Kuni Takahashi/Getty Images
Prostitutes wait for customers in a village red light district in Rajasthan.
Showing posts with label Red-light district. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Red-light district. Show all posts
Monday, September 23, 2013
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Born Into Brothels 1-6 - YouTube
Image by elycefeliz via FlickrUploaded by SuffragettesDigIt on Jan 25, 2011
A tribute to the resiliency of childhood and the restorative power of art, Born into Brothels is a portrait of several unforgettable children who live in the red light district of Calcutta, where their mothers work as prostitutes. Zana Briski, a New York-based photographer, gives each of the children a camera and teaches them to look at the world with new eyes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5dyXxUS7Nk
Sunday, October 2, 2011
born into brothels - YouTube
A tribute to the resiliency of childhood and the restorative power of art, Born into Brothels is a portrait of several unforgettable children who live in the red light district of Calcutta, where their mothers work as prostitutes. Zana Briski, a New York-based photographer, gives each of the children a camera and teaches them to look at the world with new eyes.
Uploaded by SuffragettesDigIt on Jan 25, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5dyXxUS7Nk
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Raiding a Brothel in India - NYTimes.com
Op-Ed Columnist
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: May 25, 2011
The pimps nicknamed her Chutki, or little girl. She had just been sold to the brothel-owner and seemed terrified.
Investigators with International Justice Mission, a Washington-based aid group that fights human trafficking, had spotted Chutki while prowling undercover looking for prostituted children. I.J.M. hoped to convince the Kolkata police to free the girl, but it would help to have more evidence that the girl was still imprisoned. So an I.J.M. official asked: Would I like to accompany him as he sneaked into the brothel to gather evidence?
India probably has more modern slaves than any country in the world. It has millions of women and girls in its brothels, often held captive for their first few years until they grow resigned to their fate. China surely has more prostitutes, but they are typically working voluntarily. India’s brothels are also unusually violent, with ferocious beatings common and pimps sometimes even killing girls who are uncooperative.
Unicef has estimated that worldwide 1.8 million children enter the sex trade each year. Too many are in the United States, which should prosecute pimps much more aggressively, but the worst abuses take place in countries like Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Cambodia.
So I set off with the I.J.M. investigator (who wants to remain anonymous for his own safety) into the alleys of the Sonagachi red-light district one evening, slipped into the brothel, and climbed to the third floor. And there were Chutki and three other girls in a room, a pimp hovering over them. Perceiving us as potential customers, he offered them to us.
We demurred but said we’d be back.
The Kolkata police agreed to raid the brothel to free the girl. I.J.M. told them the location of the brothel at the last minute to avoid a tip-off from police ranks. The police casually asked us to lead the way in the raid since we knew what Chutki looked like and where she was kept.
So along with a carload of police, we drove up to the brothel and rushed inside to avoid giving the pimps time to hide Chutki or to escape themselves. With the I.J.M. representative in the lead, we hurtled up the stairs, brushed past the pimp and found Chutki and the three other girls in the same room where we had seen them before.
Two female social workers from I.J.M. immediately began comforting Chutki, who police said was about 15 and looked terrified. They explained that this was a police operation to rescue her, and they helped her put on a robe for modesty’s sake.
Then another of the girls in the room asked if she could be rescued — but a few days later. She explained that if she left now, the brothel-owners would blame her for the raid and possibly harm her grandmother, whose address they knew.
We told the girl that this chance might not come again. She dissolved into tears, wavered and then decided to come out. Then a third said that she wanted to escape as well.
The girls tipped off the police that the brothel-owner was in another building, arranging to sell a new girl named Raya for the very first time, either that evening or the next night. The police hurried off and returned with Raya, a wide-eyed girl of about 10 years.
It seemed that the brothel had purchased Raya just a week earlier, after her own brother-in-law tricked her and trafficked her. If the raid had been delayed by a few hours, she might have faced the first of many rapes.
With Raya was a 5-year-old girl who seemed to have been abandoned. Perhaps the brothel-owners were grooming her for sale in a few more years. So we emerged from the brothel with five lives that had just been transformed.
