Saturday started by caching the train from Den Helder to Rotterdam. I was about to see once again the great harbor with beautiful bridges and architecture. We were supposed to stay in a place we found trough couch surfing network. Ted, our host was surprisingly a street youth worker with a lot of experience and insight into a youth work in Holland. Most interesting perspectives of his were about emigrants and working in a hospice. From his point of view there are a lot of emigrants in the Netherlands. “Some of the problems we have, start with them”, Ted said.”Young emigrants are in a special situation. On one side there is a free western world they are living in, and on the other side there is their own culture preserved in the family. Sometimes emigrants’ families preserve traditional culture that is in their country of origin already overrun by the modern world.” What we were about to hear in Rotterdam JIP will confirm his saying.

Our host in JIP was Alexandra. She has been working there for four months now and since had a lot of experience. “Most of young people that come here are the homeless or young pregnant woman. They are desperate and search for help.” She told us a story about a girl who was from an emigrant family. She was physically and mentally abused by here family members until she came to JIP to search for help. JIP staff called the shelters in order to provide for her at least a place to sleep for a start. But in Netherlands although there are a lot of shelters, there are just few of them for young people bellow 23. So for 3 month JIP specialists were searching for appropriate place for the girl. And just few days ago one shelter called them to say that they have the place for this girl where she could stay for one year.
Alexandra told us that 75 people are working within the organization “Stichting Jong”, which is for me a sound unbelievable. It seems to me that in whole Serbia there are not so many youth workers.

This organization is providing different kind of support programs and services for young people, and JIP is one of them. In order to be as accessible as possible JIP also has a so called “mobile team.” This team, during school time goes with a special bus to three different schools. This way young people can look for information on the spot, right besides their school. Furthermore JIP also provides free of charge tests for STIs/ HIV and pregnancy. Team of experts also gives workshops and trainings in schools about money management, sexuality and growing up, etc.
Alexandra also showed us the brochures they are making, but one caught our attention. “It is a brochure about lover boys,” Alexandra said. ”Lover boys,” I thought, “these people tell youngsters how to fall in love or what?”
Unfortunately this is not a story about love but about deceit and manipulation of young people. To be worse, done by other young people. The phenomenon of “Lover boys” is now a big issue in the Netherlands.

To make this story closer to you, I will write it as a confession.

”When I was 15, I met a gorgeous boy just few years older than me. He gave a lot of presents and made a lady out of me. Oh, I loved him so much. After a while he asked me to help him to get out from the debts he had fallen into. I was ready to do everything for him. So I opened my first credit account and surprised him with the money. After that it seemed that he needed more financial help. Unwillingly, but in order to make the love of my life happy, I opened two accounts during 4 month. Shortly all this help didn’t work out. He was in debt over his head. Until I found out that there is another solution. I slept with his creditor. He succeeded to convince me that this was the only time and only way out. Shortly after that he changed a lot. He started to hit me, force me to sleep with other guys, evidentially, his friends. Although I knew that I’m in a big mass, I didn’t want lo leave him, simply because I thought I love him so much. It took my mother two years to get me out of this situation.
Just before three years ago I thought I’m endlessly happily in love and in a blink of an eye I was on the street, earning money for “my Lover boy”…

Many web sites confirm that this is a youth problem number one in the Netherlands. It is really interesting how psychology is standing behind it. This game called falling in love happens only with young girls, usually from emigrants families. Perfect emotional and psychological background for deception. It sounds unbelievable to hear or read how perfidy games young men can play. According to Alexandra the youngest girl was 12, and the youngest boy involved in this phenomenon was just 14 years old. I’m wondering if this world is starting to be so dehumanized that the greatest feeling of falling in love can do so much harm.

“And what do you say to young people through this brochure? How do you advise them so that they can not fall into this trap?” I asked Alexandra.

“We can not forbid them to fall in love just to make them aware of it.”
The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand. Being aware, knowing is the path of prevention.