France’s minister for women is to organise a consultation on ways to abolish prostitution in France and in Europe, she has told the Guardian. Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, the high profile women’s rights minister and government spokeswoman, said in an interview that she would be organising a conference of experts on how to contain the sex-trade and human-trafficking.
For a special program for France 3, the presenter and documentary maker Mireille Dumas produces a documentary about prostitution policy in Europe. For MD Productions reporter Lionel Baillon visits Switzerland and Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
In Switzerland prostitution is legal and regulated; it has been legal since 1942. In Switzerland sex workers work in licensed brothels, with a reception and several studio apartments. Street prostitution is illegal, except in specially designated areas in the major cities.
In the Netherlands the prostitution branch is legal since 2000. It has one of the most liberal prostitution policies in the world and attracts sex tourists from many European countries and from the US.
In Amsterdam most of the sex workers work in window brothels. In 2009 the city council decided to fresh up the red light district by starting to restrict the number of window brothels. Window renters, a sex worker, the manager of the new policy and an ex-prostitute running an information centre in the red light district explain how the Dutch system works and what the effects will be of the new policy.
For this production Featurez gave advice, did the research, set-up and planning, accompanied the filming and did some of the interviews.