Amsterdam’s red light district is under too much pressure from tourism, officials have said. Photo / Getty
Amsterdam’s red light district is under too much pressure from tourism, officials have said. Photo / Getty
Amsterdam’s red light district will be turned into a “multi-storey erotic centre” and relocated to an upmarket business district under plans put forward by the council.
Officials in the city - the capital of the Netherlands - keen to rebrand the infamous neighbourhood and give locals a respite from boisterous tourists have announced a plan to shutter 100 of the 249 red light district windows and relocate them to outside the city centre.
A shortlist of three locations has been proposed, and the city has released artists’ impressions of how the privately funded building on city land could look.
The complex will include sex work spaces as well as tantric yoga studios and shops. The plans for the centre show a nightclub, pole dancers, a grand foyer and a red carpet leading up to a mezzanine.
But locals have raised concerns that the centre risks becoming a “sex-Disneyland attraction” that will draw even more nuisance tourism, and sex workers have complained they are being forced out of the city.
Defending the plans, Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema said: “Sex work belongs to Amsterdam and it will never go away, but the situation in the inner city is unsustainable.
“By setting up an erotic centre, we will lessen the pressure on De Wallen [the red light district] and at the same time create an extraordinary place where sex workers can work safely, legally and undisturbed, and visitors can expect a wide offering of erotica, culture and entertainment.”
How Amsterdam’s new ‘multi-storey erotic centre’ could look
What the new multi-storey erotic centre of Amsterdam could look like.
The city council voted in favour of the erotic centre last year, but an initial shortlist of eight locations sparked fierce protests. Now, after further research and consultation with the police, three new sites have been proposed, two of which are in the upmarket business district of Zuid.
Zuid is home to the RAI conference centre, popular among international businesspeople, and its director has warned that the erotic centre could damage the city’s reputation.
“The value of property will go down, and conferences hardly expect an erotic centre at the door,” Paul Riemens told The Parool. “I do not think this is a good idea.”
Bart Vink, chairman of the district council in Zuid, told the Telegraph it would examine “liveability and possible nuisance for the area, safety [of the sex workers] and possible economic and other effects” before issuing a formal response to the proposals.
Ilana Rooderkerk, the head of the local D66 liberal democratic party, said the plans did not set out in detail how to reform the red light district.
“What I completely fail to see is how this improves the position of sex workers who now work in the red light district, and a concrete plan for moving the windows from the city centre,” she added. “Historic change is badly needed to reduce the nuisance caused by crowds of tourists with their disrespectful behaviour towards sex workers.”
In a statement, the Prostitution Information Centre said it was “extremely concerned” about the new locations increasing stigmatisation and reducing sex worker safety.
“These locations proliferate the narrative that sex work is something shameful that should be pushed to the far end of the city and be ‘out of sight, out of mind’, rather than something which should be embraced as a normal part of human existence,” the organisation said.
Last week, Amsterdam announced that smoking cannabis in public spaces in the red light district will be made illegal, with brothels ordered to close earlier.
