They also send out a Tweet with that statement, and in response to that both my boyfriend and I tweeted some things about the illogical reasoning behind such a statement. After all, why would you warn people in an area with legal prostitution, about illegal prostitution? In an attempt to keep visitors coming back to the Red Light District and not to places where prostitution is not legal? If you want to warn people about illegal prostitution you should warn people at places where this is happening, not in a place where all prostitution is happening legal, like the Red Light District.
@AnneMeer @AT5 there's a reason why people go there, because its legal so they won't get arrested for it.
— Felicia Anna (@feliciaanna27) February 2, 2015 @AnneMeer @AT5 illegale prostitutie vindt volgens mij niet plaats op de Wallen, dus waarom zou je bezoekers daarvoor waarschuwen?
— Mark van der Beer (@mvdbeer) 2 februari 2015 The problem is of course that apparently AT5 doesn't even know the difference between illegal prostitution and legal prostitution, which kind of shows their ignorance about this subject. Yet, they want to have a debate about it, even though they don't even know basic things about prostitution, such as the difference between illegal prostitution and forced prostitution. So here's a lesson for dummies (read AT5) about the difference between illegal prostitution and forced prostitution.Illegal prostitution
Illegal prostitution is prostitution happening without a permit, in places where it is required to have a permit. This is why it's called illegal prostitution, because prostitution that happens in places where it's not allowed is illegal. For example: prostitution in a hotel that does not have a permit for this. This is for example the case in a hotel in Utrecht, as a result of the fact that over 300 prostitutes lost their only legal workplace there.
Illegal prostitution is prostitution that is not allowed. It says nothing about the fact whether or not forced prostitution or exploitation is happening there. For example, there are many prostitutes that work in illegal prostitution without any problems. But, since it's illegal and therefore happening out of sight of the police, the chances that human trafficking is happening there, are a bit higher than in legal prostitution.
A good example of legal prostitution is the Red Light District. All prostitutes who work in the Red Light District work in legal prostitution. Even if they are forced or exploited, any victim of human trafficking in the Red Light District is still working in legal prostitution, even though they are a victim of something that is illegal.
Forced prostitution
Forced prostitution means someone is doing forced labor in the prostitution industry, nothing else nothing more. Obviously you can't call 'forced by economic circumstances' forced prostitution, for two very simple reasons:
1. Almost everyone is forced to work by economic circumstances, after all, we live in a capitalistic system. Without work you simply can't survive since everyone needs money to survive, and therefore by default everyone is forced to work by economic circumstances.
2. Forced prostitution is about being forced by another person, and since the economy is not a person, you can't call that forced prostitution. Forced by economic circumstances is also not punishable, since you can't punish the economy for forcing someone to work, this is simply called capitalism.
The mistake people, and also AT5 make, is to think that because forced prostitution is illegal, that this is called illegal prostitution. A laughable mistake for any TV channel to make, certainly one that wants to have a debate about prostitution itself!
Just because some crime might be happening in prostitution which is illegal, doesn't make the place where it happens illegal. The Red Light District in Amsterdam, every single window brothel and club has a permit, and is therefore legal prostitution. Therefore illegal prostitution doesn't happen here. But that doesn't mean of course that forced prostitution can't happen there.
I'm angry at the fact that AT5 used the Tweets of myself and my boyfriend to 'prove' that people would still be unaware of the fact the forced prostitution is happening. That's bullshit! Almost everyone knows this! You'd have to have lived in a cave for 50 years not to know about this. And by the way AT5, I am one of those ladies that complained to Mariska Majoor (who was in the show), about the fact that so many people come to ask us if 'I am really doing this job for myself or if I am perhaps forced by a pimp'.
In fact, like Mariska also explained, most people think we are all (or most of us) forced. The 'romantic image' people have about the Red Light District hasn't existed since the 90's anymore. People who claim these things, that there would still be people out there that have a 'romantic image about the Red Light District', are always people who are against prostitution. Everyone that works and knows even a little bit about prostitution, knows that such an image hasn't existed for years anymore. If ever there were people that believed that, that image was shattered when the case of Saban B. came out.
On an international level the image of the Red Light District has been shattered by so called 'rescue organisations' like for example Stop The Traffik and their stupid prostitution dance video, that misinform people on a grand scale about the size of human trafficking over here.
And now to answer the question about informing visitors about forced prostitution in the Red Light District. Is this really necessary? There is already a lot for the missery in prostitution. And do we warn people standing in a bank that sometimes banks get robbed? Do we warn people in the H&M and Primark that their clothes were made under forced labor and sometimes even by 12 year old kids? No!
Not every prostitute is forced. In fact, in the 5 years time working behind the windows myself, knowing most of the girls that work there in the night, I've never came across a single girl that was forced. That doesn't mean they don't exist, but it does prove that the chance of running into to one for a client is pretty small.
And yes, it's possible that clients might run into a girl that's forced. But than again, isn't it the police their job to look out for this, in stead of the clients? After all, the police walks all day long there, and clients only come once in a while at most. If a client comes across a girl that is forced than he should report it, absolutely. But I don't think scaring clients away with the idea that 'girls are forced behind the windows' is fair for all those girls I know that work there because they want to make money.
What's next? Going to demonstrate and flyer people about the fact that banks use people their money for fraud? Are we going to flyer at the C&A that some clothes are made by forced and child labor? Are we going inside the Jumbo to flyer that their bananas come from a country which sells bananas under the price that the government established, and therefore their bananas are illegal?
I went to demonstrate last weekend with Mariska Majoor and some other people of PROUD against the action of the ChristianUnie youth department to warn clients about 'forced prostitution'. They're only scaring clients away, with no results. After all, if clients stay away, there is nobody to report these things. And since the police is apparently not doing their job very good, who else is there to report these things? The girls themselves? Yeah, if only they could do it without the police throwing up barriers for victims to press charges.
Maybe I should go an demonstrate against Christians their constant attempts to undermine my work in a church, see how they like it. Or I'll flyer that 'The Vatican are a bunch of pedophiles', see how they like that? After all, I'm only informing them, right?
Maybe you should first ask the people that work there if you can do these kind of things in the area where they work. After all, did we ever asked people to demonstrate and flyer for us?
Update 2-2-2015 20:36: After I reported this to Waldy van Geenen they took out the video online to be uploaded without the tweets of me and my boyfriend at a later time. This post however remains the same, as it shows how uninformed people can create a false image about something without even knowing it, simply out of ignorance. Furthermore I think it's important to explain the difference between illegal prostitution and forced prostitution.
Dutch version
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