feminine-genius

Any decrease is good

From the NYT:

Bulgaria has become the latest European country to reject the legalisation of prostitution. "We should be very definite that selling flesh is a crime," said interior minister Rumen Petov after the unexpected decision. The country, notorious for sex trafficking, now has to decide what exactly to do about prostitution. It could imitate Sweden where, since 1999, those who buy sex are prosecuted and are therefore publicly identified.

Finland last year made it illegal to buy sex from women brought in by traffickers and Norway is on the verge of imposing an outright ban on buying sex. The city government in Amsterdam is moving to shut down a lot of the brothels in its red light district. In the Czech Republic and three Baltic states attempts at legalisation similar to the Bulgarian one have been turned back. [Mercator]

Nowhere to turn

Here's another angle on prostitution, this time from Greece. Evidently, since the Athens Olympics, Nigerian women have been in great abundance as sex workers, trolling by Omonia Square downtown. They were sold into the business by their families or lured into it by offers of a better life abroad, and now all options are closed:

• they cannot walk away because of the prohibitive "travel expenses" they must repay;
• they cannot go home because shari'a law there mandates heavy penalties, usually death;
• they cannot appeal for help because they are illegal aliens subject to deportation;
• they cannot find health care, because only Greek prostitutes are eligible;
• they cannot indict their bosses because the Greek system is hard to navigate;
• they cannot escape in any way because of the superstitious voodoo curses they believe will hurt their families.

If they are arrested, they then fall into a system that offers little recourse.

Lack of interpreters makes action more difficult. "Victims meet the police for the first time in operations when they are arrested for illegal prostitution or as irregular immigrants," Dafni Tsixli from Amnesty International told IPS. "The majority of policemen are not able to distinguish a victim, and often victims themselves are unable to explain their situation.

"After recognition the victims are given one month to decide if they want to co-operate with authorities, or face automatic repatriation. This is very short notice considering what they are going through. One way or another many of them are deported, and their cases don't go to court. More than half of them become victims of trafficking again."

In Greece support and protection services are organised in a way to reach victims only after they are detained for violation of the law. The help then often comes too late. The victims have already suffered immensely; many of them have been trafficked for years, and are trapped in the complications of a legal system that is largely hostile to them.

Dina Daskalopoupou is a journalist dedicated to bringing the plight of these Nigerians to the attention of the population. Her careful research seems to have come to nothing.

"I published my article in a big paper; I tried to provoke reactions going after the ministry of public with a second article. I left clues that I have information in my hands. No prosecutor, police or politician ever asked for them," Dina Daskalopoupou said.

"I tried hard to understand why so few people react to a crime taking place in front of our eyes, and I think I know the reason. The Nigerian girls are not 'big business.' They satisfy demand from low quality 'customers' -- young Greek guys and migrants. Perhaps they become the prey of corrupted authorities as well. Many seem eager to look the other way."

Utilitarianism at its worst

Amsterdam has long been associated with libertinism, and it's that very reputation which creates the tourist draw, lining the city's coffers with euros, dollars, rupees, yen, and other forms of quantifiable exchanges. Besides the freedom to imbibe drugs, what are the tourists looking for?

[P]rostitutes posing and preening in their windows are a huge draw for visitors. This weekend, the roads and alleys, lined with old-fashion street-lamps, were packed with tourists from all over the world.

Outside the Casa Rosso theatre, large crowds were trying to get in to watch the live sex shows from red velvet seats. A few hundred yards down the street, an erotic museum was also busy. 'It is not reasonable,' shouted Joshua Saley, an 18-year-old on holiday from Woking. 'This is a place where you can be yourself.' His friend, Michael Bailey, said: 'The one place on Earth where you are allowed to do what you want.'

Beside them a tour group headed away from the canal towards another part of the district. Led by their guide, Chantal Moreno, a 28-year-old woman who takes tourists around the area three times a week, they stared in shock at the women beckoning them towards the windows.