Equally important, one pimp had been arrested and arrest warrants had been issued for two more. There are no quick fixes to human trafficking, but experience in several countries suggests that prosecuting pimps and brothel-owners makes a difference. A study in Cebu, Philippines, found that helping police and courts target child prostitution resulted in 87 arrests over four years — and a 79 percent reduction in the number of children in the sex trade.
We drove the five girls to a police station to fill out paperwork so that they could move into shelters and receive schooling or vocational training. Raya, the 10-year-old who otherwise at that moment might have been enduring her first rape, was giggly and carefree as she pretended to drive the car. She behaved like a silly little girl — which was thrilling.•
Raiding a Brothel in India - NYTimes.comSource: NYTimes.com
Friday, September 24, 2010
Clinton Global Citizen Award Winner Ruchira Gupta Leverages Global Attention to Take on... -- NEW YORK, Sept. 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --
SourceK PRNewsWire
Apne Aap's Expanded Global Advocacy to End Sex Trafficking Prioritizes Leadership of Survivors
NEW YORK, Sept. 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In the past year, Ruchira Gupta, President of Apne Aap Women Worldwide and recipient of the 2009 Clinton Global Citizen Award, has made significant strides in the battle to end sex trafficking in India and around the world. Apne Aap has used the increased visibility brought by the Clinton Global Initiative's honor to dramatically expand its programmatic reach on the ground, while spearheading cutting-edge, survivor-led strategies in the global movement to end sex trafficking.
Apne Aap's work is based around organizing the victims and survivors of sex trafficking into "self-help groups" and transforming those groups into small business collectives. In the last year alone, Apne Aap has more than doubled the number of registered self-help groups, growing the number of women and girls whose lives are directly affected from 1,005 one year ago to 2,185 today. Through community centers and publications, Apne Aap's impact now reaches over 10,000 women and girls in India's red light districts.
Perhaps the most significant achievement of Apne Aap over the past year is its profound influence on the perspective of global decision makers in their treatment of the survivors of sex trafficking. The organization has challenged the notion that survivors are passive recipients, convincing the highest level policy makers that survivors are active change agents remarkably capable of informing and shaping national laws and international agendas. In October 2009, Gupta took a panel of survivors to speak at the UN General Assembly in New York alongside Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillai, and in 2010, she led a group of survivors to speak before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Apne Aap has opened groundbreaking avenues within India for survivors to communicate their ideas to strengthen the anti-trafficking law, the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act, rallying the voices of 3,042 survivors of trafficking to demand the criminalization of the buyers and profiteers of commercial sex while decriminalizing the women in prostitution.
More recently, Apne Aap has embarked on an exciting South-South anti-trafficking partnership with NGOs in South Africa by exporting its model of community organizing and women's self-empowerment to this new arena. Speaking before the South African Parliament this summer, Gupta called on African politicians to put into place stricter mechanisms to prevent trafficking in women and girls.
"The Clinton Global Initiative award was significant for Apne Aap because it opened up new opportunities by amplifying the influence that an NGO from the Global South can have internationally. The increased visibility has helped raise funding, networking opportunities and the ability to engage with new audiences," said Ruchira Gupta. In 2010, Gupta was invited to join CGI Lead, a high-level group within the Clinton Global Initiative whose mission is to "bring together a select group of accomplished young leaders to develop innovative solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges." Said Gupta, "There is still much that needs to be done in addressing sex trafficking effectively. As India is gearing up to the Commonwealth Games in October, the government has not prioritized the safety of women and girls from commercial sexual exploitation. Thousands of women and girls' lives are in danger and we need to keep global pressure on the Indian government to put in place adequate measures that will protect girls and women."
On Tuesday, September 21st, Gupta moderated a session at the CGI Annual Meeting to explore initiatives that are applying different approaches to the problem of trafficking, including monitoring corporate supply chains, rehabilitating victims through training and income generation, and preventing trafficking through education and micro-land grants. Among the participants were actors Julia Ormond, Ashley Judd, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher.
