Outdoor & Events
Two windows
Issue 14 | March 2010
Background
Amsterdam’s Red Light district has acquired a reputation for presenting an acceptable face of prostitution. It has even become a tourist destination. But there is another side to the story and it is altogether less acceptable.
The sex industry in the Netherlands is estimated to be worth $1 billion each year. Its 2000 brothels employ over 30,000 young women. 70% of them will have come from Eastern Europe. Many will have been trafficked.
Trafficking has been described as the ‘fastest growing criminal industry in the world’ with sales of human beings estimated to be worth $US 9 billion a year with some 27 million people trapped in slavery right now.
