Amsterdam to have consultation on red-light District

[failingatlife]

Just saw this on twitter. In the Guardian. The mayor has concerns around people trafficking, organised crime and also the are being a tourist attraction where wo. En are exhibited for public ridicule. She doesn't seem to want to ban prostitution suggesting alternatives such as prostitute hotels or rerouting the general public away from the area.

www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/04/amsterdam-mayor-considers-closing-red-light-district

Women are exhibited

i saw this in feminist current. i think it's brilliant and I hope she does manage to close it

Brilliant idea, it's utterly disgraceful that women are literally being advertised in shop windows.

Brilliant idea, it's utterly disgraceful that women are literally being advertised in shop windows

Hmm, I'm not so sure. It was a rather muddled piece. It wasn't clear to me what she wants. I think basically she is ok with prostitution as long as it's somewhere out of the way where nice people don't have to see it.

Being advertised in shop windows at least forces people to think about how unacceptable prostitution is.

She's all over the place. She talks about knowing (or rather not knowing) if the women in prostitution are being trafficked, then there's this:

Halsema said she was “pragmatic” and would not challenge the right for women to be involved in sex work in Amsterdam.

Men's rights to buy and sell women for sex being hidden behind women's "right" to be sold. Considering how long this argument has been going on, and that the Nordic approach is well known, she seems to have managed to let it completely pass her by.

Being advertised in shop windows at least forces people to think about how unacceptable prostitution is.

I was just thinking about this actually. I visited Amsterdam in my early 20s, saw the women in the windows, saw their nasty stoned punters going in an out, and didn't bat an eyelid. It was just "part of the scene", they were smiling and posing to attract customers, and I didn't think anything more of it, other than that it was a bit weird. It certainly didn't produce a visceral reaction or prompt me to think about it in more depth. Maybe I was just an unusually shitty person back then, I don't know. I was very into championing social causes, considered myself well educated and progressive. That was 10 years ago and I look back on it now with absolute horror. I can't see how I couldn't see anything wrong with it. It makes me feel sick to think that I walked past all those women on sale in shop windows, noted it as an item of curiosity, then just moved on to find the next bar to smoke more weed at. My point that I think seeing it like that is just as likely to normalise it to people, or promote the view that the women enjoy the "work", as it is to make them think critically about it.

ByGrabtharsHammarWhatASaving

That's a fair point. The windows are seen as a normal thing (or possibly were but less so ) I'm still not overjoyed by this consultation as it seems to have little point other than moving it elsewhere.

Re your "what the hell was I thinking" experience. I've been in Amsterdam loads of times over the last 30 years but only once, a couple of years ago, went into the red light district. Realised the quickest way to where I wanted to be was to go through it. It felt perfectly safe (I was walking most of the way behind an elderly couple with a child fgs) but grim.

My own, "well I know better now" experience was going to a Sea World aquarium in Florida.

I agree that she doesn't seem to have a problem with prostitution but with the women being exhibited. I do think it's a good thing that there is a discussion around this and a consultation should hopefully look at trafficking, violence etc.

I have never been to Amsterdam and had no strong opinion on the red light district until about 10 yrs ago. I knew people who had been and we all just saw it as a tourist attraction really with no thought for the women. I have always thought the men were sleazy though.

"Amsterdam’s first female mayor is facing a battle with sex workers in the city’s famous red-light district after raising the prospect of closing it down."

Isn't this something the sex workers know better than anyone else on?

If the sexworkers want to stay there, maybe instead of trying to ban it instead focus on trafficking and ensuring anyone who wants to leave the industry has support to do so?

ah, sex work. the 'work' where 60% of the 'workers' get raped while doing their 'work'

sounds like very unsafe 'work' to me. sounds like we should probably try to help people so that they don't have to do that 'work' eh?

Is this not the politician who said she hated herself and what was done to her when she was a prostitute?

I’ve always found it the height of hypocrisy that Amsterdam contains a museum detailing the appalling treatment of Dutch women in the Dutch East Indies, rounded up into Japanese military brothels in WW2. At the same time as being fine with foreign women trafficked into Amsterdam brothels or put on display in windows to be publicly mocked and leered at as well as abused by punters.

Amsterdam has a problem with over tourism. It has a population of 850,000 and annual tourists of 19 million in 2018. That is a ratio of 22.3 to 1. Tourism is expected to continue to rise. It is estimated to be as high as 29 million by 2025. Edinburgh also has a problem with over tourism although the ratio here is 8 to 1.

Getting rid of the red light would reduce numbers without affecting the general viability of the tourism sector. And let's be honest get rid of the tourists most likely to cause trouble.