Turkish girl, 16, buried alive for talking to boys

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/04/girl-buried-alive-turkey

Robert Tait
Guardian.co.uk
Sat, 06 Feb 2010 15:20 EST

© Ho/Reuters The hole where a 16-year-old girl was buried alive by her relatives in Adiyaman, southeastern Turkey

Death reopens debate over 'honour' killings in Turkey, which account for half of all the country's murders

Turkish police have recovered the body of a 16-year-old girl they say was buried alive by relatives in an "honour" killing carried out as punishment for talking to boys.

The girl, who has been identified only by the initials MM, was found in a sitting position with her hands tied, in a two-metre hole dug under a chicken pen outside her home in Kahta, in the south-eastern province of Adiyaman.

Police made the discovery in December after a tip-off from an informant, the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported on its website.

The girl had previously been reported missing.

The informant told the police she had been killed following a family "council" meeting.

Her father and grandfather are said to have been arrested and held in custody pending trial. It is unclear whether they have been charged. The girl's mother was arrested but was later released.

Media reports said the father had told relatives he was unhappy that his daughter - one of nine children - had male friends. The grandfather is said to have beaten her for having relations with the opposite sex.

A postmortem examination revealed large amounts of soil in her lungs and stomach, indicating that she had been alive and conscious while being buried. Her body showed no signs of bruising.

The discovery will reopen the emotive debate in Turkey about "honour" killings, which are particularly prevalent in the impoverished south-east.

Official figures have indicated that more than 200 such killings take place each year, accounting for around half of all murders in Turkey.

Female genital mutilation causes aggression

http://www.expatica.com/nl/news/dutch-rss-news/female-genital-mutilation-causes- .html

Female genital mutilation causes aggression
06/02/2010
Dutch News

Many women who have undergone female genital mutilation suffer psychiatric problems.

This is the finding of a study by Pharos, which gathers information on refugees and health. In the study 66 Dutch African women, who had been subjected to the practice, were questioned. They were found to be stressed, anxious and aggressive. The study also found that this group of women were more likely to have rows with their partners or in some cases would not dare enter a relationship.

On the positive side, women were more likely to say no to the practice if they knew it was banned in the country where they live.
An estimated 50 women or girls are believed to be circumcised every year in the Netherlands. This is the first time that a study has been carried out into the psychiatric and social complaints associated with female circumcision.

The report has been published to mark the international day against female genital mutilation today.

© Radio Netherlands Worldwide

Saving the lives of women and children

http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/saving_the_lives_of_women_and_children/

Brian Lilley | Monday, 1 February 2010
Saving the lives of women and children

The G8 appears set to take on the issues of child and maternal mortality. Can they do it while saving lives, not destroying them?

Upon hearing the statistics it is hard not to be moved, to feel that something must be done to change this. Each year, in the developing world, more than 500,000 women die in pregnancy and childbirth, some 9 million children die each year before their fifth birthday. It was these grim numbers that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper used in a keynote address at the Davos World Economic Forum to call for concerted action by G8 countries.

The problems of heightened infant and maternal mortality in the poorer countries of this planet are not news, they have been known for sometime. In 2000, leaders gathered at the United Nations headquarters to endorse the Millennium Development Goals, which included reducing child mortality by two-thirds and maternal mortality by three-quarters by 2015. In the years since, not much has happened.

So in an open letter published in the Toronto Star, Montreal’s La Presse and Le Figaro in Paris, Stephen Harper announced that as president of the G8 this year, Canada will host the G8 and G20 this June, he will push leaders to make a tangible difference for the women and children of the developed world, saying relatively simple health-care solutions could alter the outcomes.

"The solutions are not intrinsically expensive. The cost of clean water, inoculations and better nutrition, as well as the training of health workers to care for women and deliver babies, is within the reach of any country in the G8. Much the same could be said of child mortality. The solutions are similar in nature – better nutrition, immunization – and equally inexpensive in themselves."

The plan laid out by Prime Minister Harper is hard to criticize and it was good to hear, during his speech at Davos, that he has spoken with other G8 leaders and they appear willing to take on this neglected Millennium Development Goal. "It is therefore time," says Harper, "to mobilize our friends and partners to do something for those who can do little for themselves, to replace grand good intentions with substantive acts of human good will."

