Two weeks ago I was taking people around the centre of Amsterdam. They wanted to see the Red Light District. I am not quite sure why I decided to follow their wishes. So we went there.
I find it disgusting. I think the Red Light District shows a horrible side of men. You see groups of men drooling for the women in the windows. The area does not make me giggle, which seems to be very common. You can think I am patronising or condescending but I just feel pity. And anger.
Last weekend I saw a group of four people in the area, 1 woman and 3 men. The dialogue went as follows:
Man:"Uh, I am not sure if I..."
Woman:"She´s nice, ain´t she? Good tits and all? Don´t you boys agree? Go on, John, we´ll wait for you in the bar."
In this sense I think the Finnish League of Feminists Unioni have done an excellent act with their campaign Kaupan (For Sale). They invited 17 graphic designers to make posters on trafficking in human beings. The posters can be seen on a website and they have also been exhibited at a metro station, at a gallery and on the streets.
The facts are shocking:
- 800 000 - 900 000 people per year (UN figure)
- 80 % for prostitutes
- does not require crossing borders, the domination continues inside the country, usually people are lured into Western countries
- half of the victims are children
- profitable business: women are bought with 1250-1500 dollars and sold with 250-350 dollars per hour
- most profitable field of organised crime after drugs and arms
- Finland is a cross-over country on the way to the West for hundreds of people per year
Sometimes the world seems to be a bit too cruel to bear.
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Struggling with a Moral Panic Once Again
14 hours ago
4 comments:
I was sort of waiting for this comment. Or even begging for it.
I know it is a legalised profession in this country. But it still does not say that all the women have ended to this country doing it voluntarily and that this country would be totally free of problems in that respect. I do know that it is legalised in the Red Light District but it does not mean that there would not be illegal prostitution in the Netherlands. Just last year a leading civil servant was caught buying sex illegally at a parking lot between Amsterdam and Schiphol airport.
I am also fully in favour of protection of the women or offering them services but it still does not make me change my viewpoint on the business as a whole.
World Cup of football in Germany is approaching. The world does not seem to be getting any better:
http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,1563,1645517,00.html
I really, wholeheartedly agree with Tommi here. I recently read a book on human trafficking and prostitution - that book that everyone was talking about, the book by that american journalist, but argh, I cannot remember the name. (Oh, what an excellent reference source. A book I cannot remember the name of. Duh.)
Anyway, he also referred to the situation in the netherlands. In his investigations, he had found out that the netherlands also has issues with human trafficking. And that actually traffickers have an easier time operating in the netherlands because of the lax attitudes and legislation towards prostitution.
I completely copy you on this one. I'm all for protection of women that offer these services but it indeed doesn't change the way I feel about the whole profession or the sick-to-my-stomach feeling I had when I went to the red light district for the first (and the last) time. Noone can persuade me that some of the 20-year-olds I've seen there wish to sleep with smelly drunken Brits for living. I know they have all the necessary papers to work there but it's the matter of free will that gives me hard times, not matters of bureaucracy.
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