Todays Interview with Hans-Martin Don

Interview with Hans-Martin- Don, Stadhuis 1, Thursday 9:30
He is a minister of the City Eindhoven. Before his current job he was a social worker and health scientist. He helped to implement and open the Tippelzone. He has been minister for two years and now he was responsible for the collaboration with KISD and our project to create innovative solutions and approaches from a different view angle.
Basically the tippelzone does not seem to offer improvements. The current situation is definitely better, safer, more controlled, more organized than in the past.  But because there are not any improvements made in the women’s lifes, there is need for change.
In his opinion the tippelzone has not achieved what is was set out for to be. The aim was to take a few women, even just two or three, out of their current situation and give them an alternative to prostitution. But in order to achieve such changes, something needs to happen. Inflexibility and lack of information about the women’s life’s haven’t caused any successful stories although the Tippelzone has been implemented for 5 years already.
And because of the lack of change, the city seems to finance a brothel.
He is disappointed about the lack of flexibility of the support system of these women. The women are more secured and stabilized, but without visible successes the financing of such projects seem against the common opinion. He does not want to call them a hopeless target group, as this would also be against a politicians view.
About the Salvation Armee’s Budget breakdown he could only mention the obvious (rent, water, electricity, staff and consumption goods (condoms, food, coffee etc) for the container and the  safety guard at the tippelzone. The city pays an overall budget to the Salvation armee. Annually they need to give a report about their expenditures.
There is a range of support institutions for the women: Salvation Armee, Novadic-Kentron (drug addiction help, detox, assisted living), psychiatric hospital, homeless association called ‘Neuws’, and free doctors provided by the Gemeinde Gesundheits Dienst HED.
The funding for these institutions are paid by the dutch government with the national-Insurance ABBZ ?? (really not sure how that works)
Unfortunately Mr Don needed to leave rather sudden, that’s why some details are a little confusing.
It would definitely be worth getting in touch with the different organizations and find out details. The names of the organizations may not be correct, but we can probably get name info by email.

Contrast of the Tippelzones

Yesterday we went to the tippelzone in Cologne. It was scary and we could´nt shot as much pictures than we want because it was´nt aloud. It´s just to know how it look like and we maybe can compare things later on.

Wednesday

Yesterday morning we stayed at the hotel to get some things done. Note that the internet access here is not constant and often shuts down in the evening. We developed a new way to present the association cards, did the poster for the container and tried to figure out in what way to evaluate the interviews with the citizens.

Some of us went to the T-Huis to get the poster text translated into Dutch by Sara and Dennis. We went to print everything in the city center (we will mark the copyshop in the googlemap).

It was raining all afternoon so we spent some time in the shopping center. In the evening Alex and Johanna were invited to the container in the tippelzone. They felt very welcome, had interesting talks with the caretakers and a little chat with one of the “girls”. The predominant impression was the these women are REALLY tough and that we shouldn’t at all treat them like little children showing them some association cards. Our tools should be direct and sensefull.

Some short information:

johanna and i went there to hang up the poster and to talk to the salvation armee, and here some short information for you:

- the ladies from the salvation armee were very friendly, and it was no problem to talk to them because they understand german a little bit and can talk english

- the ladies of the armee work there fulltime, so they have no other job beside their work there

They also told us some things about the women and gave us some generell information:

+ most of the prostitutes are addicted to cocain, and they have to buy it on the streets or somewhere else, but some of the women are addicted to heroin, and they have the opportunity to get metadon as a substitute for free but limited.

+ the women are not allowed  to take their drugs in the livingroom and its also forbidden to drink alkohol inside, otherwise they get a warning, or get prohibitted to work at the tippelzone for a while

+ there are always working two ladies of the s. armee, and one security man, and most of the time also the police

+ the security service is a private company, which is paid by the s. armee

+ its also prohibitted for men to enter the livingroom

+ the women get condoms and needles to take their drugs for free in the livingroom, also free coffee and tee, but they have to pay for soups

+ the ladies from the s. armee do not know very much about the prostitutes or about the background or past of the women, because they do not ask, they just know what the women tell them. Most of the times they just do smalltalk with the women about the weather or clothes.

+ some of the women have pimps, but they do not know how many of the women

+ the oldest women working in the tippelzone is 62 years old

+ they get 25 euros for a blowjob

+ the citizens of woensel west do not complain about the tippelzone, but the problem is that some of the women tippel also on the other side of the railroad during the day or outside the opening times of the tippelzone, and then the citizens feel disturbed. The prostitutes also get into problems when the police sees them working outside the tippelzone, then they have to pay a fine, but most of the times they can not pay it so they have to go to prison for about seven days

We also talked to one of the prostitutes, her name is michaela, she is german and lives in eindhoven for 16 years now. and she will be one of the women which will meet with group three .

…

Fee and Paul just came back from a very informative talk with one of the “Stadt Minister” and in the evening there will be another meeting with another politician. And that’s it for now!

group one.