Yet, when Harper does try to reach out to other nations and get them on board he will face several challenges in bringing about the type of change most of us think of when a world leader says they want to improve the health outcomes of the world's poorest people. The first challenge surfaced in Ottawa at the same time that word of this plan was spreading through the frozen Canadian capital; some development agencies see abortion as the key to reducing infant and maternal mortality.

The change in policy towards family planning in Washington is well documented; abortion is back on the agenda as an acceptable public policy tool for the United States to export around the world. The case in other counties of the G8, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan plus Russia is less well known.

One of the key advisors to Britain's Labour government, or at least Prime Minister Gordon Brown, is Jonathon Porritt of the Optimum Population Trust. Porritt is the man who wants Britain's population cut in half to 30 million people. In conjunction with the United Nation's Population Fund, the OPT also wants to see Africa's population reduced for environmental reasons using family planning, which is often now a program well beyond contraception and includes abortion.

My reason for pointing this out is not to engage in an overall argument about abortion but to set the stage for the argument that what you and I hear when a politician promises something may not be what actually happens. When Prime Minister Harper, as president of the G8, speaks of infant and maternal mortality rates and says, "Far too many lives and futures have been lost." Most of us think his goal is to lower the mortality rates by saving the lives of pregnant women and children under five by improving access to clean water, primary health care, vaccines. That may be what Mr. Harper has in mind and those are in fact what he lists in his speech, but the policy people have other ideas in mind.

Shortly after Harper's push for the G8 to take on this issue became known, a media event was held with Canada's minister of International Cooperation Bev Oda. Ms. Oda gathered several non-governmental groups around the table for a chat on the issue, a brainstorming session of sorts and invited the media to attend. Several well known names were there, UNICEF, CARE, Plan International and World Vision, there was also a group I had not heard of until that day, Action Canada for Population and Development. One of the goals of Action Canada, as I discovered after chatting with their official afterwards, is to promote abortion around the world as a human right.

Now I don't really care which side of the abortion debate you are on, I think we can all agree that when a politician says we should reduce the number of children that die before their fifth birthday, one of the solutions you automatically think of is not abortion. Most reasonable people would think of improving health outcomes. After calls to the offices of Prime Minister Harper and Minister Oda, I've been assured that is what they mean when they speak of this problem, saving lives. Still, they will have a fight on their hands at the G8 from not only the worldwide coalition of NGOs who back Action Canada's viewpoint, but also from other G8 members, like Britain and the United States who may take a different view.

One of the other challenges Harper will face in getting his G8 partners to "replace grand good intentions with substantive acts of human good will," is that what has been tried over the past 15 years or so has not worked. Reducing the mortality rate among mothers and young children may have been a UN Millennium Development Goal but politicians have been speaking about it much longer than the last 10 years. Go back just a bit further and you find these same goals as central to the 1994 Cairo Conference.

Clearly what has been happening so far has not worked. Whether this lack of progress is due to a lack of funds or poorly designed programs is not clear but with billions having been poured into this field over the last decade and zero progress, I'd put my bet on the latter. That won't stop activists for the status quo from trying to ensure their current methods prevail. Stephen Lewis, the former U.N. Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS is chastising Harper for coming to this issue late, "It takes a lot of chutzpah to pretend that somehow you're championing something that others have championed so vigorously before you."

We can only hope, for the sake of the women and children whose lives are at risk, that Mr. Harper can convince his fellow G8 leaders not only to get on board with his initiative, but to look at it with fresh eyes, which will take chutzpah, and possibly also include ignoring Stephen Lewis.

The 6 Weirdest Things Women Do to Their Vaginas

This shows that patriarchy still controls the world! Er, is this writer a male? If so, what makes him qualified to write about vaginas?

By Andy Wright, AlterNet
January 30, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/145461/

What's wrong with your vagina? If you answered "nothing," you're probably wrong. According to the beauty-industrial complex, it's ugly, and it smells bad. But don't worry-- there's nothing that money can't fix.

1. Problem: Your Vagina Smells Bad
Solution: Vaginal Deodorant

In the seventies, Massengill tried to marry feminism and its vaginal deodorant spray ("With Hexachlorophene") in an ad that declared the product to be "The Freedom Spray." It was "...the better way to be free to enjoy being a woman. Free from worry about external vaginal odor." Because you're going to need that time you used to spend worrying about your vaginal odor to flirt your way through the glass ceiling. Oh, and Hexachlorophene? It's a disinfectant that can be lethal when absorbed through the skin. In 1972, it was added to baby powder in France due to a manufacturing error and killed thirty-six children.

