Amsterdam prostitutes protest closure of their windows

Scores of prostitutes took to the streets of Amsterdam on Thursday to protest moves to rejuvenate the city’s famed Red Light District by shuttering windows where scantily-clad sex workers pose to attract clients. About 200 people - prostitutes and their supporters who wore masks to protect their identities - marched through the Red Light District carrying red umbrellas and banners including one that read: “Don’t save us, save our windows!”

Sex is a legal career in the Netherlands and we need support, we want to be taken seriously by politicians. We are, nonetheless, being treated like pariahs and kicked out of the neighbourhood without anyone asking our opinion.

Spokeswoman for the prostitutes cited by Dutch press agency ANP

Amsterdam municipality is involved in a long-term initiative to reinvigorate the historic network of canal-side streets and narrow alleys in part by reducing the number of brothel windows. Some 115 of the 500 windows have been closed in recent years.Dozens more had been slated for closure, but that now appears unlikely to happen. Officials said the women were fighting a battle they had already won, telling them that the municipal council now wants to spend less money buying back windows and will likely reduce the number considerably. That didn’t satisfy the protesters, who said they wanted their windows back.

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