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janestarzThere's been a lot of discussing on Rijnmond, my favourite radiostation, about the ladies of the Keileweg. Prostitution is legalized in our wonderful country, and that particular road has a nice couple of benches and some private containers where prostitutes can sell their body. Most of the women who work there, are addiced in varying degrees. (If you're not addicted and you like the work you can go to any number of brothels to work and get paid better than that too)
Now Rotjeknor has a new person in charge of Safety (I believe), and this Marianne van den Anker has been in the news ever since she was appointed. Not all of her publicity has been good either. But she has made a wonderful decision (together with the other people that rule the city): the ladies of the Keileweg 'have to go'.
Go where?
Ow, let's not talk about that right now. First we decide that these women, who are whores and addicted to bad drugs, and can provide for themselves (in their addiction) by selling their body, are going to be forced to find their money for their addiction elsewhere by making prostitution on the Keileweg illegal. Or impossible. Or both.
Now Marianne wants to take care of these women, she said so in an interview on the radio. She wants to send the men who go there tickets and pictures so they will have a problem with their wives. Marianne finds it disgusting that there are men taking advantage of the addiction of these women. The women work there, because they can't get another job or don't want to, and they need money for their addiction.
So instead of finding out what they want or what we can do to help them, we outlaw prostitution there, to make it harder for them to get their money.
A couple of weeks back there had been a policeforce there, or something to drive the women away. The women had been roaming the streets of Rotterdam. It was on the news, and I could imagine people go "ow" or "ew" and saying "why isn't there some way to take care of them?"
I reckon Carrie (saint of homeless and addicted women) was out there trying to help them...
And now the mayor and Marianne have frantically been trying to find a place for a shelter, so the women can detox and reintegrate into the real world. Catendrecht (part of Rotterdam), has already been so upset about this, that at the meeting for the new neighbours of the shelter the mayor was called bad names (!!!) and they could not finish their speech. Next, they tried Feijenoord (another part of Rotterdam). But the Feijenoorders have looked good and hard at what they did in Catendrecht and decided that that was the way to go. They called names, threw paper coffeecups at them, and shouted until they gave up.
And last night on Radio Rijnmond there was an item about this, where callers could say what they wanted. It grieved me to hear the same kind of words from the callers. "Those filthy whores" etc.
Firstly, not all those women want to do detox. When you live a life that is so hopeless that all you can find some solace in is drugs, then you need a team of shrinks to convince you to change your view of life. The next step is to help the women who are convinced that they can change something about their position, and who do want to fight for it. You can help them detox. Just a shelter where you put the women on methadon, if that (cold turkey must be a bitch), with just a psychologist or a hardly-sufficiently trained worker is not enough.
Secondly, we are one society. In this society you have the Celebs (200), the People Who Made It (about 500.000), the We're Doing Good (7 million), the people Struggling To Make Ends Meet and the Elderly (7 million), and the Down and Out and the Scraps of Society(the rest, about a million?). As much as we are either in the We're Doing Good or in the Struggling To Make Ends Meet catagory, we mostly strive to be part of the People Who Made It or even of the Celebs. That's just the way humans are.
But that does not justify not caring about the rest. If you're someone who's made it in life, and if there would be a WWIII you'd still live in luxury, that doesn't mean you don't care about everybody else! The very egocentrical culture we have right now is terrible. The mere thought that there's a political party out there whose goal is to have people who have much money pay as much taxes as the people who are struggling to make ends meet- it's ludicrous!
A good example: Tessa said that if they were to open up the rental prices, it's possible that we will have to pay much more for this appartment than our neighbour who makes a lot less (they want to adjust the rent to income). And she asked what I would think of that. I actually would find that a good idea, since we can afford to pay a little more rent, and it will allow the single-mom-with-three-kids-and-no-job to rent a place that is big enough for her and her kids.
I don't think many Dutch would think of that right away, or at all.
So: the ladies of the Keileweg. Everybody says that there's got to be a shelter, and there's got to be help. But nobody wants to live next door to a shelter, nobody will volunteer there. We just leave them out in the cold to rot. It just makes me really sad.