About Apne Aap
Apne Aap fights human trafficking and empowers women to escape sexual slavery. We provide the women and children of India's Red Light Districts with education, health care, legal protection and job skills.
Field Update: 12-year Old Girl Escapes Sex Trafficking and Plays Major Role in Prosecuting Traffickers
This summer, 12-year old Nisha went missing. Nisha comes from a red-light area in a rural community in Bihar, India where caste discrimination pushes many families to accept forced prostitution as their expected means of income generation. The region is rampant with home-based brothels and parents trafficking their own children. On hearing of Nisha's disappearance, Apne Aap quickly stepped in, reporting the situation to the police and finding the traffickers who had taken Nisha with the intent of sexual exploitation. With Apne Aap's help, Nisha was rescued from an area brothel and brought to Apne Aap's Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya hostel and school. This marks the first ever occasion when a rescued girl has been brought to a rehabilitation program, rather than a jail or shelter. Nisha is recovering well from the trauma in the safe, stable environment of the school. She recently gathered the courage to testify against her own father for pulling her out of school and is assisting Apne Aap in the prosecution of child traffickers.
The right to education is at the center of Apne Aap's legal campaign to stop the forced prostitution of all girls. During Nisha's rescue, Apne Aap lobbied the Chief Minister of the state of Bihar to take action to prevent parent-traffickers from pulling their children out of schools and safe houses. As a result, the Chief Minister ordered a new School and Hostel facility built for Apne Aap and has committed to extend funding to allow what was previously a 9-month bridge program into a full middle and high school.
SOURCE Apne Aap Women Worldwide
Back to top RELATED LINKShttp://www.apneaap.org
Clinton Global Citizen Award Winner Ruchira Gupta Leverages Global Attention to Take on... -- NEW YORK, Sept. 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
International Crisis Aid -- Blog. - Crisis Aid - ICA going to see 10 year old victims of sex trafficking tonight, Money is the only obstacle from rescuing them
Tuesday, August 10, 2010 at 03:39PM
International Crisis Aid -- Blog. - Crisis Aid - ICA going to see 10 year old victims of sex trafficking tonight, Money is the only obstacle from rescuing them
ICA President Pat Bradley is in Haiti this week working on ICA's Orphanage and Safe Campaign.
On Monday, August 9th, Pat led 6 pimps/gang members and 4 girls from the red light district to the Lord. The 4 girls are now in ICA's Safe Program! Pat said, "God is good! Please pray for $$."
Today, ICA Staff just received the following message from Pat, in Haiti:
"I just spent the last hour with a detective who is very aware of sex trafficking of young girls, 10,11, 12 years old, there is NO help for them he told me. He is going to take me to see some tonight!
We really need a home here. The detective said he could fill it in one hour.
I will go and see and try and not rescue any because we have nowhere to go with them."
Money is the only obstacle keeping ICA from rescuing and rehabilitating these 10-12 year old girls. Please visit www.crisisaid.org to make a donation today.
Below is a picture of the first girl ICA rescued from the red light district in Haiti. She now runs a small business selling beauty products. This was her life dream and she is now doing it every day!
International Crisis Aid -- Blog. - Crisis Aid - ICA going to see 10 year old victims of sex trafficking tonight, Money is the only obstacle from rescuing them
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Deliberating de Wallen: notes from the red light district — THE NORTH STAR
By Andrea Austin
The red light district has become an iconic symbol of the commercialized sex industry. Pimps and human traffickers often use these districts to their advantage, looking to make a profit from the many johns/buyers who frequently visit in search of spending a few dollars on a child or woman. This happens everywhere. The United States. Thailand. India. The Netherlands.
Last week I had the opportunity to visit one of the largest and most infamous red light districts: de Wallen in Amsterdam.
I steeled myself against the images I would encounter – the scantily clad women posing in the windows or the black curtains drawn to shield onlookers from what was happening inside. To my surprise, what stood out to me was not what was happening behind the glass, but rather the scene in the street.
