CLOSURE BROTHELS RED LIGHT DISTRICT POSTPONED

The Amsterdam municipality decided to stop the licences of one third of the sex companies in the red light district because they do not seem bona fide. After research the Amsterdam mayor accuses the sex companies of money laundering and drugs trade. The Amsterdam mayor wants legal, clean companies. 

Last month the accused sex companies easily won the lawsuit they started against the city hall on all points. The judge decided to forbid the city of Amsterdam to close sex companies until all the individual appeal cases are dealt with. This will at least take till May.

The Amsterdam mayor is convinced the criminals will be filtered out after he managed to close most of the accused sex companies. The decision involves the closure of 33 companies, with a total of about 60 windows. One company can - with one license - sometimes have more than one window. About 100 of the 350 currently existing windows might be closed down.  

After the ban on Dutch brothels was lifted  in 2000, a licence system for sex companies was setup making the whole branch legal. A law passed in 2003 makes it possible for authorities to revoke a company's license if it is suspected that criminal activities take place.

The Red Light District in Amsterdam has become world-famous because prostitutes offer their services from behind shop windows since 17th century. The district covers a number of canals just south-east of the Central Station, and it is estimated that it attracts about 1.8 million tourists per year.

A former prostitute who now runs a information centre, thinks that the crackdown on the brothels would hurt the women who worked legally as independent contractors renting space in the windows. She says: ’There are lots of benefits from working in a window brothel," she says. It is a thousand times better than being in an illegal brothel or working in dangerous circumstances on the street.’

One of the leading entrepreneurs – owning 20 buildings with around 60 (prostitute) windows – says he feels humiliated and ashamed for his personnel and children. Others, like a porn film producer, have complained Amsterdam is making a mistake that will "ruin" the city's booming tourist industry. By some estimates, a third of all tourists in Amsterdam visit the red light district, although most just pop by for a curious look.

The city's deputy mayor, denied the accusation. ‘Amsterdam is very popular with tourists because it is an exciting and liberal city. It's much broader than just window prostitution,’ he says. He stressed the council wanted to target crime rather than prostitution itself. He remains "very worried" by the number of cases of trafficking in women. A number are believed to be linked to the window brothels even though these became legal.

February 5, 2006