Amsterdam sex work advocates are condemning a plan to move the city’s famed red-light district from the historic neighborhood of De Wallen to an erotic center on the outskirts of the city. Photo courtesy of Sabrina Sanchez
April 6 (UPI) — Amsterdam sex work advocates are condemning a plan to move the city’s famed red-light district from the historic neighborhood of De Wallen to an erotic center on the outskirts of the city.
Sabrina Sanchez, the director of the European Sex Worker Rights Alliance, said in remarks to UPI that the De Wallen neighborhood “has always been the sex workers’ neighborhood.”
The so-called red-light district is in a centuries-old part of the city characterized by a network of alleys containing hundreds of one-room shops rented by sex workers who advertise their services from behind a window or glass door and gets its name from the red lights that sex workers use to illuminate their windows.
“Many of the window workers still live in the neighborhood, despite the high rent prices. The planned location of the erotic center is far from the places where most sex workers live, and depending on the hours, with very limited public transportation,” she said.
Sanchez also suggested that moving the red light district to an erotic center would also lead to increased danger for sex workers at the end of their shifts.
“In the red-light district, it is also easy for us to mix in the crowd when we enter or finish the shift,” Sanchez said.
“They say they want to create areas of entertainment for us and the clients, but tell me honestly, how many times you’ve seen the employees of a beach resort spending time playing golf or enjoying their leisure time?”
Prostitution is legal in the Netherlands but officials are concerned that tourism to De Wallen is driving an increase in crime in the city.
City officials in February announced in a news release that it would ban smoking marijuana in the street and enforce earlier closing times for sex work establishments, as well as clubs and bars, on weekends because of rowdy tourists and “unsafe conditions at night.”
Other restrictions include a reduction in the sale of alcohol and restrictions on displaying alcohol in shops at certain times. A ban on drinking alcohol in the street had already been put into place.
“I personally come from Barcelona, there aren’t any windows there and the city also has problems with uncivil tourists, and there are also some insecurity problems related to that,” Sanchez said.
“We are the first ones that want to work in nice, good conditions. But moving the windows to another part of the city isn’t going to solve them. This is a much deeper conversation.”
Sanchez also pushed back on the idea that the sex trade triggers criminal activities.
“I think that it is a wrong and dangerous assumption,” she said.
“Authorities have to sit together, if possible in the same room, with us sex workers and neighbors to see how we can address the problems for De Wallen.”
She added that sex workers are not “objects that can be moved without asking them what they want and need.”
Last week, sex workers marched through the city to protest against city officials pushing for the new measures. Protesters wore masks for anonymity and waved red umbrellas to support the red-light district.
“The different national groups that exist in the cities are still organizing, but we definitely need to mobilize more,” Sanchez told UPI.
“It’s demonstrated when sex workers speak, power starts to tremble. They will keep us informed accordingly.”