Firstly, it is a well-known fact that the red light district is a major tourist destination alongside other attractions such as the Van Gogh museum, Dam Square, and the Anne Frank House. It was surreal observing the hordes of tourists milling about touting cameras and pointing at maps, taking photos in front of ads for sex clubs or buying souvenirs from the sex shops. It was normalized, or worse encouraged, voyeurism at its best.
Secondly, there were large groups of men – clearly potential johns – crawling the streets and eyeing the women. The effect was something of a mall; the men were literally window shopping. It was a stunning manifestation of the commodification of sex, of women’s bodies as products. There were women of every age, shape, and ethnicity available for the choosing.
The impression that the commercial sex industry is legal and regulated in the Netherlands has created an expectation from tourists and buyers alike that visiting, and possibly participating, in the red light district is a necessary part of the experience. As a result, the secondary market of women and children who are trafficked exists, hidden by and integrated in the legalized system. In the past, Dutch politicians have even laid claim that more than 10,000 women are involved in the sex industry, but of these women only 2,000 or so are employed legally. The rest are caught up in the illegal market that is “rife with sex slavery.”
Lastly, and the most striking for me, were the people who were walking through the red light district without giving it a second thought. The red light district was a normal part of the scenery, to be accepted, ignored, or unnoticed. How have we (the global “we”) reached a point where the buying and selling of women’s bodies has become, to some, a normal part of everyday life?
It was a wonder to observe the wide-eyed tourists, potential johns, and complacent passersby – and, scattered among them for all to see, the women in windows. I felt a renewed commitment to fight human trafficking as I walked away from the scene, leaving the dull glow of the red lights behind me.
Deliberating de Wallen: notes from the red light district — THE NORTH STAR
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The red light district has become an iconic symbol of the commercialized sex industry. Pimps and human traffickers often use these districts to their advantage, looking to make a profit from the many johns/buyers who frequently visit in search of spending a few dollars on a child or woman. This happens everywhere. The United States. Thailand. India. The Netherlands.
Last week I had the opportunity to visit one of the largest and most infamous red light districts: de Wallen in Amsterdam.
I steeled myself against the images I would encounter – the scantily clad women posing in the windows or the black curtains drawn to shield onlookers from what was happening inside. To my surprise, what stood out to me was not what was happening behind the glass, but rather the scene in the street.
Firstly, it is a well-known fact that the red light district is a major tourist destination alongside other attractions such as the Van Gogh museum, Dam Square, and the Anne Frank House. It was surreal observing the hordes of tourists milling about touting cameras and pointing at maps, taking photos in front of ads for sex clubs or buying souvenirs from the sex shops. It was normalized, or worse encouraged, voyeurism at its best.
Secondly, there were large groups of men – clearly potential johns – crawling the streets and eyeing the women. The effect was something of a mall; the men were literally window shopping. It was a stunning manifestation of the commodification of sex, of women’s bodies as products. There were women of every age, shape, and ethnicity available for the choosing.
The impression that the commercial sex industry is legal and regulated in the Netherlands has created an expectation from tourists and buyers alike that visiting, and possibly participating, in the red light district is a necessary part of the experience. As a result, the secondary market of women and children who are trafficked exists, hidden by and integrated in the legalized system. In the past, Dutch politicians have even laid claim that more than 10,000 women are involved in the sex industry, but of these women only 2,000 or so are employed legally. The rest are caught up in the illegal market that is “rife with sex slavery.”
Lastly, and the most striking for me, were the people who were walking through the red light district without giving it a second thought. The red light district was a normal part of the scenery, to be accepted, ignored, or unnoticed. How have we (the global “we”) reached a point where the buying and selling of women’s bodies has become, to some, a normal part of everyday life?
It was a wonder to observe the wide-eyed tourists, potential johns, and complacent passersby – and, scattered among them for all to see, the women in windows. I felt a renewed commitment to fight human trafficking as I walked away from the scene, leaving the dull glow of the red lights behind me.
