He Amsterdam City Hall project to move the prostitution of the famous Red Light District towards a “erotic center” in the suburbs has unleashed a confrontation with neighbors and sex workersfiercely opposed to this change.
Hundreds of residents of the suburbs in question, opposed to the installation of a “huge brothel” next to their houses, they joined protests by sex workers who want to stay behind the scarlet neon-lit windows near the canals of the historic center. The protagonist of the controversy is the Mayor, Femke Halsema, who defends his plan with all his might, but fails to convince.
teasing and humiliation
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“It’s not possible,” says a mother crying after a meeting between the mayor and the residents of one of the three places planned for the creation of the erotic center. Residents fear that the rampage of the Red Light District reaches its streets.
For their part, sex workers consider that they are the scapegoat for the mayor in his attempt to control crime and mass tourism in the center of the city. “The mayor says we’re just a tourist attraction and that people come to make fun of us and humiliate us,” says a sex worker. “But it’s not like that,” adds the worker, who identifies herself as Michelle, to AFP.