In case you think vaginal deodorant is a relic of the past, just take a trip to the drug store. (I did, and I took notes. The staff of my local Walgreens is convinced that I'm both very thorough and that my vagina smells really bad.) There are several kinds of vaginal deodorants still for sale (Walgreens even manufactures a generic version). You can buy scented vaginal suppositories called Norforms in Island Escape and Summer's Eve Deodorant Spray in Island Splash. (Norforms contain something called Benzethonium chloride, which is also used as a hard surface disinfectant for fruit and classified as a poison in Switzerland. Exotic!) And you can buy FDS (Feminine, Discreet, Sensual) Spray ("For the woman who cares.") in a myriad of scents including Sheer Tropics and Fresh Island Breeze.

Because if you really cared, you'd make your vagina smell like a poisonous island.

2. Problem: Your Vagina is Dirty
Solution: Douching

Douching, the act of forcing a mixture of fluids up into the vagina with a tube and pump, was first promoted as a form of birth control (it doesn't work) and has continued to be used for vaguely medical reasons: to prevent STIs (sexually transmitted infections), to clean the vagina after menstruation and, of course, to rid it of that disgusting vagina smell. Douching has been repeatedly discouraged by the medical community, which not only doesn't attribute any health benefits to the act, but believes that it can actually harm women. A government Web site run by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services discourages douching by answering a series of hypothetical questions, one of which is: "My vagina has a terrible odor, can douching help?" The answer: No. Get thee to a doctor.

Despite health concerns, manufacturers still churn out vaginal douches. Pick up a box of Summer's Eve Douche, and you'll find warnings that douching has been associated with PID (Pelvic Inflamatory Disease), ectopic pregnancy and infertility. Right next to the suggestion that women douche after their menstrual period, after using contraceptive jellies and creams and to "clear out any vaginal secretions." So basically, any time your vagina isn't as dry as a British sitcom.

3. Problem: Your Vagina is Too Loose
Solution: Vaginal Rejuvenation
Let's face it. Nature really screwed up when it made the vagina. Never mind that that it accommodates the birth of a child or that it's fundamentally better designed than male genitalia. (Who wants to carry their most sensitive reproductive organs on the outside?) While nature was busy dishing out things like multiple orgasms, it forgot to make vaginas vice-tight. Luckily, plastic surgeons have stepped in to put an end to womankind's collective suffering.

Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation is a trademarked phrase that refers to a practice developed and popularized by Dr. David Matlock, who's made several appearances on the E! channel's plastic surgery reality show, Dr.90210. Matlock and other doctors who carry out LVR claim that the $4,000 to $20,000 procedure makes women's vaginas tighter, thus increasing sexual pleasure.

But many doctors disagree. The American Urogynocology Society won't endorse it. And the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists cautioned in a 2007 statement that women seeking "designer vaginas" should be "informed about the lack of data supporting the efficacy of these procedures and their potential complications, including infection, altered sensation, dyspareunia, adhesions, and scarring." Sexy!

4. Problem: Your Vagina is Ugly
Solution: Labiaplasty

If your vagina is tight enough (and let's face it, it's probably not) you've still got to deal with the labia. And by "deal with," I mean remove. Labiaplasty drastically reduces the labia, the protruding lips that surround the opening of the vagina. Why would you want to do this? Because your labia are "unequal," "elongated," "large," "irregular," "floppy," and "unfeminine." These are just some of the unflattering adjectives bandied about on the Web sites of surgeons who offer this procedure. Luckily, with the use of lasers and scalpels, your vagina can be made "prettier," "better proportioned," "youthful," and achieve "the true Playboy aesthetic look." How much will it cost you to make your labia proportional and feminine? About $5,000 or more.

5. Problem: Your Vagina Tastes Bad
Solution: Vagina Mints
If your partner is reluctant to give you oral sex, it's not because of pervasive cultural belief that cunnilingus is complicated to the point of being impossible and that vaginas are inherently icky (thus the need to uncomplicate them and un-ickify them with, oh, say, labiaplasty) it's because your vagina tastes bad. Enter the Linger Internal Vaginal Flavoring, or Altoids for your vagina. Linger assumes you already feel bad about your nether regions, stating on its Web site that the mint-flavored pill "decreases self-consciousness" and tosses out the unattributed statistic that 72 percent of women feel self conscious about their taste and odor. Dubious marketing practices aside, the Linger mint isn't just a harmless, if asinine, oddity. Mother Jones magazine did some digging into the origins of Linger and discovered that the vagina mint is no different from a regular mint. In other words, it's made out of sugar. And putting sugar-based mint directly into your vagina is a recipe for a mint-flavored yeast infection.

