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Amsterdam’s famous Red Light District does not just present pretty women dressed to their underwear and showing themselves in windows lit by a subdued attractive red light. For those who know that world inside out, there are signs of percentages of women kept there in enforced sex and slave trade. The latter has been a matter of growing concern in Amsterdam city politics.
During the last two years the Amsterdam city council has initiated sweeping reforms in order to resize and reshape the Red Light industry near the Oude Kerk (Old Church) in the mediaeval Wallen district, measuring an area of about 500 by 300 meters and now boasting some 329 active windows. The same sort of strictly enforced cleanup action has also been prepared for other minor local Red Light areas around the city.
The ideal of Amsterdam politics is to make the sex industry work in an acceptable and decent manner – ensuring that each woman who works there is doing so out of her own free will, so that the Red Light District becomes an acceptable part of local life and economy. In the end it should be safe both for locals and tourist to walk in that area without being concerned or upset, angry or ashamed about the plight of some of the women working there.
The women who stand and sit behind these windows and glass-covered doors immediately answer any question or inquiry a “John” may ask them. The main thrust of local government action is to make all of the women self-sufficient by removing all the pimps who use force and repressive methods. The desired outcome of the reform is that each and every woman in the Amsterdam sex industry will be working their day or night shift of their own volition so that men can be welcomed or denied as the prostitutes see fit.
Police have been instructed to be highly aware for signs of repression and to immediately choose the side of the woman involved, provide support, even if the pimp had seized her passport. It is known that many women have been trucked around cities in Holland under duress and have been working long shifts under close scrutiny from aggressive pimps.
Amsterdam City councilwoman Marijke Vos has presented a new set of rules strengthening the legal position of these workingwomen. They will receive the legal chance to become a self-employed businesswoman, and across the board there will be stricter license rules, enforcement of keeping more paper documents for brothels and other houses of pleasure. The city is also providing a new home for practical care for those women who need medical or spiritual help or want to leave the sex industry altogether. In the end all women working in the sex industry should develop a conscious fighting spirit, so that they can make their own choices about which clients to accept or not to accept, and which sexual acts to say yes or no to – all within the privacy of their workrooms. The city will assist them by setting up a Prostitution and Health Centre.
All this is beautiful and uplifting – but do prostitutes really want to be on the books as such? I think that being discreet is a vital part of the game both in the role of the women who may not want to be dong that job forever and for their clients, the men.
The cleanup action began in 2006 with the withdrawal of licenses and permits from 37 businessmen in the sex industry. Next in 2007 and 2008 was a harsh action to sort out the multitude of landlords who rent out prostitution windows and doors on the Wallen for the 12:00 noon shift and the 8 PM night shift. Many landlords are above-board businessmen who simply rent out real estate to women and these landlords pay their taxes. Some however, have been found to be shady figures with known ties to the criminal underworld and the whitewashing of money. The city acted aggressively in the summer of 2008 by withdrawing licenses from the largest investor, Charles Geerts. This forced him in turn to sell buildings with 51 Wallen windows, for the total sum of 4.5 million euros (some 6 million US $), thus downsizing the number in the Wallen windows from 380 to 329 in one sweeping action (numbers are debatable as statistical sources vary). These buildings and windows are now in other hands and are being filled with innocuous fashion and other non-erotic businesses enterprises. The integrity of all players and of all escort services is the key word, and a special integrity law has been passed, called BIBOB, which gives far-reaching powers to the local authorities to close down businesses that operate with underworld contacts.
One of the main players in the field is the hard-line councilman Lodewijk Asscher, who finds it heartless to look the other way while women are being oppressed. He would like to get rid of all illegal “white” slavery shipments of women. He is also worried about the activities of “lover boys” who initially shower innocent girls with presents and then slowly force them into prostitution. Asscher’s aim is to clean up the worst mess in the sex industry. He has set his first aim at downsizing the size of the red light district to the with of only one canal instead of three, leaving the Red Light concentration on the Oudezijds Voorburgwal next to the Oude Kerk.
Dissenting voices are now heard as well. Posters have appeared all over the Wallen Red Light district stating that the area is unique and has a right to exist – enough is enough. Spokeswoman Mariska Majoor of the Prostitutie Informatie Centrum (Prostitution Information Centre) is quite vocal in defending the right of this particular sex area to exist. Prostitutes have been working there for several centuries.
Drs Kees Kaldenbach is an art historian providing made-to-measure tours of art museums in Amsterdam and other parts of Holland. In Amsterdam he gives inner city architectural walks and a Rembrandt Walk. The Red Light District walk can also be selected. His Company is called Private Art Tours.
Copyright © 2009 Kees Kaldenbach
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