I’m a sex worker who makes hundreds a day – now rich and patronising feminists want to ’save me’… by taking away my job

WOMEN in lingerie dance in windows as hordes of worse-for-wear lads stumble past, ogling and desperately trying to decide if they have enough euros in their wallets for a quick stop off.

This is Amsterdam’s infamous Red Light District, where an estimated 6,000 sex workers do their best to entice men – often on weekend stag dos – to splash their cash.

Over 20 million tourists visit the city each year, drawn by the city's liberal stance when it comes to drugs and buying sex.

Yet the city's infamous red light district is now under threat.

While buying sex is legal in the Netherlands as long as it is between two consenting adults, a campaign group spearheaded by feminists and Christians are trying to overturn this.

The Dutch parliament is now set to debate whether to change the law, after the group Exxpose generated a petition with over 40,000 signatures.

Campaigners cite the rise in sex trafficking victims as reason to criminalise buying sex  – in 2012 alone there was believed to have been a 40 per cent rise in human trafficking, with the majority forced into prostitution.

But sex workers in the red light district – who make up to £100 an hour – are up in arms at the idea of their livelihoods being taken away.

They've slammed feminist campaigners as patronising and asked –  how can you call yourself a feminist and try to take away other women's job?

Here, one sex worker and one young woman campaigning to close down the red light district go head-to-head…

Melissa Heuft, 54, sex worker

"Make no mistake, it’s the sex workers who are in charge in the windows of Amsterdam.

They set the rules and they decide whether to let a client in or not. They have a panic button that summons the window manager, and if he needs to, he’ll call the police without hesitation.

There are so many police cameras and CCTV cameras in the Red Light District I’d say it’s actually one of the safest places to work, and I’ve been a sex worker for five years.

I do it because I like it, not for the money or because it’s my only option.

I’m 54, although I tell clients I’m 45 (it’s the same numbers), and I have a few boyfriends, nothing serious.

My life is pretty normal and I’d say I’m actually pretty privileged – I’ve got a degree and I worked as a nurse.

'Sex work is rewarding – it's not about the money'

When I was doing that I saw a lot of the patients craved physical affection. Sometimes they told you nicely, sometimes they misbehaved and grabbed you.

But the patients weren’t put first at hospital, so I changed my job.

Now, as well as the sex work, I’m a district nurse in people’s houses.

I like it because it gives you more time to spend one-on-one with your patients and that’s what I like about sex work as well – it’s absolute quality time.

I make a lot of people very happy and it’s rewarding in lots of ways. It’s not just the money.

I prefer sex work to nursing but the people at Exxpose tell me I don’t know my own mind, and that’s what annoys me.

They say the consent of vulnerable people is being bought by men with money and power – that’s a ridiculous generalisation. In reality it’s a business transaction like any other. I’m an independent entrepreneur who pays her taxes – quite a lot of taxes, actually. I get 129 euros (£111) for one hour.

What the people behind the Exxpose campaign aren’t telling you is that it’s all rooted in their religion.

They’re trying to save us when we don’t need saving – except maybe from the saviours themselves!

'We're not all addicts!'

They only see and hear what they want to – they think sex workers must have had a bad childhood or be addicts. They’re changing the facts to suit their argument.

If two people of legal age agree to have sex, what’s wrong with that?

It’s true that there are bad things going on in the Red Light District, human trafficking does exist but it's also rife in other industries such as the restaurant trade – but I don’t see the Exxpose lot campaigning to make it illegal to buy a Chinese takeaway.

It’s true that the Brits have a reputation in the Red Light District because of the amount of beer they drink, which goes hand in hand with some pretty bad behaviour.

But let’s not forget our boys from the Dutch countryside, who can be just as boisterous.

The Brits come here on stag dos, granted, but the same bad behaviour happens in Barcelona and Madrid – and there’s no Red Light District in those cities.

Decriminalising sex work altogether it is the best policy if you ask me.

I thought the whole point of feminism was empowering women to do as they please, not restricting their rights and opportunities.

These Exxpose campaigners are young and naïve. I hope when they’re my age they’ll look back and think, 'What on earth was I thinking, telling other people what to do?'

Sara Lous, 29, Exxpose

In the Netherlands it’s illegal to put puppies in a pet shop window because we believe it’s cruel – and yet we put our young women behind a window and pretend it’s normal.

Tourists can walk around the Red Light District gawping at them without paying any money at all – those ladies are a tourist attraction and a lot of people get to see them in their underwear for free.

Our campaign is staffed by volunteers, mostly young people. We see too much harm going on, too much human trafficking and we object to the normalisation of the buying of sex.

It isn’t about a woman’s right to sell sex. Women should be free to do what they want with their bodies – I can totally understand why people do it and I think it’s a really brave decision to sell sex.

I can totally imagine doing that.

Sex work by numbers

The Netherlands could follow in the footsteps of France, Sweden and others who have already made it illegal to pay for sex acts.

Demand for prostitution in countries who follow the 'Nordic Model', as this law is known, has decreased too.

The idea is that making it a criminal offense to buy sex reduces sex trafficking.

Estimates of the amount of prostitutes in the Netherlands vary, but there are thought to be between 15,000 and 30,000.

In 2008, officials suggested that about £79million a year was spent on sex transactions in the country. Sex workers there now pay tax on their earnings.

In 2016, the number of prostitutes in the UK was estimated as being 72,800, while one in ten men admit paying for sex.

I grew up in a village near Rotterdam with my brother and four sisters.

Things were comfortable, my mum was a nurse and my dad had his own aluminium business.

They’re both Christians and that’s how I was raised, I still go to church and I’m married.

'Violence is commonplace'

It all plays into the campaign because I knew I was blessed growing up, that others didn’t have what I did. I worked in a rehab centre for a while and I saw that.

I knew I wanted to help people, and after I saw a documentary about sex work things clicked.

I spoke to my friends and we realised that we might be able to really change things if we could get the government to talk about the issue.

The problem is the men who want to buy sex here typically don’t respect women’s boundaries. They’ve drunk a lot and they behave extremely badly, asking for really cheap prices.

They ask for things their wives won’t do: anal sex or role-play where the woman pretends to be a 12-year-old girl.

There’s a lot of violence by customers, they want to have sex without a condom or be so rough the woman bleeds, and the women are under pressure to put up with it or clients won’t pay.

Most people selling sex are vulnerable women who need the money or who have been forced into sex work. Because it’s legal to pay for sex, men using their services can ignore the horrible realities behind their actions.

Rape culture

Europol research from 2017 shows that Amsterdam is susceptible to human trafficking precisely because we have a big market for cheap sex.

So it’s the so-called “ethics” of paying for sex which need to be revisited.

There’s a saying in Dutch that everything that anything that can be bought can also be stolen. In you think about that, you can begin to see how prostitution fuels rape.

We believe that you cannot buy consent under any circumstances. It’s the men and women who buy sex who would be punished under our proposal and most of them would stop if it were made illegal.

What do we propose for the women who will be made unemployed by the shrinking of the market? We’d get them into different jobs in safe environments which don’t make them vulnerable to sexual abuse.

People say that our campaign is funded by the church mafia but that’s not true.

Yes I go to church but this is a matter of feminist principle and our approach makes a lot of sense to the large number of young people who support us.

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