As the Dutch capital closes down a third of its brothels in an attempt to cut crime, Anushka Asthana spends a night in the city where the prostitutes are a tourist attraction.
By Anushka Asthana
On the edge of a cobbled path that runs along a canal in the heart of Amsterdam, a pretty woman lit her cigarette, struck a pose and smiled at the tourists pouring past. Dressed in white lingerie, her bleached blonde hair bathed in red light, the prostitute beckoned men towards her and the unmade bed behind.
‘They say we give Amsterdam a bad reputation,’ she said, pushing her window open slightly. ‘Rubbish. This is the only reputation we have.’
Last week, the city announced that it would be closing down a third of its famed brothels. Within a matter of months, 52 of the iconic window displays that line the streets of the busy red-light district will disappear.
Come January, the blinds will be drawn down on the window that frames the blonde prostitute, looking down over the canal, and the sign above her that reads ‘raam verhuur’ (windows for rent) will also be gone.
The 22-year-old was fed up. ‘I was thinking of quitting anyway,’ she said. ‘So this will make the final decision for me.’
As she spoke, a young, drunken man hollered, ’30 euros’. Looking slightly offended, she pointed across the canal and quietly said: ‘I think you should try that part of the district.’
Her building is one of those where the rent is highest and the sex most expensive. It is owned, like so many of the brothels, by property magnate Charlie Geerts, who gave up a year-long battle with the authorities last week and finally sold up.
In a deal worth £18m, officials will buy 18 buildings from Geerts – known as Amsterdam’s Emperor of Sex – and close down the ‘windows’. The final decision came from the city’s mayor, Job Cohen, who argued that the brothels were attracting crime and money-laundering to the area. ‘We want to get rid of the underlying criminality,’ he told a TV station last week.
Those who live above and beside the windows have been fairly supportive of the move. One man, who refused to be named, said that prostitution was a core part of the area and he did not want it to disappear completely.