Amsterdam’s first female mayor, Femke Halsema, is supposedly considering closing down the city’s famous red-light district. This is due to the conditions that its sex workers have experienced.
It is just one issue the mayor is considering changing over the summer which will start with a consultation.
Her aim is to stop human trafficking, while simultaneously reducing the number of tourists that walk the alleys of the Singel and De Wallen area.
Halsema stated to the city paper, Het Parool that the red-light district has lost its “sentiment” over the years, now is a place of human trafficking in what she calls ‘the most beautiful and oldest part of [our] city’.
She went on to explain that over the last few hundred years, “situations have arisen that are not acceptable […] predominantly foreign women, of whom we do not know how they ended up here, are laughed at and photographed.”
Halsema’s ultimate aim is to shut the 330 windows, yet other options are being considered including a ban on the brothel window but allowing sex work to continue or the relocation of some of the windows.
A debate is set to be held next week in the City centre, while later on in the summer, a consultation will be held with “stakeholders”, who will be asked for their views on the issue.
By Liv West