Hélène Hendriks stuns Pieter Omtzigt with her proposal to accommodate asylum seekers in brothels. “You think I’m joking, but I’m not,” she tells the politician.
Pieter Omtzigt complained at the HLF8 talk show table last night about the ad hoc policy when it comes to housing asylum seekers. He believes that we should solve the asylum crisis with structural solutions. “We are now going to rent a number of cruise ships again for six months and then they will go back.”
Brothels to be released
Hostess Hélène Hendriks then comes up with a rather curious proposal: “The brothels will be released.”
This leads to amazement with Pieter. “The?” he asks.
Hélène: “Bordels will be released.”
It leads to laughter from the audience. Hélène: “I read in the newspaper today. Prostitutes go out, the brothels are released. That could be a solution. A solution.”
Prostitutes work at home
Hélène refers to the article from De Telegraaf that prostitutes increasingly prefer not to come to the office. “Working from home is becoming fashionable,” it sounds. And as a result, more and more brothels have to close their doors.
Pieter thinks for a moment that Hélène is making a misplaced joke: “No, I don’t go into that sort of thing… This is a very serious comment.”
Hélène: “Yes, this too.”
‘No joke’
Then Pieter resumes the point he wants to make: “If you say: ‘A boat comes here for half a year and it goes away and there are a thousand people in it’, then I know that we will have another crisis in March, for where are those going to house those thousand people?”
Hélène then emphasizes that she was not trying to make a misplaced joke, but that it is a serious proposal. “By the way, you think I’m joking, but I’m not.”
Pieter: “Well, I thought so, yes.”
Hélène: “Yes, I often joke, but not this one.”
