Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.
Display:
A bit wary about getting into cars: protecting prostitutes in Europe. | 35 comments (35 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
Re: Prostitution (none / 0)
I heard they have the same system in other dutch towns (Haarlem?)  Do they have the same problems?  I think Amsterdam's key problem is that it is the only (as far as I know) (semi-)legally socially liberal town in the whole of Europe, so it gets an unnatural amount of traffic (of all kinds) for its size.  Hords of english, germans, russians, men from all over flocking to a few streets...

I don't know what the numbers are...is the number of non-dutch using (and abusing) the system high?

I read a report once, by two UK policemen who went to Amsterdam and reported back on differences in the system.  They were very impressed by the dutch system, where the arresting officers don't book the person in, and the booking officer doesn't take them to the cells...breaking the emotional chain.  I can't remember if it was in that report that they talked of the way the police deal with organised crime.  I think you would have to compare the Amsterdam (and dutch?) system with how organised crime acts (and is dealt with) in other european towns...I don't know.

But it's still the best system I've seen.  In Italy...the african women with their chairs, one every five hundred yards along country lanes...  First time I saw a woman standing by the road in the middle of nowhere, I thought her car must have broken down; then I thought, hold on, there's no car...  I was slowing down, but she was just standing there...and round the bend...another....then another....

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Thu Dec 14th, 2006 at 04:06:31 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Prostitution (4.00 / 4)
Other Dutch cities largely have the same system as Amsterdam, though Amsterdam is by far the largest town for prostitution. I don't know what the percentages of foreign clients are, my guess is that it's pretty high in the red district but not so big outside of it. On the side of Amsterdam where I used to live (west part of the city centre) I'd say almost all the clients were Dutch (and men between 40 and 60).

I'm a bit behind the times on the issue, it seems, I found out through a google search that the city government has been getting tough on criminality in the sector, withdrawing the permits for 20% of the locations because of ties to criminality last November 30th as part of its first of three 'screenings'. This kind of shows how big the problem was.

Organised crime is probably big in every major European city. Here in Berlin there's a lot of Turkish and Russian mafia. In Amsterdam there's a big local underworld, as well as Yugoslav, Bulgarian and Israeli mafia. (This is what I get from the buzz, more or less, I have my finger on the pulse of the underworld and all that jazz, you know, by which I mean to say that I don't know).

by nanne (zwaerdenmaecker@gmail.com) on Thu Dec 14th, 2006 at 04:51:46 PM EST
[ Parent ]

A bit wary about getting into cars: protecting prostitutes in Europe. | 35 comments (35 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
Display: