Hotels in Amsterdam

The city council to help sex workers gain access to banks

Prostitution is legal in Netherlands and Amsterdam’s red light area is one of the major tourists attractions, but unfortunately the ladies in minis peeing and tapping through the mini windows of the red light district fail to get accounts as customers from the major banks and mainstream institutions.

The city council has now turned its attention to this problem and has decided to take a move to help these bordello owners and sex workers gain more access to banks with its “Project 1012″ to remake the De Wallen neighborhood, which includes the sex district. The council said that it will come with some sort of conclusion within the next two months on what it might do to help the industry.

“Up until now, it’s been very difficult for people in the sex industry to get credit with the banks,” a city council spokesman said on Friday adding, “For them it is a hazard that they can not get regular credit or help or mortgages or anything from a regular bank.”

“It’s more that we’re going to investigate and talk with bankers and try to set up a system in which they can get a loan or credit,” the spokesman said adding that the city wants to ensure that prostitution is a “bona fide” industry, and that the “entrepreneurs” who ply the local trade need access to regular bank credit for legitimacy.

The Project 1012 – named for the area’s postcode – aims to restrict prostitution to a few tightly controlled areas in a long term and under this approach it has already bought a number of buildings that formerly housed red light windows and converted them into art galleries or housing.