Deliberating de Wallen: notes from the red light district — THE NORTH STAR
Friday, February 5, 2010
BBC News - Stag parties 'fuel sex trafficking'
Thursday, 14 January 2010
Stag parties 'fuel sex trafficking'
BBC reporter poses as a brothel owner to meet sex trafficker
By Simon Boazman
BBC News
Prague, Amsterdam, Riga, Krakow, they have all become popular destinations for the British stag party industry. But some of the estimated £500m spent each year is also finding its way to criminal gangs trafficking women for the sex trade.
Strip club in Amsterdam
Visiting a prostitute has become part of many stag weekends
The British stag party has changed in the past 10 years. The drink down the pub with dad or your mates is gone. It has been replaced with three or four nights in a foreign city, far from prying eyes and geared to meet the stag party's every desire.
And that is often much more than a visit to a strip club. For a large number of stags, visiting a prostitute has also become part of the ultimate lads' weekend.
Prague has 70 brothels and numerous strip clubs. It is not hard to find some of the half a million stag visitors, many British, that the Prague tourist board say visit every year. I found them at every sex establishment I went to.
There was a strip party bus, lap-dancing, and even a brothel that offers free sex provided you agree to be filmed. And many of the British stag groups had at least some, if not all, members buying sexual services.
A local charity worker was in no doubt that British stag parties coming to Prague had increased local demand for sexual services.
"If a British stag sleeps with women in a brothel or sleeps with her on the streets it could be a women brought… because of the sex industry, to be trafficked there from any part of the world."
Criminal gangs
The Czech Republic has long been a transit point for the trafficking of women in and out, and I wanted to find out how easy it would be to buy trafficked women for the sex trade.
Through contacts in the criminal underworld, we managed to arrange an undercover meeting with a trafficker. Posing as a London brothel owner, I arranged to meet him at a motorway service station.
As I secretly filmed our meeting, it became clear how straightforward the deal would be.
"I have two girls here for you now. That I can give to you. They have papers, they can travel you know, no criminal record, anything," he told me.
In the world of international sex trafficking, the leasing of girls has become common and it is big business.
"One girl makes me 90,000 krona (3,500 euros, £3,119) a month - around 50,000 euros (£44,561) a year. You give me 3,500 euros per month and I will come and visit you every month in England and collect the money every month."
The meeting lasted 20 minutes, and I could have bought two women.
Back alley
In the Latvian capital Riga, brothels are illegal, so the sex industry is more discreet with back-street brothels and street workers.
One British man told me about a "back alley basement place" his group had visited.
Like almost all the Brits I met, he did not want to tell me his name or be identified, admitting they were doing things they would not dream of doing at home.
But he said they had been shown a group of girls and he thought they were probably trafficked.
Housing estate in Lunik 9
Sex traffickers look to areas stricken with poverty to exploit victims
"They stood against the wall with a lack of soul, a dead look on their faces, which suggested that they weren't necessarily there out of their own free will.
"My initial feeling was they had just been brought out of the cupboard and they've just been released from the shackles and marched out to then have an hour with someone."
He told me half the group had seen enough at that point and left. The other half stayed.
Poverty and desperation
Far from the bright lights of the stag cities is Lunik 9, a decrepit crumbling estate in the Slovakian city of Kosice.
The centre wells of the tower blocks are six metres (20ft) deep with rubbish, the windows of the apartments have long since vanished and sewage runs down the walls and through the streets.
It really has to be seen and smelt to be believed, and it is here, amid this poverty and desperation, that sex traffickers look for and then exploit their victims.
Yana was tricked into work as a prostitute
Yana was only 17 when she left Slovakia with a man she thought was her boyfriend, to start a new life in Amsterdam.
When she arrived, she found she would not be leading the life that she dreamed of.
Unknown to her, her boyfriend had sold her to brothel owners.
"He led me to a space where there were a couple of men who were saying that I was beautiful, that I was sexy and they were basically saying that she is here for us, this is what we want her to do… They tore apart my clothes and they raped me."
Yana provides a tragic and deeply emotional testimony of being raped daily and pushed to the brink of suicide.
