Honest Johns From the UK's
Independent:
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 don't know if it has to be pride; it could be simple disgust, or outrage, at human slavery; at a human who is not free to choose. What's old-fashioned about that?
It would be nice if we heard such stories from Europe and the Americas, as well.
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>> posted by John Psmyth
• 12/28/2005 06:43:00 PM
•
1 comments
1 Comments:
I can't speak from experience (at least I hope not). The scenario outlined for Turkey, where Eastern European women were kidnapped, threatened, beaten, and kept in a locked house, would be easy to spot, I would think: Bruises, fearful body language, the locked house... Pretty different from your typical incall, outcall, or brothel, I would think.
The scenarios I can think of that would apply in the US and Canada are (1) runaways with pimps and (2) debt peonage for Asian women. I don't do runaways (yech!) but debt peonage would be the hardest to spot, I think, because there would be no overt signs of violence. The mama-sans may have protected me, because they generally steer me toward older, more experienced whores; I've been a regular for several, and for all of them it was all about sending money home to the family.
