostitution. And still no answers. There’s no information. The only information I could hold on to is that the average trafficked woman is much younger than the average prostitute in general, 23 years and 28 years respectively. That means, I can reduce the chance of visiting a trafficked woman by visiting older prostitutes. That’s the only guideline I have for now. Still, I don’t dare to visit prostitutes anymore.
Some extra comments: It's really really almost impossible to see if a prostitute has been coerced or not. Trafficked women can hide very well what's really going in. I'm in contact with many prostitute-clients via the internet and they are saying the same thing.
Greetings...
******
source: Ex Oriente Lux