Yep. Women in windows -- women for sale. Sex for a price. Prostitution on parade as a life-style choice, an unvirtuous man's dream come true. Not only is the sex-trade legal, and taxed, but the whole atmosphere has been packaged and put up for sale in thematic trinkets and gizmos:

For 14 years, [Mariska] Majoor has run the [Prostitution Information Centre] in order to support women in the area and inform tourists about prostitution in the Netherlands. It is also a souvenir shop with mini statues, T-shirts, mugs, paintings and key-rings. The tourists soon noticed, however, that in place of the models of buses or buildings were those of shapely women in high-heeled boots, leaning against images of the city's famous lampposts.

A huge mural, stretching from the floor to the ceiling, covered one wall, depicting scenes of women in windows. The image was painted by Majoor's father. 'It is his way of dealing with it,' she said. Close by, he had also painted a wooden folding screen with pictures of women dressed in lingerie with their faces lit by a warm red light.

So the men can "deal with it" by marketing it, enjoying the women who work on their backs, and counting the money that makes the town prosper. But lo, what is happening? Crime has crept in?

Last week, the city announced that it would be closing down a third of its famed brothels. Within a matter of months, 52 of the iconic window displays that line the streets of the busy red-light district will disappear.

In a deal worth £18m, officials will buy 18 buildings from [Charlie] Geerts - known as Amsterdam's Emperor of Sex - and close down the 'windows'. The final decision came from the city's mayor, Job Cohen, who argued that the brothels were attracting crime and money-laundering to the area. 'We want to get rid of the underlying criminality,' he told a TV station last week.

"Emperor of sex." An antihero, another contemptable soul using women for his own gain. Who would have ever guessed that prostitution would draw crime! I thought the premise was that legalisation by its very nature made crime disappear. How could this be? Vice breeds vice? Darkness spreads its own shadow? And through it all, Geerts has made cool millions, the town is raking in the tourist revenues, busloads of young fellows like Joshua are salivating and snapping pics, and Majoor and her dad are selling key rings to help the local women get by. Anything wrong with this picture?

Lenin would be so proud!

Boosting the morale of the proletariat is good, so anything to recognize the dedication of workers is always encouraged. Thus, Amsterdam will hoist a statue in honour of the hard-working gals (and guys) in the brothels who have done their part to support the local economy.

The statue, designed by artist Els Rijerse, is of a strong female figure standing in a frame - a doorway or a window - reached by a small set of steps. Seen as an homage of respect to the hundreds of thousands of women and men working in prostitution around the world the statue is meant to give something back to prostitutes, to give them strength and to be something they can feel proud about. The unveiling was an opportunity to present the statue to local residents and business owners of the area.

We presume her strength is undiminished by any STD's, drug habits, or lack of stable home life. No mention is made of companion statues of pimps or children (aborted or otherwise) to stand nearby. The statue stands cold and alone -- much like the girls themselves. Don't say the town didn't give you anything back.

Important petition

John Mallon has brought this urgent petition to my attention, and we cannot let this opportunity go by without acting on behalf of our sisters who will suffer here.

To prepare for the World Cup, Austin Ruse notes:

The Germans have already built a mega brothel in Berlin, right next to the main World Cup venue to accommodate 650 male clients. Wooden "sex huts" called "performance boxes" that look like toilets have been built in fenced-in areas the size of a football field, with condoms, showers and parking for the buyers and a special focus on protecting their "anonymity."

Who will staff these huts?

With official support from the German government, up to 40,000 young women will be "imported" from Central and Eastern Europe into Germany to "sexually service" the men.

These women come from desperately poor circumstances. According to reports, most will not speak German. Most are being "sex trafficked" against their wills.  They are told that they are going to be models, waitresses, or some other harmless occupation.  Many will be brutally assaulted by intoxicated fans.

Whatever their circumstances, each and every one of these young women is someone's daughter, a child of God and deserves our protection! They DO NOT DESERVE to be exploited and sentenced to a life of misery to satisfy the sexual appetites of soccer fans.

Please join your prayers and your signature to this effort to stop this travesty.

Traffic nightmare

While being jammed on the beltway is a bad thing, human trafficking is worse. I call your attention to the general prayer intention of Pope Benedict for February:

That the international community may be ever more aware of the urgent duty to bring an end to the trafficking in human beings.

