Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice to Lawful Business (27 page)

Brothels and third-party involvement were outlawed in the Netherlands in 1911, and street prostitution was prohibited in most areas as well. The law was not strictly enforced, but with brothels now illegal, prostitutes transitioned to bars, massage salons, tobacco shops, and their own homes. In the area that is now the main red-light district, some women began sitting behind curtained windows, fully clothed and using mirrors to see approaching men, who were then alerted with hand signals and window tapping. Over time, the curtains were gradually opened, and soliciting became much less clandestine.
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Photos at the National Archives show women sitting behind windows in the 1930s and 1940s—hence, the origins of today’s much more visible window prostitution. By the 1950s and 1960s, this red-light area was becoming “an exciting but also cozy entertainment district,” offering not only sex for pay but also dance halls and other attractions that gave the area “great international fame.”
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By the 1970s, some cities in the Netherlands had become a haven for prostitution, and sex entrepreneurs throughout the country enjoyed considerable freedom in running their (technically illegal) businesses. In the early 1990s, some city governments began to regulate prostitution by conducting periodic visits to brothels and windows and even licensing such places—an example of de facto legalization, described in
chapter 4
and the current regime in Antwerp. In the Netherlands, de facto legalization (which also applies to marijuana) typically originates at the local, municipal level but can also gain acceptance from the national government when, for instance, the Ministry of Justice certifies a practice in policy documents, including directives to prosecutors
regarding when to enforce the law and when not to.
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The legal grounds for this categorical nonenforcement is the state’s power to refrain from prosecution if it is in the public interest to do so. The vice remains unlawful, but enforcement is formally suspended by the government.

In Amsterdam, brothel and window owners in the 1990s were responsible for ensuring that their place did not interfere with public order, that certain amenities were present (e.g., a restroom), and that minors or illegal immigrants were not working on the premises. The police occasionally checked workers and removed those who were ineligible, and a few brothels were forced to close in the mid-1990s because illegal workers were discovered there.
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However, this nascent monitoring system was much more limited than it is today. As Amsterdam’s official adviser on prostitution policy stated in 1992, “As long as they obey the regulations and do not employ minors, the municipality will leave them alone.”
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And most of the limited oversight that did take place was directed at window prostitution in red-light districts, rather than at brothels or other venues outside those districts.
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This fairly minimalist approach was problematic: (1) it gave the authorities little opportunity to distinguish good from bad owners since all of them were technically operating illegally; (2) monitoring was sporadic and selective;
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and (3) officials had no legal leverage to force owners to improve working conditions. It also created insecurity among proprietors, who feared that their tolerated venues could be closed at any time. As the director of a brothel owners’ association told me in 1997, “These days you have to invest a lot of money when you have a club. It’s a big investment, and you need security. And when we are illegal, tomorrow the community can come and say, ‘Close this place. It’s not [legally] allowed.’ Finished.”
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A desire for stability and security explains why the brothel owners themselves pushed for legalization at this time.

The sex industry grew from the 1970s through the 1990s, becoming “so complex that its regulation badly needed more precise instruments, but existing laws had very little to offer.”
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This period also witnessed growing involvement of organized crime in Amsterdam’s main red-light district, which took the form of illegal drug operations, protection rackets, and control over who could own real estate (cafes, hotels, gambling arcades) in the area.
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A government investigation of organized crime in 1996 led to efforts to clean up the RLD, which, in turn, generated proposals for formally regulating prostitution.

A public opinion poll in 1997 reported that 73 percent of Dutch citizens favored the legalization of prostitution, and 74 percent regarded prostitution as an acceptable job.
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Two years later, 78 percent of the population agreed with
the idea that “prostitution is a job like any other, as long as there is no coercion involved.”
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The World Values Survey shows that the Netherlands is more tolerant of prostitution than are other European nations (except Switzerland) and that this tolerant attitude has not changed in recent years: in the 1990 and 2005 surveys, only 20 percent of Dutch citizens felt that prostitution can “never be justified”; by contrast, more than twice as many French respondents hold the “never justified” opinion—46 percent in 1990 and 41 percent in 2005—and Italians and Poles are even less tolerant, with 58 percent in each country selecting “never justified” in the 2005 poll.
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Widespread Dutch tolerance and a decade of debate on new legislation in the 1990s (during which the idea of law reform gained credibility) created a favorable climate for legalization and culminated in landmark legislation amending the penal code in 2000. All the secular parties voted in favor of the bill, while the religious parties opposed it.

Importantly, there were no influential interest groups in the Netherlands opposing legalization in the late 1990s, and the dominant discourse portrayed prostitution as work rather than domination.
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The legislation of 2000 recognized sex workers as service providers and sought to make sex work more transparent and manageable. In defending the bill, the Minister of Justice stated, “Prostitution has existed for a long time and will continue to do so. … Prohibition is not the way to proceed. … One should allow for voluntary prostitution. The authorities can then regulate prostitution, [and] it can become healthy, safe, transparent, and cleansed from criminal side-effects.”
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The 2000 legislation removed the ban on third-party involvement (e.g., running a brothel), provided for the formal licensing of sex businesses, designated prostitution as labor (subject, in theory, to labor law and employee rights), distinguished “forced” from “voluntary” prostitution, and generally sought to empower prostitutes. Other provisions include the following:

• It is a criminal offense to engage in any type of coercion, including threats and deception, in recruitment or in work requirements. Those who force an adult into prostitution or profit from a coerced adult’s prostitution face a maximum of six years in prison.

