{"id":41149,"date":"2013-08-01T13:44:25","date_gmt":"2013-08-01T10:44:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/?p=41149"},"modified":"2013-08-01T13:44:25","modified_gmt":"2013-08-01T10:44:25","slug":"dutch-prostitutes-hit-by-economic-crisis-breaking-news-41149","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/dutch-prostitutes-hit-by-economic-crisis-breaking-news-41149\/","title":{"rendered":"Dutch Prostitutes hit by economic crisis \/ Breaking News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

Amsterdam’s famous \u00a0red-light district\u00a0under threat,\u00a0economic crisis on the one hand and lawmakers\u00a0are proposing changes to the sex-for-hire industry following a recognition in the freewheeling Netherlands<\/h1>\n

The economic crisis is forcing prostitutes to lower their prices and to accept dubious sexual practices, according to sector organisation Geisha.<\/p>\n

‘The trend is apparent in the main cities, with some prostitutes unable to pay the rent on their rooms’, Ilonka Stakelborough from Geisha told Algemeen Dagblad.<\/p>\n

Until recently, the minimum price was \u20ac50, but this has now dropped as low as \u20ac20 in cities such as Amsterdam and The Hague.<\/p>\n

Geisha is to set up a project for sex workers so they can form a co-operative. Geisha will rent a room which prostitutes only pay rent for when they are actually working.<\/p>\n

Amsterdam Red-Light District:Holland Debates Sex Trade<\/h2>\n

\"Germany's<\/a><\/p>\n

This city\u2019s famed red-light district looks much as it has for years, with bikini-clad women behind plate-glass windows fluffing their hair or beckoning to passersby, colorful beds visible in the background as an unspoken invitation.<\/p>\n

But things could soon change for the sex-for-hire industry following a recognition in the freewheeling Netherlands that its decision in 2000 to legalize brothels has failed to stem human trafficking.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor something as simple as the lust for sex, we are tolerating modern-day slavery,\u201d said Myrthe Hilkens, a Labor Party legislator who supports a series of moves to tighten the rules on prostitution. \u201cI think that cannot be.\u201d<\/p>\n

The proposals are far-reaching. Most contested is a bill to require all prostitutes be registered with the government\u2014a measure that has already been approved by the lower house but is struggling in the Senate.<\/p>\n

Also in the works: raising the minimum age to 21 from 18, and a requirement that escort services be licensed, just as brothels currently are.<\/p>\n

A vote is expected before the summer recess on July 9.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the city government in Amsterdam on Wednesday is expected to approve tougher rules, including ordering brothels to close in the early-morning hours and requiring that prostitutes speak Dutch, English, German or Spanish, to make it harder to exploit them.<\/p>\n

These ideas reflect a consensus that regulating prostitution hasn\u2019t deterred human trafficking, which has increased since the opening of the former Soviet bloc in the 1980s.<\/p>\n

\u201cA huge concern is that a lot of criminal organizations send their prostitutes to the Netherlands,\u201d said Ard van der Steur, a legislator from the center-right Liberal Party, which rules in a coalition with the left-leaning Labor Party. \u201cLeaving everything the way it is fuels a grave concern that we are not doing what we should to prevent human trafficking.\u201d<\/p>\n

A similar debate is under way in Germany, which followed the Netherlands in liberalizing prostitution in 2002.<\/p>\n

But critics say such restrictions will hurt sex workers, not those who exploit them. \u201cYou do not have to fight sex work, you have to fight trafficking,\u201d said Ilonka Stakelborough, a former prostitute who now runs a Dutch advocacy group called Geisha.<\/p>\n

Under the proposed registry, Holland\u2019s roughly 20,000 prostitutes would have to meet with government officials and show they are not being coerced in order to get a registration card.<\/p>\n

Critics call that a violation of the privacy of prostitutes, who may want to hide their current profession from future employers. A prostitute working involuntarily, often facing threats to her family, they add, can hardly be expected to tell a government official the truth.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou put a coerced woman in front of a civil servant, and she will say whatever she has to say,\u201d said Flavia Dzodan, an Amsterdam-based journalist who blogs on women\u2019s issues.<\/p>\n

The Senate will soon vote on whether to remove the registry from the bill. Underlying the debate is the broader question of whether prostitution can truly be \u201ccleaned up.\u201d The city\u2019s red-light district, which expanded in the 17th century when Amsterdam was a leading port city, remains one of Europe\u2019s big tourist attractions., with a Sex Museum, an elaborate condom shop and the smell of marijuana wafting from the many \u201ccoffee shops\u201d authorized to sell it.<\/p>\n

The city for several years has been trying to reshape the neighborhood, buying up brothels it considers dangerous, like those in dimly-lighted corners, and turning them into cafes or shops.<\/p>\n

City officials say they have managed to cut the number of prostitutes\u2019 windows in the red-light district from 500 to 409 in about five years, and want to ultimately bring it down to 300.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe try not to address these problems from the moral point of view,\u201d Eberhard van der Laan, Amsterdam\u2019s mayor, said. \u201cWe say there is abuse and we want to fight it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The prostitution issue erupted in February, when Ms. Hilkens and another lawmaker, Gert-Jan Segers, made a highly publicized visit to Sweden, which outlaws buying sexual services but not selling them. Ms. Hilkens and Mr. Segers discussed this different approach from Holland\u2019s in Dutch television studios.<\/p>\n

No one expects the Netherlands to criminalize sex-for-hire soon, though Mr. Segers, of the Christian Union Party, believes it should. \u201cIt\u2019s immoral when a man with power and money is buying the body of a woman,\u201d he said. Dutch officials note prostitution is widely practiced even in countries that ban it. (In the U.S., prostitution is illegal except in parts of Nevada.)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unlikely to disappear anywhere on earth,\u201d said Willem Witteveen, a Labor Party legislator. \u201cYou should bring it into the open and see if you can prevent excesses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amsterdam’s famous red-light district under threat, economic crisis on the one hand and lawmakers are proposing changes to the sex-for-hire industry following a recognition in the freewheeling Netherlands<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":702,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,63,17,1,118,14],"tags":[7704,56579,56578,56587,56585,56582,56588,2054,56586,56584,56589,2943,56581,56583,11225,56576],"class_list":["post-41149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-daily","category-europe","category-general","category-hot","category-world","tag-amsterdam","tag-amsterdam-red-ligth-district","tag-amsterdam-sex","tag-amsterdam-sex-industry","tag-amsterdam-sex-trade","tag-dutch-prostitutes-amsterdam","tag-geisha-amsterdam","tag-holland","tag-holland-debates-sex-trade","tag-holland-sex-trade","tag-ilonka-stakelborough","tag-netherlands","tag-prostitutes-hit-by-ecomic-crisis","tag-red-light-district-under-threat","tag-sex","tag-sex-workers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/702"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}