The Press in the Netherlands | Red Light at the crossroads

(Amsterdam) On a rainy Tuesday evening in October, around ten young men, cigarettes in hand, leave the Sex Palace, a peep show center in the Red Light district of Amsterdam. They chat, speaking very loudly, while a few meters away, scantily clad sex workers wait for customers behind windows lined with red neon lights.

In the narrow streets of Amsterdam’s oldest district, there are numerous tourists along the Oudezijds Achterburgwal canal. Some sing at the top of their lungs. A sex worker photographed by a tourist despite numerous posters prohibiting it, quickly opens her window, throws a glass of water in her face and shouts a well-intentioned “slut”. The atmosphere is definitely electric.

For years, Amsterdam, Netherlands, has been recognized as a party city. Where prostitution and cannabis consumption are tolerated. Every year, the Dutch capital of 1 million inhabitants is visited by 20 million tourists.

However, the mayor of Amsterdam, Femke Halsema, wants to curb the inconvenience caused by these hordes of visitors. To achieve this, she has a project: move 100 of the 230 prostitution windows that currently exist in the Wallen district (better known as Red Light) to an “Erotic Center” on the outskirts.

Mayor Halsema’s team also believes that the creation of this erotic center will “provide a safe workplace for sex workers” in addition to “reducing the influence of the criminal world on prostitution”. The Erotic Center will also host “cafes, restaurants, culture, arts and erotic entertainment”.

Numerous protests

Last February, the City of Amsterdam presented a list of three sites that could accommodate the future building. Since then, some groups have expressed their discontent. A petition was launched at the end of June asking to keep the neighborhood in its current state. And in early October, dozens of sex workers, entrepreneurs and citizens of Amsterdam demonstrated against the project on the streets of the city center.

Six days after this demonstration, The Press met Mercy, a sex worker who attended the event. A resident of the neighborhood, the young woman also works for the Amsterdam Prostitution Information Center. When we ask Mercy what she thinks of the Erotic Center project, her response is: “It’s a terrible idea. »

For her, it is “naive and negligent” to think that relocating some of the windows outside the historic center will solve all the problems.

Mercy indicates that the Red Light district has hosted prostitution since the 17th century^e century, at least, when the city was an important port and many sailors arrived there. For her, the Erotic Center project “lacks recognition of the fact that sex workers built this neighborhood”. “It’s hypocritical. It does not work. They want to “save” us. So we don’t ask to be saved,” she adds.

Mercy recalls that the city of Amsterdam has attracted tourists for years, notably thanks to the Red Light district. But now that there are too many tourists, we want to solve the problem only by acting on prostitution. “We don’t want to be a tourist attraction. We just want to keep our workplace,” says Mercy.

In a very narrow alley where she takes us, she shows us dozens of old windows now closed to be transformed into artist studios or businesses selling souvenirs at a discount. “What we need is to have our workspaces back. The safest structure to work in is here, in a window,” she says.

Exasperated citizens

But for many residents of the Wallen district, the inconveniences of overtourism are too numerous. A group of citizens has created a website where they post photos and videos showing groups of noisy partygoers in the middle of the night and overturned trash cans in the early morning.

Already, various measures have been adopted to reduce the inconvenience of overtourism. Limits have been placed on short-term rentals of accommodation. Permits are no longer granted for new hotels in certain areas. Public consumption of alcohol and marijuana has been tightened in Red Light.

In March, Amsterdam also launched an advertising campaign specifically asking English people aged 18 to 35 who just want to party not to come.

In an article published in July in the magazine Time, municipal councilor Imane Nadif, from the party of mayor Femke Halsema, affirms that it is “difficult in this matter to satisfy all parties”. “But we need to look at the bigger picture and see how we make the city livable for everyone,” she said.

A new erotic center as a neighbor

Currently, three sites are being analyzed to host the Erotic Center project: two in a large convention center in the south of the city. And the other at the NDSM quay, in the north of Amsterdam. The 38-hectare former industrial district is located 12 minutes by boat from Amsterdam Central Station.

The sector has hosted port companies for years. In 1984, activities ceased and the buildings were abandoned. Then in 2001, the City sought to revive the sector.

Since then, several condo towers have sprung up. Many artists have set up their workshops in the vast disused red brick warehouses. In the largest, the NDSM Hangar, architectural offices sit alongside a trendy restaurant, a pottery and cabinetmaking workshop and temporary exhibition spaces.

In a large windowless room, designer and artist Bas Kosters works at his sewing machine, surrounded by his assistants and his colorful dolls and works. Himself a former resident of the Red Light district, Bas Kosters does not understand the idea of ​​the Erotic Center project. For him, Red Light “brings the unique side to the city”. Rather than wanting to move it to get rid of its more unpleasant aspects, “we should instead find a way to make it work,” he says.

In a long press release published last February, the Stiching NDSM foundation, which manages cultural activities in the sector, strongly criticized the Erotic Center project. The director of the foundation, Tim Vermeulen, spoke of a “slap in the face” for local stakeholders. For Mr. Vermeulen, anyone who thinks that an erotic center at NDSM will solve security problems is “believing in fairy tales”. In March, several residents of the convention center area also expressed their discontent.

The executive council of the City of Amsterdam says it has made adjustments to the Erotic Center project in recent months. “The number of bars, cafes and restaurants has been reduced to discourage “alcohol tourism” [booze tourism] and there will be more cultural programming,” it is written on the City’s website. The final choice of the site is expected at the beginning of 2024.