AmsterdamJuly 21, 2000, while we imagine it was a hot summer day. Superintendent Klaas Wilting, chief police spokesman, has just finished releasing a new travel brochure to the press that provides guidance and advice on how to “happily and safely” explore red light district. Rule #1: “Enjoy yourself, but act normal.”
Fast forward twenty-three years later, the city that built its image around free sex and tolerant progressivism is ready to say goodbye to its red light district. In January 2022, Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema announced the decision close many brothels located in the narrow streets near the portwhere the city’s red-light district is currently located. Reasons, says Guardian, will be as follows: to improve the working conditions of prostitutes and to redesign the historic city center. Problem? Sex workers don’t want to leave. They’re not going to give up their storefronts for this. they began to protest, supported by the residents.
Femke Halsema and her junta would like to stop all activities Wallen and open a modern erotic center inspired by Moulin rouge Baz Luhrmann, at the gates of the city. Pending a decision, the city of Amsterdam has introduced a series of restrictions to improve the safety of sex workers, the report said. But from the “Stay Away” campaign, originally aimed at British tourists, to the decision move window closing time from 6 am to 3 amthe new rules introduced by Halsema seem like just a bold attempt to speed up the process rebranding which instead indicates conservative compression.
In the beginning of April, more than 200 workers took to the streets to demand a confrontation with the administration, supported by the residents of the area, and demand the removal of restrictions. “If you come home at 3 am, especially if you are a prostitute and if the streets are deserted, you risk becoming even more vulnerable,” the sex worker explained. snn. “There were concerns about our safety,” the website says. Red Light Unitedtrade union protecting district workers – Sex outside the windows is one of the safest formsprecisely because of its social character. Not only big problems, but also the new hours will also limit the work of transgender sex workers.whose clients arrive in Wallen at very late hours. “We have repeatedly expressed our opinion with the city authorities, and with the mayor, and at public meetings, asking not to be transferred to the erotic center. – the union page reads again. “Not only because it would be public enough, but because this move would send the wrong message that sex workers should not be part of the center of Amsterdam, but instead should be hidden from the world.”
Two decades ago, writes Donald McNeil, journalist The newspaper “New York Times that on 21 July 2000 he attended the presentation of a new travel poster, the problems were: centuries-old sloping houses and soaring real estate prices “where only doctors, lawyers and families live”; street drug dealers selling heroin, American students visiting during spring break, and English boors jumping through the channels and howling at the top of their lungs. “The brochure reflects an idea shared by everyone from the police to businessmen,” the article says, “to harm the image of the district. they are definitely not law-abiding womensitting in a shop window in stunning lingerie.”
The beginning of the new millennium has already shown the first signs gentrification, that phenomenon where marginal urban areas, once redeveloped, become landing spots for wealthy tourists and uninhabitable and expensive for residents forced to leave. According to Halsema, in the center of Amsterdam it would be better without prostitutes and, perhaps, only with showcases in which expensive branded underwear could be displayed. For sex workers, the problem of drugs and street violence can be solved by increasing the number of patrols, for residents (those who protest) the problem is different, and it is related to what is always the spirit of the area, and Amsterdam: expression of freedom.
Source: Elle