Amsterdam, Netherlands – City officials say they will turn off the red lights and shutter a third of the prostitution “windows” in Amsterdam’s famed red-light district, where scantily clad ladies of the night have beckoned customers for hundreds of years.
The move is part of a crackdown on crime in the area.
“We’re not knights on a morality crusade, and this is intended to target financial crime, not prostitution per se,” city spokesman Martien Maten said Thursday. “But we do think it will change the face of the red-light district.”
The Dutch government legalized prostitution in 2000 to make it easier to tax and regulate.
Maten said the city is now making use of a new law to revoke brothels’ licenses when it suspects operators have used the business for money laundering or other illegal financial activity.
“In concrete terms, (that) means that those involved won’t be able to continue their businesses” after the measure takes effect Jan. 1, the city said.
But advocacy groups for prostitutes said the move will hurt the women who act as independent contractors renting space behind the windows. Brothel owners said they would appeal the decision in court.
“The biggest problem we have is with pimps on the street, not the people who own the windows,” said Mariska Majoor, a former prostitute who runs the Prostitution Information Center in the red-light district.
“Local politicians don’t understand that. Because they want to crack down on crime so badly, they are acting like bulls in a china shop,” she said.
