Red Light District or residential neighbourhood?

For over a year the tone of the public discussion on prostitution in The Netherlands has been changing. There are a number of high profile cases of trafficking and forced prostitution that were covered extensively in the press. The result is that the political debate is nearly completely focussed on the accompanying negative aspects of prostitution. One would get the impression that prostitution is all about force and violence. At the same time there is little support for sex workers that seek possibilities to work professional and independently-they get no public or political backing.

This shift in the debate can be noticed especially in Amsterdam. Religious social work projects are very active and they actually lobby for the same measures as the local Labour party: to crack down on the owners of the shop window brothels and to close a considerable number of shop windows. Some socialists even openly play with the idea to get rid of this kind of prostitution altogether. One motive is to fight trafficking and forced (juvenile) prostitution, another is to “give the Wallen back to the residents”. Criminalisation of clients of sex workers forced by pimps is openly discussed as a possibility.

Underworld or overworld?

In 2001 prostitution businesses was legalised and brothels are now issued work licences by the municipality. The license can be declined or withdrawn when the owner has criminal contacts or when he cannot explain where his capital comes from. There is a relatively new law (BIBOB) that gives the mayors power to take away a license under certain circumstances. It is not necessary for a brothel owner to be convicted in a criminal procedure; a mere suspicion is enough to revoke his licence. The intention behind the law is to prevent the underworld to rise into the ‘overworld’, for instance by buying real estate with black money, by laundering their (drug-related) money and this way get control over certain parts of the city. In accordance to the law, the City of Amsterdam has withdrawn licenses of a number of brothel owners. Cases are sent to the court but until the judge issues a verdict the brothels are allowed to remain open. It is still unclear what the end result will be.

Brothel or apartment?

But there is already one major shift taking place. One of the bigger brothel owners, whom the mayor threatened to revoke license from, sold some of his houses. Majority of his real estate were sold to a “social housing agency” (an association that build affordable houses for people with lower income). This was done with political and financial support from the municipality. This way 60 out of 450 shop windows will be converted into apartments.

This way, the municipality believes it has achieved three main goals:
- The prominence and the extent of prostitution in the Red Light District will be smaller (for the reason of “public and moral order”);
- The municipality gets rid of brothel owners that are seen as being too close to the criminal money;
- It is seen as a good instrument to combat trafficking and forced prostitution;
It remains to be seen what the effects will be and how far the municipality will go. The mayor has declared tat it is not his intention to make the centre of Amsterdam prostitution-free.

Pimping is forbidden in the Netherlands

In the meantime, health and social projects representatives have noticed a recent growing number of young pimps. They bring young girls to the windows and in the same time try to force “protection” on independent working women. A complicating factor is that many women are not familiar with the legal system in Holland and Amsterdam and thus have little means to protecting themselves. The majority of sex workers in the Red Light District come from other countries and continents. For that reason the Rode Draad (Red Thread), the prostitutes’ rights organisation, has initiated a poster and sticker campaign to support women to withstand pimps: “Pimping is forbidden in The Netherlands”. The campaign is targeting sex workers coming from abroad.

Contact: Jan Visser, info@rodedraad.nl
More information on www.rodedraad.nl