Stavast is compiling a protocol with sex workers, club owners and other people from the red-light district to lobby policymakers on how sex work can safely resume before September.
“The reason to put it on the last group is really strange, especially because it’s always one to one, and not in a crowd or whatever,” Stavast said. “If everything goes all right on July 1, there can be 100 people together, why not one to one then with all the protection that everybody has?”
Many sex workers are excluded from the billions of dollars of government support offered to overcome economic hardship due to coronavirus lockdown measures. The reasons for their exclusion varies, from not being registered at the chamber of commerce, to working in private clubs that fall under different labour laws.
The Netherlands was one of the first countries in the world to regulate sex work in 2000, but a new national proposed law would force sex workers to acquire permits. At the same time, the city of Amsterdam wants to limit window prostitution in the centre.
Yvette Luhrs, a sex worker who mostly works online, is also a rights activist aligned with the Prostitution Information Center in Amsterdam. Luhrs worries about the future of sex work in the Netherlands after coronavirus.
“The city council of Amsterdam but also the national government, they’re both in the procedure of creating new laws and regulations around sex work and they turn out to be very restrictive,” Luhrs said. “And the fact that the brothels are closed now and people are in this corona scare, we assume they will use this crisis to push their new laws.”
The United Nations stated in April that sex workers across the world are reporting a lack of access to coronavirus emergency social protection schemes, and urged countries to not leave sex workers behind in their response to the virus. The red-light district has been located along the canals of Amsterdam since the 15th century. It attracts millions of tourists each year.Â