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Red-light windows closed down
30/11/2006 18:33 - (SA)
Amsterdam - The Amsterdam city council
decided on Thursday to withdraw permits for many prostitution
businesses operating in its infamous red light district in a
crackdown on crime there.
The city said in a statement it had turned down 33
applications from sex companies after a new screening process.
"Amsterdam wants to reduce the influence of criminality in
the city and the red light district," it said, adding it planned
to complete its screening of the sector by the end of 2007.
Dutch news agency ANP said the permits would affect 108 -
or about one in five - of Amsterdam's red-lit windows where
scantily-clad women offer their bodies for sale. It said the
ruling meant the windows would have to close this year.
Harrowing reports of forced prostitution and human
trafficking caused a public outcry earlier this year and even
prompted calls from councillors for the 800-year-old district to
be shut down completely - to the fury of many sex workers.
Prostitution has been fully legal in the Netherlands since
2000, and sex workers are self-employed and subject to tax.
However, one rights group estimates that around 3 500 women
are trafficked to the Netherlands each year from eastern Europe
and Asia to work in secret brothels or illegal escort agencies,
where they are often held captive and abused.
Sex shops, alleys and canals
Tourist authorities admit the district - a clutch of narrow
alleys and canals lined with sex shops, brothels and neon signs
- is as big an attraction as Amsterdam's museums and coffee
shops, where marijuana is freely smoked and sold.
Charles Geerts - who runs many of Amsterdam's prostitution
businesses - told ANP he hoped courts would reverse the decision,
which he said would force him to close 60 windows and put about
100 prostitutes out of work.
"I have a clean record ... I have never been suspected,
prosecuted or convicted of a single crime," he said.
Metje Blaak, from the Red Thread prostitutes rights group,
said she was worried that Amsterdam might go the way of the
eastern city of Arnhem which has shut its red light district.
"The city council can say that tourists come for the pretty
Amsterdam houses, but nowhere in the world is there a red light
district like this. It is unique," she told ANP.
Mariska Majoor, a former prostitute who runs an information
centre on the district, said the move would not help tackle
problems like forced prostitution. "The windows that have to
close are well-run ones," she said.
- Reuters
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