The Netherlands talks big on how their laws "protect" women in prostitution but their laws have failed miserably.

http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs//2007/wom1601.doc.htm

They (The UN Committee on Elimination of Discrimination against Women) expressed concern that 80 per cent of sex workers were foreign women, while 20 per cent were of Dutch origin, noting that foreigners often lacked the language, education and technical skills to compete for jobs in the traditional labour market.

...

The delegation shed light on that matter, noting that, according to the biennial Emancipation Monitor and police reports, more than 40 per cent of the Dutch population -– mostly women -- had experienced some level of domestic violence in their lifetime.

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While women’s participation in the labour market had remained constant between 2002 and 2005, the participation of ethnic minority women had decreased over the same period, he said.

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 Ethnic minority women and girls were performing progressively better in education and training than their male counterparts.

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There were 20,000 vulnerable and isolated women in the Netherlands, he said.  Volunteer work could be a stepping stone for them to a paid job.  A project in six municipalities encouraged ethnic minority women to do volunteer work and become active in their communities.  The Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment financed projects aimed at 50,000 women over a three-year period.

 

 It's easy to state what laws are on the books, what regulations exist to protect women, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. They have offered no proof at all that their laws on health or anything else have been effective in improving the lives of women in general or of prostitutes.

http://www.iog.ca/publications/2009_trafficking_of_aboriginal_women.pdf

Sherene Razack notes that media reports as far back as the 19th century “indicate that there was a near universal conflation of Aboriginal woman and prostitute.”29 It thus becomes naturalized that Aboriginal women become prostitutes, and the violence and coercion they face in this occupation become regarded as a natural consequence of being a “squaw.” Such characterizations are rife with negative images about seduction and the tempting of “good” men into dark sexuality.

Lest we think this sort of attitude is no longer prevalent:

#72 (permalink) Noah_Scape wrote: Mostly, for the men I mean - it just seems like their natural instincts are being used to control them, and to take their money from them,..

It is no surprise to me that aboriginal women's groups and minority women's groups are not in favor of decriminalizing procurement and brothels.

This does not look like the face of empowerment to me.