SEX workers in Amsterdam have hit back at plans to end red light district tours, claiming guides are often helpful in educating tourists in acting respectfully to the women.
They also fear the fall in foot traffic will affect their earnings, due to the lower foot traffic.
AP:Associated Press
Sex workers’ union Proud questioned whether banning tours will reduce tourist numbers and argued that guides educated visitors and encouraged them to behave more respectfully toward the women.
A worker known as Velvet, who is also the advocacy coordinator for Proud, said: “It could also be that now there are no guides that people just wander into the area themselves and gawk at the women behind the window and take photos because there is no one anymore to inform them how to behave or what the rules of the game are in this area.”
One woman wrote on Twitter: “I am a sex worker in the Red Light District. And no, we are not happy with Amsterdam’s war on tourism.
“The majority of our clientele are tourists. No tourist is no income for us.”
Bobien van Aalst of the Dutch tour guide association Guidor slammed the ban on tours, not just to the red light district but to other historic parts of the city.
The ban includes guided tours for groups of 15 people or more in the surrounding area as well, according to Dutch News, with only accredited guides able to host tours.
Bobien said it means guides won’t be able to explain to tourists where Rembrandt van Rijn painted one of his first famous works or where the painter’s wife is buried.
She explained: “I mean it’s like in Paris if you’re forbidding (tours) to go to the Arc de Triomphe or the Eiffel Tower.”
AP:Associated Press
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However, Amsterdam’s deputy mayor Udo Kock told The Associated Press that the district was becoming too crowded with tourists.
“I mean there were evenings where… residents basically couldn’t leave their homes anymore because the alleys were blocked.”
Udo previously explained: “We do not consider it appropriate for tourists to leer at sex workers.”
People who work in Amsterdam’s sex industry question whether there are more tourists, or whether similar numbers are squeezing into a red light district that has shrunk in recent years as hundreds of the sex workers’ windows have been shuttered in an attempt to diversify the narrow streets.
Udo acknowledges that not everybody is happy, but says many others are pleased that the city is tackling the tours.
AP:Associated Press
AP:Associated Press
The red light district is a tourist magnet, especially after dark, with crowds of people waiting to get into sex shows and visiting the Red Light Secrets Museum of Prostitution, where you can experience the windows from a sex worker’s perspective by sitting on a stool in front of a “window” onto which images are projected of men walking past and peering in.
The museum’s manager, Natascha Flipsen, agrees that guided tours help educate the visitors not just about the history of the centuries-old red light district, but also about how to treat the women who work there with respect.
She said that tourism is good for the business: “This is like the once in a lifetime experience, so they visit the sex work as well of course.”
Research suggests up to 1,000 group tours frequent the red light district every week, which has become popular with tourists wanting to see the area.
AP:Associated Press
AP:Associated Press
The city has seen surge in tourists, with numbers expected to hit 29 million by 2030 – compared to the 800,000 people who live there.
Yet city authorities have claimed that men from the UK are causing trouble while visiting the city on stag dos and pub crawls, with the red light district being a common area for them to visit.
It was reported last year that the city has become a “lawless jungle” at night, with police unable to control the drug dealing and street racing that are common.
Shop workers in the De Wallen area of the red light district slammed tourists who continue to take selfies in the area.
This puts some the sex workers at risk, with many keeping their profession hidden from their friends and family.
Amsterdam has been enforcing strict rules to curb tourists who behave badly, Sun Online Travel previously reported.
The red light district has been forced to introduce “mop-up breaks” to clean the areas due to the amount of vomit.
Tourist taxes and large fines for bad behaviour in the streets have also been introduced in recent years.
