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Amsterdam at war over 'erotic centre' plan
In the middle of the row is Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema, who is sticking to a plan that few people seem to like despite being branded a "brothel madame" by opponents.
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In this file photo taken on March 30, 2023 Sex workers and sympathisers take part in a demonstration to protest plans to shutter the city's historic red light district, to be moved to a new erotic centre, in Amsterdam on March 30, 2023. Sex workers and residents oppose an “erotic centre“ project as Amsterdam wants to move legal prostitution outside the city centre's famed red light district over complaints from residents over crime and visitors' behaviour.
(AFP/Kenzo Tribouillard)
T
he atmosphere was tense as residents confronted Amsterdam's mayor on a controversial plan to move legal prostitution from the city's historic red light district to a suburban "erotic centre".
In a meeting hall in the south of the city, hundreds of angry locals who don't want a "mega brothel" on their doorstep found themselves unexpectedly on the same side as sex workers who want to stay in their red neon booths.
In the middle of the row is Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema, who is sticking to a plan that few people seem to like despite being branded a "brothel madame" by opponents.
"It's not possible," one mother said in tears at the meeting in the south of Amsterdam, near one of three sites that Halsema has proposed for the 100-room erotic centre.
One older resident wears two gold balloons saying "NO" around his neck, while others in this nation of cyclists carry small flashing red bike lights as a sign of protest.
Sex workers, meanwhile, insist they want to stay in the "Wallen" red light district, and that they are being scapegoated for complaints about crime, drunkenness and drug abuse in the area.
"The mayor says we are just a tourist attraction and people come and laugh at us," one sex worker who gave her name as Michelle told AFP after the meeting. "That's just not the case."
