Discovering Holding Hands

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 Holding Hands is a project started by a group of dedicated volunteers, who are passionate about giving a platform to women who have been a victim of human trafficking and/or forced prostitution.  

Our goal is to raise awareness and financial support for women that left prostitution, or are stepping out of it while being supported by Cherut Belgium vzw (an organisation based in Antwerp that support women working in window prostitution), and to ask attention for the life stories of women working in prostitution. We don’t want to give our own perspective, but merely be the means by which these women can share their own stories. We want to make way and use the tools we have available to amplify their voices.  

 Many women and transgender people did not choose to work behind the windows or had very limited options. These are people you will not hear talking on the radio or in television programs about prostitution. They often don’t even speak the language of the country they are working in. Their vulnerability has been exploited and they lack or used to lack the freedom to make decisions about their own life. 

Even though there are plenty of windows in the red-light district to look at the women working there, we don’t see much of their lives when we walk past. With our exhibition, we want to make people stop and truly see them. We want to offer a platform for them to share their own stories, in their own words.  

Holding Hands is a one of a kind exposition and it´s an honour for us to share these stories with you. 

We have interviewed seven women, from Latin-America, Africa and Europa, who have in different ways been forced to work in prostitution. All of them told us haunting stories of survival and perseverance. Now that they live a free life again, they are ready to share what they have been through. 

We asked them questions about their youth, about the way they got forced into prostitution and about what happened next. The conversations were done in a private setting, heart-to-heart, with tears but also hugs and smiles. 

All seven women wish to remain anonymous, but allowed us to take pictures of their hands while they told us their story. 

We decided to name the exposition ¨Holding Hands¨ because of these intimate pictures of their hands, but also because  some stories are too big for words. Sometimes all we can do is just hold hands. 

 Marisca van Bellen, born in The Netherlands, lived in Barcelona for 5 years where she studied relationship and sex therapy and recently moved back to Belgium where she works as a therapist. During her bachelor studies in Belgium, she started to work as a volunteer with Cherut Belgium vzw. As a street worker, she got to know many incredible women in the red-light districts of Belgium. She visited the women working in the windows in Ghent every saturday evening and worked for one year full time in the safehouse in Antwerp as a caregiver. After moving to Barcelona the wish to share the stories that she kept in her heart became stronger and stronger. This exhibition is her dream come true.  

 Elisabeth (Liesje) Van Gulck, born in Belgium, works as prevention operator at Child Focus and is a life coach, project freelancer and singer-songwriter who has volunteered in Cherut’s outreach team in Antwerp for the past 10 years. She is passionate about people’s freedom from coercion and exploitation. That is why she joined the project Marisca had been dreaming of for a long time, to give the stage to the many women who have worked behind the windows and hear their stories. She also performs at the expositions with her own songs. 

Together they gathered a team of photographers, graphic and interior designers and a music composer to be able to give Holding Hands the professional platform it deserves. 

The project is 100% funded by donations. Thanks to the generous support of many interested people, the project has become a reality.  Please consider to send a donation our way, so we can continue organizing expositions and bring these stories all over the world.