Welcome to 'On Air'

The Netherlands
Dutch: Nederland,
is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located in North-West Europe. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east. The capital is Amsterdam and the seat of government is The Hague.




The Netherlands in its entirety is often referred to as Holland, although North and South Holland are actually only two of its twelve provinces (see terminology of "the Netherlands"). The word Dutch is used to refer to the people, the language, and anything pertaining to the Netherlands. This lexical difference between the noun and the adjective is an attribute of the English language that does not exist in the Dutch language. The adjective 'Dutch' is derived from the language that was spoken in the area, called 'Diets', which equals Middle Dutch.

The Netherlands was one of the first parliamentary democracies. Among other affiliations the country is a founding member of the European Union (EU), NATO, OECD and WTO. With Belgium and Luxembourg it forms the Benelux economic union. The country is host to five international courts: the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Court and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. The first four are situated in The Hague as is the EU's criminal intelligence agency Europol and judicial co-operation agency Eurojust. This has led to the city being dubbed "the world's legal capital". The Netherlands has a capitalist market-based economy, ranking 15th of 157 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom.





The Netherlands is a geographically low-lying country, with about 20% of its area and 21% of its population located below sea level, with 50% of its land lying less than one meter above sea level. Significant land area has been gained through land reclamation and preserved through an elaborate system of polders and dikes. Much of the Netherlands is formed by the estuary of three important European rivers, which together with their distributaries form the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta. Most of the country is very flat, with the exception of foothills in the far southeast and several low-hill ranges in the central parts.
Clients of prostitutes in the Netherlands may soon need to check for a sex license.
The Dutch cabinet said on Friday it wanted to crack down harder on the country's sex industry, in particular unlicensed sex operators, as part of efforts to combat human trafficking.
"That is why the cabinet wants to make it an offense to use the services of a sex operator without a license or a non-registered independent prostitute," the government said in a statement.
Prostitutes have plied their trade in the narrow alleys of the old center of Amsterdam for centuries.
While they used to attract sailors and merchants in the city's heyday as the heart of a global trading empire, they are now a huge tourist draw.
The Dutch cabinet officially legalized prostitution in 2000.
 Amsterdam, is fast-tracking a government bailout plan of their own. But instead of shoring up automakers, insurance companies or lending institutions, city planners are planning a boost for it's world renown sex industry.




Within the next two months, the Amsterdam city council plans to find a way to help bordello owners and the window-prostitutes who work for them gain credit and bank financing.

While prostitution is legal in Amsterdam, it's difficult for women who work in it's Red Light District, to obtain lines of credit or open regular bank accounts.

A spokesman with the city council said that Amsterdam considers prostitution a legitimate business and, like any other business, the entrepreneurs in question need access to bank credit.

‘For them it is a hazard that they can not get regular credit or help or mortgages or anything from a regular bank,’ said the spokesman.

The plan is part of Amsterdam’s “Project 1012,” which aims to make over the De Wallen neighborhood, which includes the Red Light District. The city plans to restrict the areas in which prostitution is allowed, and has already converted several buildings to housing and art galleries.

Melinda Tryst
The Weekly Vice
The Dutch prostitutes' pressure group De Rode Draad (The Red Thread), reports that the number of brothels in the Netherlands has decreased dramatically since they were legalised. The organisation notes, however, that the number of saunas and massage parlours has increased. It seems the illegal sector is growing.

Legalising prostitution seemed like a good idea on paper. In the year 2000, when the law banning brothels was abolished, it was believed this would significantly improve the working conditions of prostitutes. However, the Rode Draad was recently commissioned by the Ministry of Social Affairs to investigate the effects of legalising the trade. Against all expectations, the investigators came across all manner of abuses.

Employment contracts
Officially, legal prostitutes are free to work as self-employed business people, but in practice most work for sex companies where the owner (usually male) calls the shots. The Rode Draad says they have often signed crippling contracts that require them, for example, to work 16 hour shifts, to obey clothing requirements, never to turn down customers, et cetera.

They also discovered that the number of brothels has decreased. The number of women working in windows in the red light districts has nearly halved in six years time. Young customers, in particular, are put off by the "depressing atmosphere". The Rode Draad's spokeswoman Metje Blaak says the brothels are facing increasing competition from other illegal businesses in the sex industry.

