Having made terrible experiences with window #prostitution in Amsterdam, the city plans to build a mega-brothel euphemistically called an "erotic center" instead. 100 women in rooms plus social and health service, security, hospitality, entertainment, education & cultural events.
In Germany, we call these places "mega brothels" and we have many of them. The biggest is the Pascha brothel in Cologne with 150 individual rooms. Such places may also include strip clubs, restaurants, spaces for concerts and business meetings. None of this has made women safe.
Not only are mega-brothels dehumanizing to the women in it, presenting them often based on "flavor" as in sorted by race or transgender status, bouncers and cameras have not made them remotely safe. The Pascha in Cologne has seen drug and human trafficking + 1 murder & 2 attempts
In the Pascha brothel in Salzburg Austria, an 18-year-old woman from Romania gave birth to a baby which she threw out the window in traumatic distress. The pregnancy had supposedly gone unnoticed by brothel operators and "guests". spiegel.de/panorama/justi…
The Paradise mega-brothel by Stuttgart is another example: For years owners toured German media boasting about their "ethical system" which included an in-house gynecologist. All women were registered with authorities. The brothel has since busted for systematic human trafficking
Mega-brothels are usually situated in smaller, more rural communities because johns value privacy or in poorer communities because residents cannot fight back. At 50,000 residents any German town is obligated to designate legal space for the building of a brothel, no recourse.
Mega-brothels may also be in city centers, usually in designated red light areas, which sometimes bar entry for all non-prostituted women. I repeat: There are areas in Germany that women who are not in prostitution may not enter. indianexpress.com/article/expres…
One reason (non-prostituted) women are often barred from brothels is because the men in them want to be undisturbed and owners worry female visitors would experience harassment. Because drunkenness, drugs and misogyny spill out of brothels - as Amsterdam knows all to well...
How exactly Amsterdam city governments expects anything about their "erotic center" mega-brothel experiment to run differently from Germany I don't comprehend. There is no reason why misogyny and violence should disappear from an industry that has it built into its foundation.
Cameras, bouncers, hundreds of people in the building have not prevented violent & organized crime. Women do not generally like to enter or be near brothels. Minors and young people do not learn credible sex ed from red light districts. They won't suddenly do so now in Amsterdam.
If you want to know more about what legal mega-brothels are actually like have a look at my series giving an inside look at Paradise brothel by Stuttgart and all the things off about it even before it went bust for sex trafficking:
Read about Amsterdam's plans for an "ethical" and "safe" industrial-scale brothel here: nltimes.nl/2023/02/16/ams… The brothel will be run by a private sector actor. State-run brothels do not exist anywhere far as I know. Not that I'd expect it to make much difference.
@CATWIntl @RedFemBlack @FemalePolitical @WomenReadWomen @FiLiA_charity @hesse_genevieve @Bd_Nord_Modell @ReduxxMag
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