Prostitution in Amsterdam
Current legal situation:
Prostitution is defined as a legal profession for those persons who are citizens from a European Union Country; prostitutes/sex
workers have access to the social security system, may join unions, have to pay income tax and are treated like any other self-employed
tradesperson. Health and social services are readily available, but people who work in the sex industry are not required to register or
undergo mandatory health checks.
Prostitutes/sex workers must be at least 18 years old, while for non-commercial sex the age of consent is 16. Clients must be at
least 18 except in the municipality of Amsterdam where they may be 16. Employing minors in the sex industry is a criminal offence.
Violation of either age limit is a crime for the other party, and possibly for a pimp. Hiring or renting to non-EU citizens may
lead to revoking the operating licence of a business owner.
Brothels are licensed legal businesses which are allowed to advertise. Pimping (the use of force, coercion or deceit) and trafficking are illegal.
Forms of prostitution:
Prostitutes in the Netherlands work in several types of prostitution. The most common form is in sex clubs and private houses.
Approximately 45% of the prostitutes work in this type of prostitution (private houses are brothels where prostitutes are directly
introduced to the clients in a separate room, there is no bar and the client is not confronted with other clients). Approximately 20%
works in window prostitution, 15% in escort services, 5% on the streets and 5% in their own homes. An estimated 10% works in other types
of prostitutes, like massage parlours, sexshops, sex theaters and bars. (Numbers based on estimates in 1998-1999)
Window prostitution in red-light districts is the most visible form. Rooms with windows are rented by the women for 8 hour shifts for
some 60–150 euro (depending on the time and place), which includes closed-circuit security. Fifteen to twenty minutes of sex cost about
40 to 50 euro (though prices can go both higher and lower according to the service). Despite the legalization, some of the working
women are still illegal immigrants. These prostitutes cannot work in the windows, since a European Union passport is required to rent one.
Some municipalities in the Netherlands would like a "zero-tolerance policy" for brothels on moral grounds, but by law this is not possible.
However, regulations, including restrictions in number and location, are common. Whether a zero-tolerance policy on urban planning grounds
is allowed is still unclear.
There are twelve red-light districts with window prostitution in the Netherlands. A thirteenth (Spijkerkwartier in Arnhem) was closed
down in 2005. The largest and best-known is De Wallen in Amsterdam, also known as Walletjes or Rosse Buurt. Utrecht also has a large
red light district, centered around the area north of the famous Rode Brug (red bridge), containing more than one hundred canal boats
and also a smaller city center street called Hardebollenstraat.
The country has numerous sex clubs. One of the most exclusive ones, Yab Yum in Amsterdam, was closed in January 2008 after allegations of
involvement of the Dutch Hells Angels.
Several cities have instituted so-called tippelzones for street prostitution, mainly to remove drug-addicted streetwalkers from city
centers. Some of these zones offer social services to the women and have places to park cars screened from view. The tippelzone in
Amsterdam was opened in 1996 in Theemsweg and was closed in 2003 amidst much discussion; problems included weapons and drug dealing
and exploitation of illegal foreigners.
Prostitute population:
A study by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2000 estimated that there are a total of between 20,000 and 25,000 prostitutes in the Netherlands
on a yearly basis. Approximately 32% are Dutch, 22% are Latin American, 19% are Eastern European, 13% are African (south of the Sahara), 6% come
from other countries from the European Union (aside from the Netherlands), 5% come from Northern Africa and 3% are Asian. Approximately 5% of
the prostitutes are male, and another 5% are transsexual. However with new legislation from 2001 that prohibits migrants from outside the
European Union to work legally, demographics most likely have shifted. An encyclopedia article published in 1997 claimed about 1,300 men
working in homosexual prostitution, and almost none in heterosexual prostitution.
A recent study found that overall about 7 percent of Dutch prostitutes have HIV/AIDS, with most of the cases among the drug-addicted and
transsexual prostitutes. [4][5] Drug-addicted prostitutes are common in street prostitution.
An article in Le Monde in 1997 found that 80% of prostitutes in the Netherlands were foreigners and 70% had no immigration papers,
suggesting that at least some were victims of sex trafficking, forced prostitution.
Human trafficking:
The Netherlands is a primary country of destination for victims of human trafficking. Many of these are led to believe by organized
criminals that they are being offered work in hotels or restaurants or in child care and are forced into prostitution with the threat
or actual use of violence. Estimates of the number of victims vary from 1000 to 7000 on a yearly basis. The victims mainly originate from
the Netherlands, Africa and Eastern Europe, particularly from the Balkans and the former Soviet Union. Most police investigations on human
trafficking concern legal sex businesses. All sectors of prostitution are well represented in these investigations, but particularly the
window brothels are overrepresented.
Over the years there has been a significant increase of registered Dutch victims of human trafficking. In 2005 23% of the persons registered
at the Dutch Foundation Against Trafficking in Women were Dutch citizens.
In an effort to crack down on forced prostitution, a campaign was launched in 2005 in magazines through posters put up around the
red-light districts encouraging clients to report signs of coercion. The poster has an eyecatching silhouette of a spike-heeled
prostitute with long hair leaning back, but on closer inspection another picture reveals a gun being held to the female's head.
The caption reads "Have you seen the signals? Fear, bruises, no 'pleasure' in the job." It then goes on to offer a phone number
which clients can call anonymously.
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