"There are so many things - there's internet and lots of disguised brothels, like partner clubs and what have you, which also involve prostitution, although they keep that quiet. Then there are massage parlours where men are stimulated to ejaculation by the masseuses - all new developments - so there is less work for real prostitutes."
Escort agencies
The investigators do not believe prostitution has moved elsewhere. Escort agencies would be a logical choice, for example, since you do not need a licence to open an escort agency. The Rode Draad points out that the escort sector is not that attractive: it is more expensive and it has a poor reputation. The question is whether they are right, given that their investigation was limited to legal brothels.

Sex slavery
Even though prostitutes complain about their working conditions, things are much worse in the illegal circuit. Amsterdam councilor Roel van Duijn, who represents the GreenLeft party, has spent several years looking at the illegal sex circuit and the trade in women.

Although he admits figures are hard to arrive at, he estimates there are 10,000 prostitutes in Amsterdam. Only a few thousand work in the visible legal circuit. The illegal circuit is rife with sex slavery, as it is mostly illegal immigrants who are bought and sold. Roel is not only looking to end illegal prostitution, he also wants to abolish legal prostitution too.

"There is a tendency in the Netherlands which believes that prostitution is a normal economic activity which should be made legal. I don't agree. In practice, prostitution has always been an illegal area, one which often attracts women from problem backgrounds. It is a fact too that women who have worked as prostitutes often continue to suffer from their traumatic experiences."
Responsibility
If you go along with Roel van Duijn's argument, the responsibility has to shift to the prostitutes' customers. A bill is being readied in Germany which would make it an offense to visit a brothel where women have been forced into prostitution. In Sweden the customers are already regarded as the offenders. In other words, visiting prostitutes is not regarded as a normal activity in these countries. As long as it is still regarded as acceptable in the Netherlands, the position of prostitutes will not improve. Neither the legal nor the illegal prostitutes.


- What about prostitution in the rest of the country?
In 1999 there were estimated to be 25,000 prostitutes in the Netherlands, with 12,500 working at any one time at a total of 6,000 locations. Many were migrants. In the 1970s the majority of foreign prostitutes were from Thailand and the Philippines, in the 1980s from Latin America and the Caribbean. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in the late 1980s, many came from Central and Eastern Europe.

No more than one third were Dutch nationals, the remainder representing 44 nationalities. The majority were from the Dominican Republic, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Romania and Poland. No figures were available on illegal residents.
At the time, an estimated five percent of prostitutes were male and five percent transsexual, the majority being migrants. Ten percent of all prostitutes were drug addicts, the majority Dutch nationals or former Dutch nationals.

No recent estimates are available of the number of prostitutes in the Netherlands. Their numbers are assumed to have declined over the past few years, as a result of frequent inspections of licensed brothels by the police and tax authorities.

- How widespread is prostitution in the Netherlands?
Prostitution exists in almost a third of Dutch municipalities. It is concentrated in and around the big cities and in the border towns in the regions of Limburg, Groningen, Twente, West Brabant and Zeeland.

Prostitution occurs in various forms: ‘window’ and street prostitution, clubs, escort agencies and home-based prostitution. ‘Window’ prostitution occurs in 12 cities in the Netherlands. It is estimated that on average some 2,000 prostitutes are engaged daily in this form of prostitution.

Street prostitution exists in 10 Dutch cities and involves on average some 320 prostitutes daily. Between 3,500 and 4,000 prostitutes are employed daily in 600-700 clubs and private brothels.

The extent of other forms of prostitution such as escort agencies and home-based prostitution is less clear. The police, municipalities and municipal medical and health services do not have sufficient data on this. The only certainty is that home-based prostitution occurs in at least 17 municipalities and that escort agencies exist in at least 28 municipalities. The police estimate that over half of the total number of male and female prostitutes in the Netherlands are from abroad.

- How much power do local authorities have in regulating prostitution?
Local authorities formulate their own policies on the establishment and location of brothels and can therefore decide whether they may be established and, if so, where they may be located. They may also refuse to allow certain forms of prostitution, such as window soliciting. They may for example withdraw a licence or refuse to grant one if:

• the owner of a brothel is unable to produce a police clearance certificate issued by the local authorities
• the intended location conflicts with zoning plans
• the brothel employs a minor or an illegal resident or any person under coercion
• it is in the interest of public order
• it makes the area less desirable to live or work in.
   

Permission to run a brothel may not be refused on moral or ethical grounds.