City Helps Dutch Prostitutes Form a Cooperative Brothel

AMSTERDAM — In this city, renowned for its openness and transparency, lots of windows have no curtains.

Marijuana and hashish are sold out of regulated coffee shops, perfectly within the law.

In the city’s red light district, prostitutes can be seen behind large windows.

Prostitution is legal in the Netherlands. But in the last decade, the mayor’s office has been trying to weed out the red light district’s human trafficking and exploitation.

This year, with the help of a progressive-minded mayor, Eberhard van der Laan, a group of former and active prostitutes has set up its own brothel, My Red Light. It is the Netherlands’ first official cooperative of prostitutes.

Not everyone likes the idea, among them some fellow prostitutes who are suspicious of the city’s involvement.

Lyle Muns, a male prostitute who is on the board of My Red Light, said the project, begun in May, was a work in progress.

“I am really passionate about this project and I believe it could work, but it is also an experiment, right?” Mr. Muns said. “We haven’t succeeded, until My Red Light is run mostly by sex workers and we are making a profit.”

The city helped a social investment fund buy four buildings that it rents to My Red Light. When the group starts to make a profit, it plans to invest the money in workshops and other programs for the prostitutes, like business training and language classes, said Justine Le Clercq, a spokeswoman.

My Red Light engaged t he award- winning Dutch furniture company Lensvelt, which chose the interior design architect Janpaul Scholtmeijer, of Vens Architecten.

“In the end, what was most important for the sex workers was that the spaces were easy to clean and hygienic,” Mr. Scholtmeijer said.

The prostitutes also requested that a small locker be built within the bed frame with a slit to insert cash. There was a lot of discussion as to where to place panic buttons.

About 75 percent of all prostitutes are from Eastern or Central Europe, outside the European Union, with the remaining 25 percent Dutch, or from South or Central America, according to the mayor’s office in Amsterdam.

Some members of the city’s only official network of prostitutes, Proud, have criticized My Red Light. Some members threatened to sue the group after not getting the management positions they said they were promised. My Red Light responded that the women had marks on their records, and that if it hired them, My Red Light would lose its license.

“It’s just another brothel,” said Yvette Luhrs, a spokeswoman for Proud.

Ms. Luhrs said that what prostitutes really wanted was to be allowed to run their business out of their homes without being bothered by the police. The city says that in order to control human trafficking and protect the well- being of independent prostitutes, the police have to make regular checks.

Jolanda de Boer, a public prosecutor, said that after overseeing so many cases of abused prostitutes, she is skeptical that prostitution can be normalized. “Stop saying that it’s the oldest profession in the world,” she said. “Women and the disadvantaged have always been exploited, and we should not accept that.”

Ms. Le Clercq, the My Red Light spokeswoman, said: “There are, of course, connections between human trafficking and prostitution, but there are also connections between crime and the flower industry and crime and building houses. There are really people who want to do this work, so just let them do it.”