“The reason why they come is rather simple. They come to Europe because in their own country there is no way to survive.� -Frank Cool. Director, De Ketelpatrouille
The building De Ketelpatrouille used as a temporary shelter was closed by the City of Antwerp in July of 2004. Details of the closing follow this piece.
The De Ketelpatrouille hospice sits on the second and third floors of a small building nestled amongst the brothels of Antwerp, Belgium. It is part of a network set up to aid Nigerian women working as prostitutes in Antwerp.
The network consists of the local bars where most of the women solicit clients, the University of Antwerp health clinic, the De Ketelpatrouille hospice, and De Ketelpatrouille’s social workers, who are all volunteers.
The building is used as a temporary shelter and cooking facility for the women De Ketelpatrouille assists.
Every night a warm meal is served to anyone in need, for 1 Euro (approximately $1.25 US dollars).
Local supermarkets or food banks donate the food in the house, and only cold water runs in the building as the boiler broke, and there has been no money for repairs.
Frank Cool is a cofounder and the director of De Ketelpatrouille. He speaks with a strong Flemish accent. It is clear from the outset that he believes deeply in the work he is doing.
“The meaning of all this, the reason why we do this, is to live together with these people, the circumstances they have to live in, to know their environment, how they live in our society, and especially understand their problems… and the reason why they come… “
“The reason why they come is rather simple. They come to Europe because in their own country there is no way to survive�.
Nigeria: Corruption, oil, and human trafficking
Depending upon the source, Nigeria is the 6th –13th largest oil exporter in the world and the largest oil producer in Africa. It is estimated that billions of barrels of untapped reserves remain under Nigerian soil.
Referred to by one European organized crime expert as “the DHL of dope�, Nigerian crime syndicates are estimated to be involved in the delivery of half the global traffic of amphetamines, heroine, marijuana, cocaine, and now ecstasy.
It is believed that the creators of the world’s most sophisticated delivery network of drugs are diversifying into international pimping from former British African colonies primarily into Europe.
In 2003, Transparency International, a Berlin-based group that tracks international corruption, listed Nigeria as the second most corrupt country in the world, after Bangladesh, on their Corruptions Perceptions Index.
In October 2003, US based Halliburton acknowledged that in the late 1990s, its subsidiary Kellog, Brown & Root had improperly paid a Nigerian government official $2.4 million dollars in order to evade paying an estimated $5 million in Nigerian taxes.
Nigeria is recognized as one of the friends in the US’ current “war against terrorism�.
According to the Federation of American Scientists, between 1999-2003 Nigeria received $22 million in grants for the purchase of American made weapons and $1.2 million in grants for military training from the United States government.
Nigeria is considered by many human trafficking experts to be one of the larger source countries of victims of human trafficking.
Nigeria received a rating of tier 2 in the US State Department’s 2003 Trafficking in Persons Report.
Countries with a Tier 1 rating are considered to be in full compliance with a set of minimum standards defined by the US State Department.
Countries that remained in a Tier 3 position at the end of 2003 became eligible for non-humanitarian economic sanctions in 2004.
The tier 2 rating, is neither the worst nor is it in full compliance.
No penalties come from being classified as a tier 2 country.
The Bar
11:30pm Frank and I enter the bar where most of the Nigerian women meet and solicit clients.
It is awash with music and the din of conversation in a variety of languages.
Each night Frank, or a volunteer from De Ketelpatrouille, visit the various bars, handing out condoms, talking with the women to see if there are any problems, and keeping an eye open for anyone who may be in need of assistance.
Almost all of the women greet Frank, asking him for gum or condoms; both of which he carries in large quantities.
The young women all speak English with an African lilt. The men make up a racial mix, though primarily white. The women are all black.
A large black man sits in the back selling bootlegged videotapes of Nigerian soap operas and preaches the New Testament.
Half way through the night a woman comes in. She walks to the back of the bar and drops a large bag of clothes on the floor. Many of the young women circle around it pulling things out, trying the clothes on, and then walking away with what they like. No money changes hands. The transactions are remembered and settled later I am told.
At one point a white man, who is obviously known, walks through the crowd, I am told he runs a pseudo taxi service where he charges the women only for the price of gasoline. The women are arranging rides for the upcoming weeks.
Frank quietly points to a girl at the bar. “She is new,� he says. “She’s young. Probably 16… She doesn’t look healthy�. He makes a mental note.
He will ask around at opportune moments to find out who is the new girl and if she in trouble.
A group of about 8 young white tourist, half men, half women, make their way to the back of the bar. Frank guesses that they are from the Netherlands. They stand huddled together, looking around, not really knowing what to do.
The Nigerian women that are working move to the front. There is no business in the group, and being a tourist attraction does not seem to be of interest to them.