6. Problem: Your Vagina is the Wrong Color
Solution: Vaginal Bleaching and Dying

Many women are under the impression that it's OK to have a vagina colored vagina. They're wrong, of course. They should be pink, and exceptionally so. What's a woman with a vagina colored vagina to do? Bleach it. Accomoclitic Laser and Wax Studio in Lakewood, Colorado, purveyors of an anal bleaching product called "Pink Wink," also sell something called Bleach Babe, a cream that promises to do away with the "natural discoloration surrounding the exterior of the vagina." Bleach Babe contains Kojic acid, the same ingredient that keeps salmon meat pink. South Beach Solutions sells a similar lightening product with Sodium hydroxide, which can also be found in drain decloggers and septic tank cleansers.

If bleaching fails to render your vagina the color of a Barbie Dream House, you can try My New Pink Button, billed as a "Genital Cosmetic Colorant that restores the "Pink" back to woman's genitals." Because vaginas that aren't vibrantly pink are old and sad. My New Pink Button is meant to be painted onto the vagina (it comes in powder form and must be scooped up with a moist Q-tip like device) and lasts 48 to 72 hours. After which, one supposes, users must reapply in order to maintain the youthful status of their genitals.

Robin Givhan zeroes in on debate over plus-size women in fashion

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/21/AR2010012105260.html?hpid=topnews

By Robin Givhan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 24, 2010; E01

The conversation about plus-size women and their relationship to the fashion industry has taken on new contours recently thanks to the current issue of V magazine, the celebrated young actress Gabourey Sidibe and a first lady who has decided to make combating childhood obesity her signature issue. The rumblings about physiques -- rotund and petite -- should get even livelier beginning Feb. 11, when ready-to-wear designers in New York unveil their fall 2010 collections over the course of a week. (Their counterparts in Milan and Paris will follow soon after.) And that means attention will once again turn to the proportions of the models who walk their runways and who serve to define our culture's beauty aesthetic.

For several years, fashion observers have complained on blogs, in letters-to-the-editor and over cocktails with friends about the spindliness of models -- lollipops wrapped in silk or cashmere is how they have derisively been described. And industry insiders have debated the cause and effect of these profoundly skinny mannequins on our self-image. Do they push women to be more prone to eating disorders? Are they an insult to womanhood? Are they merely part of a designer's creative prerogative? Or are they the product of lemming-like style-makers who feel compelled to follow trends? It would be a welcome relief if the majority of those designers who put their wares on the runway in the coming months took a stand and refused to use models whose ribs are plainly visible and whose countenance cries "ill-health." What is the point of creeping out consumers, after all?

To be fair, a bit of headway was made in plumping up models when designers presented their spring collections a few months ago. The models were often still quite thin -- much slimmer than they were back in the 1980s heyday of women such as Cindy Crawford or Naomi Campbell -- but rarely did they look as though a strong wind would send them rolling down the catwalk like glittering bits of tumbleweed.

But after a volley of exhausting complaining, defending, finger-pointing and declaring one's right to creative license, a new conundrum has presented itself: It's hard to even know what an acceptable-size model is supposed to look like anymore. How big is big enough? And when does plus size, in a profoundly overweight population, become just as distressingly unhealthy an image as emaciation?

The niche fashion publication, V magazine, has received a significant amount of attention among style aficionados because of its "size issue," which features photos of women who measure in at size 12. The star of the issue is arguably the model Crystal Renn, who captures the same air of detached, unattainable glamour as any size 0, perhaps even more so because Renn is classically pretty rather than startlingly odd. But some of those readers who have seen the photographs of her have complained that she's only a size 12. She really isn't large enough to be considered a plus size, which despite the fashion industry's definition, most people consider to be a size 16 or larger, which is the threshold at which women typically find their fashion choices abruptly limited.

Just how big does a model have to be before folks are satisfied that she represents some ever-shifting vision of what a "real" woman looks like? Must she be precisely 5-feet-4 and a size 14, which is the fashion industry's accepted stats for the average woman? And if she is, will that transform the fantasy photographs in fashion magazines into the equivalent of catalogues? After all, a large part of our fascination with Hollywood is because it's populated with absurdly stunning men and women who are so far from average they ignite our wildest desires and persuade us to pay good money to go to bad movies.