It is a story that every stag should hear.
Yana finally escaped after a year trapped in Amsterdam.
Using prostitutes
Tibor, another sex trafficker from Slovakia but working in the Czech Republic, agreed to be interviewed about his operation.
Tibor
It is just a regular job where you go to work and you go home at the end of the day
Tibor, sex trafficker
It was not his openness that stunned me but his cold, detached attitude.
I asked if he viewed the trafficked girls as his employees.
"More like things that I own," he said.
He said he felt no guilt about making money from people who were trapped. "It's just a regular job where you go to work and you go home at the end of the day."
Amsterdam
It is estimated that more than 3 million British people go on stag and hen parties each year, with more than 70% of them going overseas.
Amsterdam is the most popular British stag party venue. The local sex industry largely depends on foreign women from poorer countries.
There were nearly 500 women rescued last year according to Dutch police.
"Each year we have more cases," I was told by a policeman who runs an undercover team that infiltrates trafficking gangs.
The industry is worth "millions of euros", he said. "The recruiters are getting money, the transporters are getting money, the exploiters are getting that money."
"Only the girls will get nothing," he adds.
I disagree with it, but... you can't do anything about it. You're just here to have fun, and do things you won't get away with back home."
British stag weekender
In an attempt to make the area easier to police, the local authorities are forcibly buying up nearly half of the 482 brothels in the red light district and closing them down.
But it is not difficult to find a British stag weekender, a bright young man who had admitted to using a prostitute.
I told him that many prostitutes in Amsterdam had been trafficked.
"I don't agree with that, I think it's awful," he said, but admitted it probably would not stop him using a prostitute again that night.
"I disagree with it, but at the end of the day it's just what happens, like. You can't do anything about it. You're just here to have fun, and do things you won't get away with back home."
Simon Boazman reports in Stag Weekends: The Dirty Secrets on BBC Three on Thursday 14 January at 2100GMT or afterwards via the BBC iPlayer .
BBC News - Stag parties 'fuel sex trafficking'
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=f1dcbf9a-e7df-49e9-841c-0c91df11f52d)
Stag parties 'fuel sex trafficking'
BBC reporter poses as a brothel owner to meet sex trafficker
By Simon Boazman
BBC News
Prague, Amsterdam, Riga, Krakow, they have all become popular destinations for the British stag party industry. But some of the estimated £500m spent each year is also finding its way to criminal gangs trafficking women for the sex trade.
Strip club in Amsterdam
Visiting a prostitute has become part of many stag weekends
The British stag party has changed in the past 10 years. The drink down the pub with dad or your mates is gone. It has been replaced with three or four nights in a foreign city, far from prying eyes and geared to meet the stag party's every desire.
And that is often much more than a visit to a strip club. For a large number of stags, visiting a prostitute has also become part of the ultimate lads' weekend.
Prague has 70 brothels and numerous strip clubs. It is not hard to find some of the half a million stag visitors, many British, that the Prague tourist board say visit every year. I found them at every sex establishment I went to.
There was a strip party bus, lap-dancing, and even a brothel that offers free sex provided you agree to be filmed. And many of the British stag groups had at least some, if not all, members buying sexual services.
A local charity worker was in no doubt that British stag parties coming to Prague had increased local demand for sexual services.
"If a British stag sleeps with women in a brothel or sleeps with her on the streets it could be a women brought… because of the sex industry, to be trafficked there from any part of the world."
Criminal gangs
The Czech Republic has long been a transit point for the trafficking of women in and out, and I wanted to find out how easy it would be to buy trafficked women for the sex trade.
Through contacts in the criminal underworld, we managed to arrange an undercover meeting with a trafficker. Posing as a London brothel owner, I arranged to meet him at a motorway service station.
As I secretly filmed our meeting, it became clear how straightforward the deal would be.
"I have two girls here for you now. That I can give to you. They have papers, they can travel you know, no criminal record, anything," he told me.
In the world of international sex trafficking, the leasing of girls has become common and it is big business.