JP2 as philosopher wrote eloquently of the beauty of the human person and that he could never be used simply as an object for the good of another. Benedict has followed that with his theological approach to love in Deus Caritas Est:

[M]an is a being made up of body and soul. Man is truly himself when his body and soul are intimately united; the challenge of eros can be said to be truly overcome when this unification is achieved. Should he aspire to be pure spirit and to reject the flesh as pertaining to his animal nature alone, then spirit and body would both lose their dignity. On the other hand, should he deny the spirit and consider matter, the body, as the only reality, he would likewise lose his greatness (#5).

Contrast this with the horrific ugliness of human trafficking and you understand the urgent need for prayer. Millions are suffering, mostly women and children. Their inherent dignity is denied, and their bodies are bought and sold like trinkets. Furthermore, Christ suffers with them, in them, and through them.

Prayer, as a means of drawing ever new strength from Christ, is concretely and urgently needed. People who pray are not wasting their time, even though the situation appears desperate and seems to call for action alone. Piety does not undermine the struggle against the poverty of our neighbours, however extreme. In the example of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta we have a clear illustration of the fact that time devoted to God in prayer not only does not detract from effective and loving service to our neighbour but is in fact the inexhaustible source of that service. In her letter for Lent 1996, Blessed Teresa wrote to her lay co-workers: “We need this deep connection with God in our daily life. How can we obtain it? By prayer” (#36).

An odd form of chivalry

Turkish men don't have a problem with using prostitutes, but they want them to be, well, professional. They have proved to be adept at discerning the difference between women who want to sell their bodies and those who have been coerced to enter the trade.

In the past six months, 100 women - mostly from Ukraine, Moldova, Romania or Russia - have been rescued from sex slavery and Turkish police have broken up 10 trafficking networks.

There are two reasons for these results. A charge-free hotline was set up in May by the UN's International Organisation for Migration (IOM) for women to call for help. It is staffed by multi-lingual operators who try to pinpoint where the women are - and then send in the police.

But the second, more unexpected, factor is the chivalry of the Turkish brothel client. Since the hotline started, 74 per cent of tip-offs have come from men: customers who have learned to spot the difference between a professional prostitute, and someone who's been forced into it.

"I've been very surprised," said Marielle Lindstrom, head of the IOM in Turkey. "We haven't noticed this anywhere in Europe. Turkish men seem to have an old-fashioned view of women. They don't mind using prostitutes, but they want the woman to be doing this willingly. If she's found not to be doing it willingly ... it affects their pride."

I suppose we should be grateful for this twist. It's a start in acknowledging the importance of free will. If these men help to send traumatised women home, or at least free them from this horrid captivity, that's a net good. Now as for the culture which condones free commerce in sex ... well, that's the next battle.

And another victory

This is the tiniest blip on a very large radar screen, but for these 19 women, it's everything.

A special task force raided the Cuddles massage parlour in Birmingham and released women who came from a number of countries across Europe and beyond. Four people, a 40-year-old woman and three men, suspected of being part of the management, were arrested and were last night being questioned.

A team of 50 officers - half of them female - were involved in the swoop on Wednesday night. It is thought that the women were tricked into coming to Britain, had their passports taken away and were locked in the grimy massage parlour at night to work. During the day they are believed to have been locked in a nearby house and made to stay there until their evening work began.

Police also found a sawn-off shotgun and four telescopic batons. Windows were boarded up to stop the women escaping and electric fences are also said to have been erected at the rear of the building. "These girls could be subject to violence, sexual assaults and forced to work as prostitutes in the premises."

The women come from Greece, Turkey, Poland, Latvia, Italy, Japan and Hong Kong.

The month-long investigation is part of West Midlands Police's Operation Strikeout, which is targeting violent crime and robbery in the force area. A former visitor to the premises said: "The women were obviously very polite but you could tell they were very cagey and frightened of their bosses."

Kate Allen, the director of Amnesty International UK, urged the Government to sign up to the new European Convention Against Trafficking.

Amnesty International supports the raid and commends the police work. How about the feminists? Dull silence, of course.