Amsterdam’s new rules for Red Light District tourists

TOURISTS are going to have to watch their behaviour in Amsterdam’s red light district under sweeping new rules.

TOURISTS visiting Amsterdam’s red light district have been banned from staring at the sex workers.

The Sun reports the area — which is a magnet for curious tourists — features several streets where women pose in the shop windows in their underwear.

But visitors who take a tour down the lanes will now be asked to turn their backs on the windows while standing still, according to Dutch News.

The law, which will come into force in April, will also prevent anyone on a tour from shouting or taking drugs and alcohol.

Tour guides who don’t enforce these rules will be fined $303 and the tour companies will be fined $1500.

The new law comes after several human trafficking convictions were handing out in Dutch courts, which exposed the seedy underbelly of legalised prostitution in the Netherlands.

A window display in the city's Red Light District

The vice industry has enjoyed a long tradition of tolerance in Amsterdam, with sex workers said to earn more than $625 a day.

On the face of it, sex workers in the Dutch capital seem to be treated better than their counterparts anywhere else in the world.

They have their own union, police protection, frequent monitoring and testing and professional standards.

But many of the smiling girls have been ferried in from Eastern Europe by ruthless and brutal pimps who hand out beatings to those who don’t follow their rules, according to The Sun.

A new law is also being introduced to make it an offence, punishable by up to four years in jail, for punters to have sex with a prostitute they know — or suspect — has been trafficked.

In 2013, Jodie Marsh filmed a hard-hitting documentary about the dark side of prostitution — visiting Amsterdam among other cities as part of her research.

Some of the prostitutes claimed they loved their job but most admitted they were desperate, and 70 to 80 per cent of those in Amsterdam were victims of sex trafficking.

A neon sign advertising a peep show flashes in the red light district in Amsterdam, Netherlands. An Amsterdam judge has ruled that peep shows, where sex workers performing strip shows and explicit acts can be watched from booths, are a form of theater and club owners are entitled to a hefty tax break. "Admitting customers to peep shows is equivalent to admitting them to a theater performance", an Amsterdam appeals court judge wrote in a ruling. Cultural performances are taxed in a lower, 6 percent, bracket. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

“I was really shocked by what I saw. I saw all these working prostitutes in a place where it’s legal and meant to be safe,” she told Sun Online.

“You think the girls are there because they want to be there and they were just all off their heads on drugs.”

It was Amsterdam’s red light district that inspired Ms Marsh to make the film.

She sat in a window under a red light while men leered at her, to try to understand what being a working girl is like.

“Loads of blokes were looking at me like I was a piece of meat,” she said.

“These were men you’d never ever consider having sex with in a million years. It was gross but it was easy for me to sit there because I had that safety net and I wasn’t going to let anyone in.

“I was thinking, ‘These men think I’m for sale. I’m not but these girls are and when I leave here tonight, they’ll be back at work’.”

This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission.