Denmark’s Red Van
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 21 October 2021
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A unique project aimed at reducing harm to women selling sex in Copenhagen… Every weekend night in Copenhagen’s red light district of Vesterbro, a group of volunteers pull up and park a Red Van. This is no ordinary vehicle. The interior is lit with fairy lights. There is a bed – and a ready supply of condoms. The Red Van constitutes a harm reduction strategy like no other. It is designed for use by women selling sex on the streets – somewhere they can bring their clients. Just as health workers might argue addicts should have a safe place where they can take their drugs to prevent overdoses, the Red Van NGO’s volunteers believe they are creating a more secure environment for Copenhagen’s sex workers or prostitutes.
Producer / presenter: Linda Pressly
(Image: The Red Van with some of its volunteers – Pauline Hoffman Schroder, Sine Plambech and Aphinya Jatuparisakul. Credit: BBC/Linda Pressly)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Can you see okay in your mirrors? |
| 0:05.0 | Yeah I think so. |
| 0:06.0 | It's nearly midnight on a Friday night. |
| 0:09.0 | Pauline is maneuvering a large red van around Copenhagen's red light district, Vesterbro. |
| 0:17.0 | So quite often you park in this street then Pauline, right? |
| 0:20.0 | Yeah. |
| 0:22.0 | Okay. |
| 0:25.0 | Waiting for us on the pavement is a pinion, the chair of the Red Vans Volunteer Committee. |
| 0:30.0 | As soon as we're parked up she climbs into the back to get ready for the night ahead. |
| 0:37.0 | We got cute fig lights, little night lights. |
| 0:41.0 | And we have condoms and wipes and tissues. |
| 0:46.0 | And it all looks very nice, the lights very low and there's some nice plants here. |
| 0:52.0 | And Pauline you're putting up the curtains on the windows, sticking them up. |
| 0:57.0 | I'm sticking them up there. |
| 0:59.0 | And a bed. |
| 1:02.0 | The bed is the bed actually fixed to the floor opinion. |
| 1:06.0 | It is. |
| 1:07.0 | And what's underneath? What's that underneath? |
| 1:09.0 | More condoms I think, 2000 condoms. |
| 1:16.0 | Yes that's right, 2000 condoms. |
| 1:20.0 | You've probably got it by now, but this is no ordinary vehicle. |
| 1:24.0 | It isn't used for transporting goods or people. |
... |
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