February 28, 2013

Chinese chef caged, beaten and exploited as a slave

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 4:35 pm

A 52-year-old female Chinese restaurant owner and four other suspects are being prosecuted on human trafficking charges for having exploited a Chinese chef forced to work in restaurants in Amsterdam and Arnhem.

“The victim was intimidated and had to work under miserable conditions. He was not allowed to visit a doctor and had to sleep in a cage in an Amsterdam restaurant under video surveillance.” He also worked for long hours for almost no pay, and his bank account was plundered.

Many human trafficking victims in the Netherlands are women brought to work in the sex industry, but a broader type of exploitation is apparently on the rise.

(Link: www.expatica.com, Photo of dumplings by filipe.garcia, some rights reserved)

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September 23, 2012

KAW Architects put women’s shelter out in the open

Filed under: Architecture,General by Branko Collin @ 12:22 pm

De Veilige Veste (‘the Safe Fortress’) in Leeuwarden is an old police station repurposed as a shelter for young women who have become the victims of ‘lover boys’ (young pimps), abuse, human trafficking and the likes.

KAW Architects write: “these girls used to be hidden from view, but modern media hound them. That is why shelter organisation Fier Fryslân came up with the idea of ‘visible but safe’.”

The building will house up to 48 women aged 15 to 23, and still have room for 1600 square metres of office space. Visitors will have to pass four security measures to get in. Fier Fryslân figures these measures will hardly be necessary, as the perpetrators typically don’t want to come out in the open anyway.

If you don’t understand what they say in this video by Omrop Fryslan, don’t worry, neither do we. It is presented in Frisian, although the interviews are in Dutch.

(Link: Inhabitat. Image: KAW Architects)

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