Anna Hendriks Biography

Anna Hendriks and Olivia Smit are the pseudonyms of two middle-class Dutch women who worked for seven and five years respectively as prostitutes the windows of Amsterdam’s Red Light District.  Their story is a shocking account of the legal trade in women’s bodies, a warning of how easy it is for young girls to be groomed and trafficked into the commercial sex industry – and a cautionary tale of how difficult it is to escape.

 Anna and Olivia have chosen to use pseudonyms because prostitution – whether voluntary or enforced – carries an enduring stigma, and because society still blames the victims of the sex trade rather than those who exploit them.  For Anna and Olivia to use their real names would put them at risk, and would never allow them to be truly free of the Red Light District.