A Stroll Through Amsterdam’s Red Light District by Huub Prickaert in the 1990s

 

Huub Prickaerts was walking around the De Wallen area of Amsterdam’s red light district between 1993 and 1996. Prickaerts moved to the Dutch capital in the early 1990s after a client agreed to let him stay in his home in exchange for keeping an eye on his restaurant. Things have changed since then.

“Since the photos were taken, the whole district changed,” he says. “A continuously increasing number of tourists clutter De Wallen. Even window sex workers protest. Tourists are often rude to the women. With the help of Airbnb and comparable organisations, Amsterdam gets more and more fake-inhabitants.”

 

 

The battle for Amsterdam’s soul is hot. The city’s mayor plans to transfer the famed red light district to an out-of-town “erotic centre”. It’s a move designed to rid Amsterdam of prostitutes and its image as a “sin city” full of British Stage dos up for a ‘messy weekend’ while reducing the number of tourists and crime in the area.

But the prostitutes are not the problem. The Dutch approach to prostitution is that selling sex will always exist, so the smart things is to keep it under control by making it legal and taxing it. Sex workers are registered with the chamber of commerce and the city council. They are obliged by law to have health insurance and regular medicals.

Foxxy Angel, of the Proud Dutch union for sex workers, says the system works. And advertising sex work in windows offers both safety and security – and the chance to look at a  client in the eye before opening the door to them.

But the internet offers a bigger window. But sex workers argue that the web and mo ing them away from the city centre isolates them from public view, increasing competition between sex workers, and making it harder to turn down punters.

 

 

De Wallen: Fotos by Huub Prickaerts 1993-1996 is out now.