• Minors (under age 18) are ineligible. Minors who are caught are not subject to arrest and punishment but instead are assisted to leave prostitution. Anyone who induces a minor into prostitution or profits from the prostitution of a minor may receive up to six years in prison (if the minor is under 16, the sanction increases to ten years incarceration).

• Clients of prostitutes under age 18 are liable to punishment (clients of individuals under 16 were already punishable under the penal code).

In addition to these statutory provisions, the federal government has attempted to create some uniformity across the country with published guidelines that recommend a particular kind of licensing system, a code of conduct for the police and other local authorities, procedures for identifying and assisting trafficked workers, and methods for conducting background checks on owners and managers.
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Citizens of European Union (EU) countries are allowed to work in member nations, and this applies to sex work where it is legal. A non-EU citizen working in the Netherlands is treated as an illegal immigrant, and brothel owners risk losing their license if they employ such persons. Facing risk of deportation, illegal immigrants who wish to sell sex in the Netherlands have no recourse but to engage in illegal and riskier work in underground establishments or as independent operators.

Aside from these general norms and guidelines, the 2000 law delegated to local governments most of the responsibility for devising and enforcing regulations. A municipality cannot prohibit individuals from selling sex, nor can it outlaw prostitution businesses on moral grounds, but it can limit them for pragmatic reasons. All large municipalities (over 100,000 residents) now have licensed prostitution venues, but smaller jurisdictions differ (in 2006, 31 percent of municipalities with less that 40,000 residents had at least one licensed sex establishment, but many small towns have no such businesses).
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To prevent the expansion of the sex industry, most cities cap the number of such establishments.
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As in many other countries, street prostitution in the Netherlands was long associated with drug abuse, violence, and risky sexual practices. In order to address these problems, designated tolerance zones were created in the mid-1980s, called
Tippelzones
(strolling zones). These areas were usually located away from residential neighborhoods, and Amsterdam’s was on the outskirts of the city. The
Tippelzones
were intended to serve as a safe area for those who wanted to work outdoors, and each contained a kiosk offering food and drink, condoms, medical advice, a restroom with showers, and couches for relaxation. Upstairs, police or care workers could observe activities in the zone unobtrusively.
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In cities with a
Tippelzone
, street prostitution outside the zone was a misdemeanor offense and was subject to intensified enforcement once a
Tippelzone
had been created.
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Without such enforcement, most
Tippelzones
would have attracted few workers due to their remoteness from the central city.

From the beginning, a large proportion of the zone prostitutes were illegal immigrants from other countries.
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Typically younger and healthier than the local, drug-addicted women working in the zones, the foreigners were a competitive threat to the locals. Illegal workers were periodically arrested and deported to their home countries, largely Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania. Over time, the zones became overcrowded (resulting in lower prices) and increasingly populated by foreign workers; approximately 300 worked in Amsterdam’s
Tippelzone
.
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With growing media attention to these problems,
Tippelzones
were closed in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague, though they remain in Utrecht, Eindhoven, and Arnhem. As an evaluation of the zones concluded, “The success of the
Tippelzone
appears to have been its downfall, as the number of prostitutes using the zone increased exponentially and the zone could no longer be controlled.”
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Closure of Amsterdam’s zone has not increased the number of street workers elsewhere in the city, which remain few in number.

Apart from the remaining
Tippelzones
, prostitution exists primarily in window rooms, brothels, clubs, hotels, and private residences. The Netherlands does not have German-style hotel-brothels and has only a few FKK-style sauna clubs (near the border with Germany), and bar prostitution is not as blatant or abundant as in Germany. Also unlike Germany, the Netherlands has a significant window-prostitution sector. Compared to other sectors, window prostitution in the Netherlands offers the greatest safety to workers, the best working conditions, and the highest income.
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Window prostitution accounts for approximately 20 percent of the Dutch sex trade; the remainder work in brothels (25 percent) and as escorts and at home (50 percent), with only 1 percent in street prostitution.
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There are no reliable national figures on the number of individuals working in each sector, but a 2010 survey of Amsterdam reported the following: 686 individuals working in brothels; 1,408 escorts working either independently or for an agency; 1,680 working out of their own residence; 40–45 working on the street; and a daily minimum of 570 working in window units (the number exceeding the minimum fluctuates during the year).
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Other prostitutes work in massage parlors, bars, or other venues. The study found that there was fairly little mobility from one sector to another, but workers did move from city to city to tap into new markets.

Window prostitution is the most visible form of sex for sale and attracts the most attention from the authorities. About a dozen Dutch cities have window prostitution, and each red-light landscape differs from the others. Amsterdam’s main RLD is unique because it is large, centrally located, and
multipurpose. In other Dutch cities the RLDs are outside the historic city center, relatively pristine, constitute a monoculture (not nestled among other businesses), and the adjacent streets are largely residential. Almost all of the RLDs are open access; the lack of screening or entry fees allows anyone to enter these zones. Exceptions include Haarlem and Leeuwarden, where some of the houses have a turnstile and require a small fee to enter. The Hague has the largest number of window units in the Netherlands: its two window districts are outside the city center, with few shops or cafes nearby. Alkmaar’s windows line a quiet cobblestone street, whereas Eindhoven has a distinctive courtyard enclave where the windowed buildings face each other. Utrecht has one window zone and a unique district where women work on canal boats. Haarlem’s small window area is right next to a church several blocks from the town’s central square. None of these tranquil red-light districts comes anywhere close to the circus atmosphere of Amsterdam’s large RLD. In the smaller, more conservative towns, the RLD is usually situated away from the historic city center in order to keep vice out of public view. The second-largest city, Rotterdam, has no window prostitution; community groups succeeded in closing the city’s window zone three decades ago.