Poland is fortunate that it resisted the EU Migration Pact. Across Western Europe, gays are increasingly being told to ignore the reality that many newcomers come from cultures where homosexuality is not accepted, and in some cases is criminalised. A city can be “for everyone” right up until the people arriving don’t believe it’s for everyone.

A lot of people are fixated on the fact that I mentioned who the men were. But the same people aren’t asking the obvious question. Many of the women appeared to be Asian or Eastern European. Some may have fled war. Some may have fled poverty. Some may have been trafficked. Many looked Ukrainian. Yes, prostitution and exploitation have existed in Europe for centuries. Europeans have been exploiting vulnerable women for as long as prostitution has existed. That isn’t new. What struck me was the contradiction. The men crowding around them were, from what I could see, overwhelmingly migrants themselves. Men who had also supposedly come to Europe in search of safety, opportunity, or refuge. Think about how insane that is. People fleeing suffering on both sides of the glass. One group standing behind it. The other haggling through it. This is Brussels. The capital of the European Union. One of the wealthiest and most progressive cities in the world. A city that never stops lecturing the rest of the world about human rights, equality and dignity. Yet this is happening in plain sight beneath the diplomatic summits. That’s what disturbed me. The fact that nobody seems willing to acknowledge the grotesque reality of what they’re looking at.