Now Rotjeknor has a new person in charge of Safety (I believe), and this Marianne van den Anker has been in the news ever since she was appointed. Not all of her publicity has been good either. But she has made a wonderful decision (together with the other people that rule the city): the ladies of the Keileweg 'have to go'.
Go where?
Ow, let's not talk about that right now. First we decide that these women, who are whores and addicted to bad drugs, and can provide for themselves (in their addiction) by selling their body, are going to be forced to find their money for their addiction elsewhere by making prostitution on the Keileweg illegal. Or impossible. Or both.
Now Marianne wants to take care of these women, she said so in an interview on the radio. She wants to send the men who go there tickets and pictures so they will have a problem with their wives. Marianne finds it disgusting that there are men taking advantage of the addiction of these women. The women work there, because they can't get another job or don't want to, and they need money for their addiction.
So instead of finding out what they want or what we can do to help them, we outlaw prostitution there, to make it harder for them to get their money.
A couple of weeks back there had been a policeforce there, or something to drive the women away. The women had been roaming the streets of Rotterdam. It was on the news, and I could imagine people go "ow" or "ew" and saying "why isn't there some way to take care of them?"
I reckon Carrie (saint of homeless and addicted women) was out there trying to help them...
And now the mayor and Marianne have frantically been trying to find a place for a shelter, so the women can detox and reintegrate into the real world. Catendrecht (part of Rotterdam), has already been so upset about this, that at the meeting for the new neighbours of the shelter the mayor was called bad names (!!!) and they could not finish their speech. Next, they tried Feijenoord (another part of Rotterdam). But the Feijenoorders have looked good and hard at what they did in Catendrecht and decided that that was the way to go. They called names, threw paper coffeecups at them, and shouted until they gave up.
And last night on Radio Rijnmond there was an item about this, where callers could say what they wanted. It grieved me to hear the same kind of words from the callers. "Those filthy whores" etc.
Firstly, not all those women want to do detox. When you live a life that is so hopeless that all you can find some solace in is drugs, then you need a team of shrinks to convince you to change your view of life. The next step is to help the women who are convinced that they can change something about their position, and who do want to fight for it. You can help them detox. Just a shelter where you put the women on methadon, if that (cold turkey must be a bitch), with just a psychologist or a hardly-sufficiently trained worker is not enough.
Secondly, we are one society. In this society you have the Celebs (200), the People Who Made It (about 500.000), the We're Doing Good (7 million), the people Struggling To Make Ends Meet and the Elderly (7 million), and the Down and Out and the Scraps of Society(the rest, about a million?). As much as we are either in the We're Doing Good or in the Struggling To Make Ends Meet catagory, we mostly strive to be part of the People Who Made It or even of the Celebs. That's just the way humans are.
But that does not justify not caring about the rest. If you're someone who's made it in life, and if there would be a WWIII you'd still live in luxury, that doesn't mean you don't care about everybody else! The very egocentrical culture we have right now is terrible. The mere thought that there's a political party out there whose goal is to have people who have much money pay as much taxes as the people who are struggling to make ends meet- it's ludicrous!
A good example: Tessa said that if they were to open up the rental prices, it's possible that we will have to pay much more for this appartment than our neighbour who makes a lot less (they want to adjust the rent to income). And she asked what I would think of that. I actually would find that a good idea, since we can afford to pay a little more rent, and it will allow the single-mom-with-three-kids-and-no-job to rent a place that is big enough for her and her kids.
I don't think many Dutch would think of that right away, or at all.
So: the ladies of the Keileweg. Everybody says that there's got to be a shelter, and there's got to be help. But nobody wants to live next door to a shelter, nobody will volunteer there. We just leave them out in the cold to rot. It just makes me really sad.
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Date: 2005-02-18 05:01 am (UTC)But hey, come on. This is politics. Looking for a proper solution is to much work/difficult/expensive. Te politicians then would have to use our brains for that. And of course, politicians wat quick action and quick results, because otherwise they wouldn't be reelected. So you get only partially developed, short term actions and programs. Etc etc... Stuff like this also can make me very angry and sad.