The most compelling spread in V is the one in which the same ensemble is photographed on a skinny model and on a larger one. The lesson to a lot of women who have an insecure relationship with fashion is that they, too, can participate in the world of Dolce & Gabbana and Proenza Schouler. And the lesson to designers is that all sorts of women can make their clothes look good. Attitude often counts more than body size. Although, there are certainly times when no matter how good you think you look, reality tells another story. See: Mariah Carey at the Golden Globes.

The recent awards show also provided an opportunity to see the plus-size actress Sidibe, who stars in "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire," all glammed up. She has been dazzling interviewers with her charisma and Valley Girl patois. (She was also photographed for V.) And she has been a marvel of self-confidence in an industry that values thin. We have all seen the fan magazines with their sad tales of incredibly shrinking actresses. They shrink, in part, because they want to fit into the teeny-tiny clothing samples that they borrow from designers. They shrink for fashion.

The L.A.-based designer Kevan Hall created the gown that Sidibe wore to the Globes, a deep green, flowing floor-length dress with soft, short sleeves and beaded embellishment at the waist. He has worked with a lot of actresses who are what he describes as "special sizes" and the reality is that "it's all about picking the right silhouette for her shape."

And it doesn't matter if a woman is a size 2 or a size 16, "you're always treading lightly. I've had actresses who are a size 2 stand in front of me and weep. I've had young girls who want to cover their arms and older women who want to cover their arms," he says. The most significant difference in creating a dress for a larger size is that often a designer has to tamp down his ego. He can't as easily force his vision onto the woman since she doesn't have the physique of a hanger. "But at the end of the day, it's always really about the client," Hall says. "Let's be realistic, after all. What is the end-use of these clothes?"

One might also ask, what is the ultimate goal -- on the part of the fashion industry -- in celebrating the confident Sidibe? Is it about her work? Is it a fascination -- a marveling -- over this big girl who doesn't seem to have any existential angst about being big? Is it about a broader definition of beauty?

"I'm hoping that things are changing," says an optimistic Hall.

We all hope that we are getting closer to a less judgmental, more accepting society. But we also are faced with an uncomfortable question: How does a culture celebrate the beauty of all shapes and sizes even when statistics are telling us that certain sizes are unhealthy?

In V magazine's celebration of size, there's a group of photographs taken by Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld of a voluptuous burlesque performer. The way she is depicted is unsettling because it reads as a kind of fat porn -- that tendency to show heavyset women as overly sexed, ribald or just plain sideshow. Fashion fetishizes women all the time and in a host of different ways. But the one thing that fashion loathes is a cliche. And the worst cliche about large women is that they are creatures of insatiable appetites -- both real and metaphorical. And, of course, the stereotype about the ultra-thin is that they are brittle and cold.

Somewhere between emaciation and obesity lies good health. And somewhere between those extremes there is also a definition of beauty that is inclusive, sound and honest.

The Forgotten Persecution of Women in World War II

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,672803,00.html

01/21/2010 04:53 PM
The 'Dishonorable' German Girls
By Jan Friedmann

Hitler's Gestapo arrested thousands of women for admitting they had affairs with foreign forced laborers in Germany, despite many confessions being false and made under duress. Men were often executed and women sent to concentration camps for the crime of "racial defilement." Some continued to suffer the consequences long after the end of the war.

On Sept. 19, 1941, Maria K. signed the record of her interrogation. In her written statement to the police detective, the 14-year-old girl confessed that she had "shared the bed of Polish national Florian Sp. and also had sexual relations with him."

The incident allegedly took place on a Saturday evening in July. She had tended the cows during the day, and that evening she and her 18-year-old friend Hedwig invited the two Polish men to join them.

According to her signed statement, they kissed, and then the four of them went to the bedroom, Hedwig with Josef G. and she with Florian. Once in the bedroom, the Polish man removed her panties. They had slex three times that evening and twice in the next few days, once after lunch, behind a bush in a nearby field. This is the account given in her signed confession.

Maria K., who is 82 today, covers her face with her hands when she talks about the "confession" that changed her life forever and led to the death of the two young men. She is ashamed, even though the Gestapo detective concocted the statement and beat her into signing it. This is her story today, and other documents support its veracity.