The tourists eventually finish their beers and leave.
“These women are here to work�, Frank tells me. “Most of them are supporting large families back home; brothers, sisters, parents, children. For them to return home without helping their families is a matter of shame.�
“Fix the conditions in their countries that bring them here. Then come talk to me about the rights and wrongs of prostitution. For now we try and keep them safe.�
According to Belgian law almost all of the women in this bar have been “trafficked�.
Most have used a trafficking or smuggling network to get into Europe and thus have entered into a very large debt. This debt imposes a type of indentured servitude, which must be worked off.
After paying off their debt they have their “freedom� –though they are not legally residing in Belgium. It is believed that many of then become a madame themselves.
Frank continues, “Go up to any of these women and tell them you want to rescue them�.
“Tell them you want to help them get back home.�
“Tell them you have a ticket for them back to Nigeria..� His tone is biting. “Go on…� he says, challenging me “watch your head when you do it�.
I sit silent.
Frank continues “There is nothing for them back there but poverty.�
“In France they have a shortage of almost 100,000 nurses. These girls are capable enough to change bedpans and soiled laundry… Let the more skilled nurses take on the more challenging jobs and give these girls work doing the menial stuff.�
He shakes his head, pauses, then roles another cigarette.
The Next Day
The next day I sit in the eating area of the hospice with Frank and Jan, another leader of De Ketelpatrouille.
With us are a former director of one of Belgium’s three rescue facilities for victims of trafficking, and one of the small brothel owners in Antwerp.
A television plays what I assume to be Nigerian soap operas in another room.
We begin to discuss the politics of the counter-trafficking movement.
“Everything is not so black and white as the reports you read,� I am told. “There is a lot of gray here.�
“A lot of people are getting a lot of money for this… except the victims�.
I am given an International Labor Organization report on trafficking in Moldova, which claims that 80% of the budgets earmarked for US and European counter-trafficking efforts in Moldova went to Western consultants.
“Are the counter-trafficking efforts designed to aid victims or regulate migration? Particularly illegal immigration?�
References are made to England’s recently revealed proposal, modeled after the Australian system, to set up camps outside of Europe for asylum seekers.
Parallels are drawn to the movement against “white slavery�, which received much public attention in the US and Europe during the late 1800s.
Several young women come in to make their lunch while we are talking. The sounds and smells of their cooking start to circulate through our conversation.
I recognize some of their faces as those of some of the people I saw the night before.
Dressed in jeans and loose sweatshirts, they are no longer working.
The conversation moves into Flemish and becomes more intense as the group I am sitting with begins to discuss the recent consolidation and gentrification of the brothel district in Antwerp.
Across from me, tacked to the peeling yellowish wall, is a large poster that details sexual diseases and shows the proper use of condoms.
Taped onto the adjacent wall, behind the dinner table, is a small photo cut from a magazine of Agbani Darego wearing her Miss World 2001 crown.
Ms. Darego was the first Black African to win in the history of the Miss World pageants.
Ms. Darego is from Nigeria.
“ The police raided the house and closed it for "Hygienic reasons". So I'm busy to clear the house and find another solution for the five girls who are still living there without gas and electricity.
This does not mean the end of De Ketelpatrouille. We continue our work for the medical project and we hope to find another location by the end of this year.� -Frank
The Antwerp city government closed down the De Ketelpatrouille shelter in July 2004.
Some speculate that the closing was done because the home did not fit into the City’s plan of a revenue generating brothel district.
In the last two years, the brothel district of Antwerp has gone through significant gentrification.
The City has worked with developers to more than double the number of brothels within the newly consolidated three block brothel district, including the recent addition of a 50 room brothel.
Even though profiting off the prostitution of another person is against the law in Belgium, the city of Antwerp earns revenue from a tax on the brothels, as well as the property they use.
Some believe that the building the De Ketelpatrouille shelter occupied was of greater financial value to the city as a taxable brothel, than as a non-taxable organization assisting those working in prostitution.
In addition to this, De Ketelpatrouille works with people who reside in Belgium without the legal paperwork.
In the last year, Antwerp has seen a dramatic increase in a strong anti-immigration sentiment, led by the Belgian separatist political party Vlaams Belang.
Vlaams Belang is the name of the group formerly known as Vlaams Blok.
In November of 2004, the Belgian Supreme Court declared Vlaams Blok a racist organization. This ruling forced them to disband as a political party.
Vlaams Belang has been critical of the work of De Ketelpatrouille because of its work with people residing illegally in Belgium.
For more on De Ketelpatrouille, Vlaams Bloc, and the situation of the Nigerian women working as prostitutes in Antwerp see Caryl Phillips' "The silenced minority", in The UK Guardian.
