Hanneke Klein-den Hertog, RD. Een pop-up peepshow in Amsterdam. The display is part of an action of the organisation Free a Girl which fights against child prostitution. As a baby, she was adopted but lacked love. As a child, she was abused and talked into prostitution. In her twenties, she requested euthanasia, but as a mother, she wants to live again. For her daughter. A cheerful melody sounds from the pink children's laptop placed on the table.
Mirjam thoughtfully answers the last question. Her little daughter, in a pink dress, sits on her lap, quietly nibbling a cookie. But I'm still here. I need to get out of survival mode. That's what I'm doing right now. She lists all the miseries that happened to her. Several times she repeats, "I was not an easy child either. Not all supervisors meant it wrong. My adoptive parents also only acted with the knowledge available at the time. Miriam was adopted as a baby from an African country.
The family already had two biological daughters, later followed by another. Things did not work out with her adoptive father in particular. During arguments, or if I did something wrong, he would sometimes say they should never have adopted me.
When she was 11, Miriam ended up in a youth care institution. Thirty-four more follow. She suffers severe trauma there. So someone came and sat with me during showers, pointing out where I needed to wash extra well. These were both men and women. Mirjam experiences many abuses. Then you have five who work purely for the money.
The other three are really in the wrong place and should not be working with young people. When she is told totally unexpectedly at age 12 that she will no longer be allowed to live at home until the age of 18, she starts running away from institutions whenever she can.
