This is just part of the (Dutch) article. It goes on for another full page, and explains how prostitutes are sometimes abused with baseball bats or are given a tattoo of their pimp's name. Many prostitutes deny they are victims - either out of fear, or because they don't even want to admit it to themselves - some are ashamed and some think they are in love with their pimp. A Vice Unit detective called 'Anita' explains how they try to approach prostitutes and ask them to come forward if they ever have problems, but few ever do. Werson:'no more than 1 or 2 percent of the prostitutes do the work voluntarily and get to choose when they work or who they receive. 'And then,'he says,'there are also those who started doing this voluntarily, have gotten used to the work, and now think this is their only option. Or those who, soon after starting, were confonted by a pimp threatening to inform their families if they didn't start working for them'. The term 'loverboys' which has been used a lot by the Dutch media in recent years, is not used by police: 'these are brutal human traffickers, even if they use 'loverboy'methods: they approach vulnerable girls, promise them the world, and try to get them to fall in love with them. When they do, they are put to work in prostitution and isolated from family and friends. Getting out is nearly impossible'. You also see foreign women who are brought to the Netherlands by traffickers and them have to 'pay back' the cost of their transportation, often with interest so high they can never pay it back completely. And there are also women who earn more in prostitution here than they could ever make in their country of origin, and for that reason don't complain. But it is still exploitation. Werson:'I am not against the legalisation of prostitution, I respect the woman in the window. But a prostitute has the right to keep the money she earns, not have some scumbag take it from her. Outsiders only see scantily dressed women, but that's a facade. Most customers refuse to see the dark side, the idea of prostitution is romanticised. The reality is that many women are abused if they do not earn enough money for their pimp. That's why the work in the Vice Unit can be so frustrating. Many victims, after finally having found the courage to report their pimp, withdraw their complaint later saying 'he's turned around, he's friendly now'. In reality they're scared. The newspaper De Volkskrant is doing a series on prostitution - more next week.
Having 'window shopped' in Amsterdam on two separate occasions, I can state that the hoors in the windows are, by and large, some of the nastiest, most used up pieces of womanhood I have seen anywhere. And the guys who were going in and out of those little mini-bordellos made me imagine every form of drippy-dick, chancre, and other STD known to mankind. And if you ever fall into the river that runs through that district, you'd better get your ass to the ER post-haste for a tetanus shot, a broad spectrum antibiotic, and one of whatever else they have on hand. Or you will DIE. If I ever go again, I'm going to check out a museum.
if you want to avoid the exploitation aspect, legalize and regulate. prostitution will always exist, a fact too many tediously moralizing pricks fail to acknowledge, and until they do, it will remain a seedy business with sex trafficking and forced prostitution going on in the background.
Everybody is a whore. Your mamma? Whore. Your daddy? Whore. Your sweet old granny? Sweet old whore. Unless you're ruling over your own private empire, answering to no one and compromising on nothing, you're at the bottom of a figurative gang bang the moment you stop listening to your brain's screams of revulsion and loathing to collect a paycheck and support what needs supporting.
i'd also add if exploitation and forced prostitution wasn't ended, then either the legal structure is faulty and/or the definitions they're using are. for example, a self-employed prostitute can expect the right to choose their customers, a freely employed one cannot unless specified in a contract of employment. and what structures are in place to protect those in the sex industry? i would expect any legalized framework to include mandatory certification of both employers and employees, a complaints system including safehouses, initial help with unionizing, and strong sentencing for breaching the workers individual rights. prostitution, along with the drugs trade, requires a heavy hand when moving from an illegal to legal status.
I'm quite surprised by this. I could have sworn it was legal when I was in Amsterdam in the 90s -- it was quite visible. Perhaps the Dutch need to figure out the delineation between concepts, then take another look at what legalization actually did. If it was only an acknowledgment that prostitution was not controllable by law enforcement, that's fine, but they need to take the next step which is cracking down on slavery and health code issues. Placing the veneer of legality on an otherwise black market, doesn't really address the problem of exploitation.
No, the moment you need that check, you're at the bottom. Until then, I's just getting me burning cash.