"One girl makes me 90,000 krona (3,500 euros, £3,119) a month - around 50,000 euros (£44,561) a year. You give me 3,500 euros per month and I will come and visit you every month in England and collect the money every month."
The meeting lasted 20 minutes, and I could have bought two women.
Back alley
In the Latvian capital Riga, brothels are illegal, so the sex industry is more discreet with back-street brothels and street workers.
One British man told me about a "back alley basement place" his group had visited.
Like almost all the Brits I met, he did not want to tell me his name or be identified, admitting they were doing things they would not dream of doing at home.
But he said they had been shown a group of girls and he thought they were probably trafficked.
Housing estate in Lunik 9
Sex traffickers look to areas stricken with poverty to exploit victims
"They stood against the wall with a lack of soul, a dead look on their faces, which suggested that they weren't necessarily there out of their own free will.
"My initial feeling was they had just been brought out of the cupboard and they've just been released from the shackles and marched out to then have an hour with someone."
He told me half the group had seen enough at that point and left. The other half stayed.
Poverty and desperation
Far from the bright lights of the stag cities is Lunik 9, a decrepit crumbling estate in the Slovakian city of Kosice.
The centre wells of the tower blocks are six metres (20ft) deep with rubbish, the windows of the apartments have long since vanished and sewage runs down the walls and through the streets.
It really has to be seen and smelt to be believed, and it is here, amid this poverty and desperation, that sex traffickers look for and then exploit their victims.
Yana was tricked into work as a prostitute
Yana was only 17 when she left Slovakia with a man she thought was her boyfriend, to start a new life in Amsterdam.
When she arrived, she found she would not be leading the life that she dreamed of.
Unknown to her, her boyfriend had sold her to brothel owners.
"He led me to a space where there were a couple of men who were saying that I was beautiful, that I was sexy and they were basically saying that she is here for us, this is what we want her to do… They tore apart my clothes and they raped me."
Yana provides a tragic and deeply emotional testimony of being raped daily and pushed to the brink of suicide.
It is a story that every stag should hear.
Yana finally escaped after a year trapped in Amsterdam.
Using prostitutes
Tibor, another sex trafficker from Slovakia but working in the Czech Republic, agreed to be interviewed about his operation.
Tibor
It is just a regular job where you go to work and you go home at the end of the day
Tibor, sex trafficker
It was not his openness that stunned me but his cold, detached attitude.
I asked if he viewed the trafficked girls as his employees.
"More like things that I own," he said.
He said he felt no guilt about making money from people who were trapped. "It's just a regular job where you go to work and you go home at the end of the day."
Amsterdam
It is estimated that more than 3 million British people go on stag and hen parties each year, with more than 70% of them going overseas.
Amsterdam is the most popular British stag party venue. The local sex industry largely depends on foreign women from poorer countries.
There were nearly 500 women rescued last year according to Dutch police.
"Each year we have more cases," I was told by a policeman who runs an undercover team that infiltrates trafficking gangs.
The industry is worth "millions of euros", he said. "The recruiters are getting money, the transporters are getting money, the exploiters are getting that money."
"Only the girls will get nothing," he adds.
I disagree with it, but... you can't do anything about it. You're just here to have fun, and do things you won't get away with back home."
British stag weekender
In an attempt to make the area easier to police, the local authorities are forcibly buying up nearly half of the 482 brothels in the red light district and closing them down.
But it is not difficult to find a British stag weekender, a bright young man who had admitted to using a prostitute.
I told him that many prostitutes in Amsterdam had been trafficked.
"I don't agree with that, I think it's awful," he said, but admitted it probably would not stop him using a prostitute again that night.
"I disagree with it, but at the end of the day it's just what happens, like. You can't do anything about it. You're just here to have fun, and do things you won't get away with back home."
Simon Boazman reports in Stag Weekends: The Dirty Secrets on BBC Three on Thursday 14 January at 2100GMT or afterwards via the BBC iPlayer .
BBC News - Stag parties 'fuel sex trafficking'
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