While Filipino cleaners were exploited terribly behind the scenes, Dutch celebrities like Marieke Elsinga paraded for free through the ‘Holy Hyrox’ rooms of Saints & Stars. “Pour blood money back!”
The contradictions are poignant. While Dutch celebrities in blue lit Hily Hyrox rooms with designer water bottles were strolling, Filipino and Indonesian cleaners had to work under terrible conditions. Without papers, without wages, without a passport. Those who mopped too slowly was threatened with salary.
Dutch celebrities?
Marieke Elsinga calls on the desk of RTL Boulevard that she finds it ‘disgusting’, and that it is ‘something that I naturally against aversion’, but the fact is that she did have a commercial deal with the wrong BN’er-luxegym Saints & Stars. Being shocked is fun for the stage, but that is not a deed yet. Does she have something to put right?
Some people have lost their right to residence for the entire European Union through this work, which is why a crowdfunding campaign has been set up to help them. Within a day there is Almost 19,000 euros arrived. Isn’t it time that the Dutch celebrities also take their wallets?
Relief
Cleaning lady Linae (not her real name), which comes to the fore in the research story of Het Parool, responds in the newspaper That she ‘did not expect’ that so much money would come in on the crowdfunding. “It is really a relief that so many people believe us and that so many Dutch people want to help us.”
The 30-year-old Rebecca Franco is one of the four initiators of the crowdfunding. “The money is a start to fulfill the urgent needs of the cleaners,” she says.
Blood money
Rebecca thinks that the crowdfunding is successful because the news feels close by for many Amsterdammers. “Everyone knows that the world is fucked up, but that often feels far from your bed. Moreover, I think there are many people in Amsterdam who have the heart in the right place.”
She does, however, call on Dutch celebrities such as Marieke Elsinga, Romee Vijf and Robbert Rodenburg to hand over some of the income they have earned from their collaboration with Saints & Stars. “It’s a little blood money.”