Victims of 'Loverboys' Ignored in Holland

The word 'Loverboy' sounds rather amusing to the English ear, but in the Netherlands it is used to describe a phenomenon which is far from amusing; in fact it is about as sinister as it gets.

'Loverboy' is the term appropriated by the Dutch language to refer to a pimp. Not just any old pimp; the Loverboy is a younger man, often Moroccan or Turkish, who locates a suitable younger female, often ethnic Dutch.

Preferably the girl will have low self esteem and come from a certain type of background; broken home, alcoholic parents, bullied at school, no friends. Sometimes she will be a middle class runaway or a girl 'bored' of her parents and her life.

The Loverboy befriends her with flattery and extravagant gifts. He tells her he is her boyfriend, he loves her and he is the only one that really does. Gradually, he takes over her whole life, isolating her from any friends or family she has remaining, persuading her that school is a pointless waste of time.

When she has no facets of her old life and personality left, when she is uniquely vulnerable and she is completely reliant on him, fully under his control, it will become apparent that he wants to be 'paid back' for all the things he has done for her.

She must pay him back by selling herself into prostitution and passing the profits on to him. He will use charm or blackmail to get his way at first, but later threats and violence. At this point, the relationship has changed - the Loverboy is no longer wearing his caring boyfriend mask. This girl is simply a piece of his property, and it is likely he owns many others.

She has nowhere else to turn - he may have gotten her addicted to drugs and convinced her that no one from her family or her old life would want to know her now even if she found her way back.

If she objects to this treatment, she will be met with extreme violence, which can include disfigurement and punishment gang-rapes.

Apparently, there are such girls working as prostitutes in all major Dutch and Belgian cities. Some have been found as far away as Paris.

One of the most disturbing aspects is that some of these girls are only 12 or 13.

The Dutch Socialist Party (ROOD) has called for these crimes to be taken far more seriously than they currently are. The party's youth wing conducted a series of interviews with twenty one girls who were between 12 and 24 when their 'boyfriends' forced them into prostitution.

It found that many had tried to seek help from the police but had been turned away:

ROOD mainly asked questions about victims’ experiences with reporting the crime and victims’ trust in the police. The stories are upsetting and the way the police deals with victims can also be horrible, says ROOD. Victims who have the courage to report the crime are often not taken seriously and are sent away. “I reported my case six times at different police stations. I was sent away every time,” says one of the girls who was interviewed.

The suggestions also include special training for police officers so they are more receptive to the girls' complaints.

Shockingly, one of the only mainstream interpretations of this terrible, seedy business is the Dutch TV film 'Loverboy', made in 2003.

From what I can gather, this film is a propaganda whitewash, in which the Moroccan pimp (Dragan Bakema) falls in love with the Dutch girl (Monique van der Werff) he is manipulating and selling, and tries to protect her from the worst aspects of the business. The extreme and often brutal violence these men use on the women they 'own' is totally ignored, as is the roots of this problem.

The comments on the IMDB entry suggest that this is a fairly common phenomenon in the Netherlands - but one woman, claiming to be a social worker, says she uses this fairytale nonsense to warn her younger charges about Loverboys.

Some take a more practical approach:

In May 2009, Dutch writer and victim of a loverboy Maria Mosterd claimed 74,000 euros in compensation from the Thorbecke school, her former high school in Zwolle, in the north west of the Netherlands. Ms Mosterd says that the school failed to provide a safe learning environment and ignored her frequent absences.

In 2008 Maria Mosterd, who detests the euphemistic word ‘loverboy’, wrote the book ‘Real men don’t eat cheese’ in which she describes how at the age of twelve she was captured by a loverboy and the subsequent struggle to cut herself loose from him. In April 2009 she wrote ‘Bindi’ a follow up to her debut which describes how she is coping after four years of being captive to a loverboy.

The fact of the matter is, this is largely a Muslim phenomenon. Not pimping in general - but the very specific kind where Muslim men prey almost exclusively on women who are not Muslim. A bit like the old harem system, but this time for the commoners. Wherever you find large concentrations of Muslim men and infidel women, cases like this begin to crop up with alarming frequency.

The guide to spotting a Loverboy strangely leaves that factor out:

The municipal health service in the Gooi and Vechtstreek specifies what could be signs that a girl is a victim. Among those listed are; frequently running away, low self esteem, behaving like an adult in a sexual manner, absence from school and getting expensive presents. The website also helps girls to recognise loverboys. It lists questions that ask whether he has expensive things, deals in drugs or weapons or talks negatively about the victims close friends.

We have our own version of this in Britain, which mainly occurs in the North of England. The pimps are largely Pakistani, and they prey mostly on white girls; there have been cases of Sikh and Hindu victims, however.

As in the Netherlands, our mainstream media wishes to largely ignore such things until such a point as they simply cannot be ignored any more. A Channel Four documentary on the subject was pulled on the premise that it might 'fuel racial tensions' - obviously selling our young women into sexual slavery does not, but pointing it out just might.

The mother of one such young victim said the following when talking of lack of police interest in the case:

“I was told by one police officer that he did not ‘want to start a race riot’ by arresting Pakistani men for sexual offences.”

The Times reports:

Blackburn, in common with many northern towns, is experiencing a huge upsurge in pimping, and it is an unpalatable truth for the authorities – and indeed the police – that many of the newest wave of pimps come from within the Asian community. Research, conducted in 2005 and involving 106 families seeking help from the Leeds-based campaigning organisation Coalition for the Removal of Pimping (Crop), found that in Yorkshire alone more than 30 girls were sexually exploited, with some being forced into prostitution, by what Crop says are predominantly Asian networks. As many as 200 families have gone to the organisation for advice.

As well as the manipulation and exploitation, there are other sinister aspects. Many of the pimps posing as boyfriends tried to erode the girls' English identities:

“All of a sudden Sally was only interested in hanging out with Pakistani boys,” says Jean. “She started saying I was racist, and that is why I objected to her hanging out with them.”

Jean was soon to find out just how indoctrinated her daughter had become when she discovered Sally’s photographs and profile were posted on a website. She was posing with the flag of Pakistan. There were 97 names of Asian men posted on it who had made contact with her. She was asking for Asian men to “date”. She said she hated white people. There were other girls’ photographs on the site, one of whom Sally had recruited, as were other girls who were being pimped. Jean’s boyfriend went online, pretending to be a girl. One of the men asked: “Are you better than Sally?”

Preying on her shyness and vulnerability, the pimps told Sally she was beautiful and would be treated like a princess if she showed them loyalty. They also convinced her that her family did not care about her, saying her parents would think she was a “slag” for having Pakistani boyfriends.

The pimps are adept at trading on teenage rebellion and use similar methods, according to Crop, of convincing the girls all white people are racist. This is part of the controlling process, to instil guilt in the girls. “Like most teenagers, I was going through a phase of arguing with my mum,” says Gemma. “Amir told me they didn’t understand me and were racist and ignorant. I believed him.”

Gemma was given an Asian name by Amir, and told she had to read the Koran, a story support workers tell me is not uncommon. “They erode the girls’ identities,” says Kosaraju, “to make them more compliant and needy.”

I don't know if that particular situation is the same in the Netherlands; but it seems a large part of this is due to white girls growing up listless, unaware of their own history, their own culture, the achievements of their own nation, desperate to fit in with what is seen as new and 'cool'.

The fact is it is not just poor girls or girls who don't fit in who are susceptible to these dangers; I think any honest education programme must make very clear that all non-Muslim women should watch out for all advances from Muslim men.

But perhaps that is good advice generally.