Gisela Schwarze, a historian from the western German city of Münster, has spent years investigating cases like hers, digging through the files of special courts in cities like Dortmund, Bielefeld and Kiel. She uncovered Maria K.'s story in a local archive. It unfolded in Asbeck, a village with a wartime population of 850 in the western Münsterland region.

'Racial Defilement'

As a result of her research, Schwarze discovered a group of victims of the Nazi regime that has been neglected to this day. It consists of the women and girls who government officials accused of having sexual relations with foreign forced laborers. Some of the romantic relationships did exist, while others were made up, but the punishment was almost always extreme. The women were sent to concentration camps by the thousands, while the men were usually executed.

"Fellow Germans who engage in sexual relations with male or female civil workers of the Polish nationality, commit other immoral acts or engage in love affairs shall be arrested immediately," Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, ordered in 1940.

The crime the Nazi lawyers had constructed was called "racial defilement." At first, it only applied to relationships between Jews and non-Jews, but the racist construct was later expanded to include Slavs.

Prisoners of war and deported civilians were forced to work in factories and in fields, where they came into contact with local residents, many of them women. The men were fighting on the front. But informers prepared to denounce wrongdoers were everywhere -- neighbors, co-workers and teachers -- contributing to a hellish atmosphere of racial hatred and bigotry.

Maria K., the third youngest of 11 siblings, was orphaned as a child. An older brother took in the siblings, but he was eventually drafted into the German army, and his 27-year-old wife was left to care for the children on her own. To help her out, the landlord sent Florian Sp., a young Polish forced laborer, whom the children quickly came to trust.

'Necessary Welfare Measures'

The comfortable relationship between the Polish worker and the family was viewed with suspicion in the village. Maria was arrested, and during her interrogation the Gestapo officer hit her in the face and told her to admit that she had had sex with the Pole. The helpless and naïve girl signed the confession, which only marked the beginning of her worst ordeals. In October 1941, the Gestapo in Münster submitted a request to "initiate the necessary welfare measures" against Maria, who was now classified as a "dishonorable German girl."

She was placed in various reformatories and was eventually taken to a place that the SS had set up to house young female delinquents: the "Uckermark Youth Protection Camp," a subcamp of the Ravensbrück concentration camp.

She was given a prisoner number, 290, and from then on she no longer had a name. She suffered beatings, whippings, hunger and acts of humiliation. She was released in the fall of 1944 and taken to a preparatory school for children's nurses near Berlin. At the end of 1945, she managed to return to Asbeck by traveling through occupied Germany. The two Polish forced laborers had already been hung in Asbeck on August 28, 1942. The cause of death listed on their death certificates was "unknown."

The people who carried most of these executions remained unpunished after the war, and in 1963 the Münster public prosecutor's office closed its investigations into the cases. But the humiliations continued for Maria K. During church services, villagers berated her as a "Pole's whore" and "Pole lover." Many women who had survived the Nazi persecution were treated in much the same way.

A few weeks ago, Maria K. and historian Schwarze traveled to the Uckermark camp together, where a memorial, a stone wrapped in strips of iron, stands today. Maria K. scattered a handful of earth at the site, which she had collected in the forest where the two young Poles were killed.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

Increase prostitution age to 23: Amsterdam

Let's get something straight before I present the article below. I hate all types of prostitution and wish it didn't exist!!! To me, it is evil and all forms of prostitution is *POWER RAPE*!!!!

http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2010/01/increase_prostitution_age_to_2.php

Increase prostitution age to 23: Amsterdam

Tuesday 19 January 2010

The age at which young women should be allowed to become prostitutes should be raised from 18 to 23, according to Amsterdam city council executive Lodewijk Asscher.

And Asscher wants the city's famous red light district to be prostitution-free between 4am and 8am, so that efforts can be focused during the day on tracking down pimps and human traffickers.

'18-year-old girls from Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary are extremely vulnerable. They are brought here but they are unable to resist the pressure. Women of 23 are more adult, more resistant,' Asscher is quoted as saying in Tuesday's Telegraaf.

Asscher also says that prostitutes should have to register as freelancers with the local chamber of commerce and prove that they can speak Dutch, or at least English, Spanish or French.

'Amsterdam is an international city and prostitution is part of that,' he told the paper. 'And there is nothing against it, if it is done out of free will. But unfortunately we see many instances where this is not the case.'

The city council launched major clean up of the city centre red light district in 2008 with the aim of cutting back on crime and forced prostitution, and taking the area more upmarket.

© DutchNews.nl