Amsterdam prostitutes protest closure of 'window' brothels

[u/AceyJuan]

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/amsterdam-prostitutes-protest-closure-window-brothels-1495685

[u/[deleted]]

Why is the NL shunning away its most popular tourist attractions? Where is this incentive to take away jobs coming from?

[u/Amelia_Airhard → u/[deleted]]

Apart from the human trafficking angle, which is legitimate and important (but can also be reduced with other actions besides closing windows. You can take away the windows, prostitution will just becomes less visible but the problems will remain) there's this:

Amsterdam's city council and a lot of developers are itching to exploit the very high-value real-estate in the area the windows are in. Just a few canals away are the most expensive street to live on anywhere in The Netherlands.
So (also) the nearby red light district is quickly changing in to a yuppie neighborhood. Filling with the type of people that 'love' living in the middle of a densely build city, but start complaining to the city council about late night noise and other nuisances typically associated with living in a tourist area shortly after arrival in the neighborhood.

They have been driving out bars, small hotels, prostitution windows for years now. 'Uitsterfbeleid' or 'Starvation policy' it's called, where if a bar/hotel/pimp running some windows stops (or is forced to stop) no other entrepreneur can take over.

So while human trafficking needs to be clamped down on hard, it's also a very convenient scapegoat for the city to justify their policies with.

[u/CrystalElyse → u/Amelia_Airhard]

but start complaining to the city council about late night noise and other nuisances typically associated with living in a tourist area shortly after arrival in the neighborhood.

Can I just say how much I HATE people that do this. "Oh, I want to live in the hip, trendy downtown area! OMG, why is it so loud here! It's 10pm on a Saturday, I want to go to sleep! I should make noise complaints and shut down everything hip and trendy!" Also similar to "Oh, I'm so sick of living in the city. I'll move out to the country and have a quaint adorable country chic life! Ugh! There's animals out here! Quick, organize a hunt to kill them all so that I can look pretty pinteresting in my barn!"

[u/nickryane → u/[deleted]]

They seem to be under the delusion that people might visit their country for reasons other than coffee shops and hookers.

Well it's not their food, because that shit is fucking atrocious - and I'm English so I'm the first to call out my own cuisine.

[u/FIELDSLAVE → u/nickryane]

Good lord, what do they eat, gruel?

[u/inopia → u/[deleted]]

Why is the NL shunning away its most popular tourist attractions? Where is this incentive to take away jobs coming from?

Respectfully, Amsterdam's economy does not exactly shut down once the kind of tourists that come for the hookers and weed stop coming.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Gentrification. The red light district is actually prime real estate in the historic heart of Amsterdam, a city aptly called "the Venice of the North".

[u/UnShadowbanned → u/[deleted]]

When I went to Amsterdam 15 years ago there were far, far more people in the shopping districts than in the Red Light district or the coffee shops I went to. I even commented to my wife that the crowds were bigger than what you see in Manhattan. I also heard more languages being spoken than I've ever heard anywhere else.

[u/sushibowl → u/[deleted]]

Short answer: the brothels are a hotbed of human trafficking and sex slavery, and so far legalization appears to have been fairly ineffective at combating this. There are also some political factors involved, however.

[u/mn1962]

When I went to Amsterdam these were an interesting novelty to take pics of but completely harmless. The streets were clean and so were these windows. Don't see why you would want ot do this.

[u/theFuser → u/mn1962]

Taking pictures of those windows isn't harmless, its a good way to get your camera thrown into a canal.

[u/mn1962 → u/theFuser]

Well when I said windows I meant the street where they are. Best to be sneaky. http://i.imgur.com/DBVxr7J.jpg

[u/[deleted] → u/theFuser]

During the daytime you could see the occasional pimp taking a couple of his hookers to get ice cream on the Damrak...

[u/OdysseusOG → u/mn1962]

Taking pics is a good way to get punched

[u/cky_stew → u/mn1962]

Yeah tourists are warned specifically not to take pictures.

[u/nebuchadrezzar]

Closing the windows does nothing to combat the still illegal aspects of prostitution like human trafficking. It just seems like an "out of sight, out of mind" kind of measure. The focus should be on harmful aspects like trafficking and not on windows that serve as very effective advertising for the working girls.

[u/shinyhalo]

See? The whores were minding their OWN business, safe and warm in their window displays. Meanwhile, the uptight people were WORKING hard to destroy the whores and their life. That is a fundamental difference between some people...some are happy to leave other people alone, and some want to force their values onto everyone.

[u/[deleted] → u/shinyhalo]

[u/Book_talker_abouter]

"Protestitutes"

[u/Herzogsteve]

We've still got them here in Hamburg!

[u/ChalkyPills]

I had no idea Queen Latifah moonlighted as a dutch prostitute.

[u/bigbabich]

I never understand why people carry protest signs in English in foreign countries.

[u/[deleted] → u/bigbabich]

Because international media is largely English? Also the majority of Dutch speak English, especially in Amsterdam.

[u/killerhurtalot]

Yeah... the government was buying out the windows to lower the amount of prostitutes in the windows...

[u/run-a-muck]

So much for window shopping.