AMSTERDAM Update 1/21/04
Oudkerk resigns over prostitution scandal but
Public Thinks City Officials Should be Able to Visit Prostitutes if They
Wish
20 January 2004
AMSTERDAM — Alderman Rob Oudkerk bowed to the inevitable last night and
resigned from his position on Amsterdam City Council following
revelations he frequented a streetwalking zone for drug-addicted
prostitutes. After meeting with his Labour PvdA party colleagues on
Monday night, Oudkerk, the city alderman in charge of education and
social affairs policy, went before the media cameras to signal the end
of his political career.
When asked by a reporter what he intended to do now, a defiant Oudkerk
replied: "I am going to go home and have a drink — something which is
still legal in this country — then I am going to bed. Tomorrow morning I
am going to bring my children to school where I hope there will be fewer
cameras". Oudkerk, 49, a family doctor by profession married with two
children, had previously claimed his visits to prostitutes were a
private matter.
His resignation comes as an opinion poll found that 63 percent of the
Dutch public felt his indiscretions were not reason to step down and 73
percent said aldermen and women, plus council officials should be
allowed to visit prostitutes if they wanted to. Many of Oudkerk's
political colleagues in the Labour party PvdA, and even his political
opponents agreed with this point of view.
Several politicians in The Hague became aware of his nocturnal
activities when a threat was made in 2000 to blackmail him with photos
of him visiting prostitutes while he was an MP. He left Parliament in
2002 to become an alderman in Amsterdam. It was reported on Monday that
the selection community that vetted him for the job were unaware of the
blackmail attempt or his liking for prostitutes. But the nail in the
coffin of Oudkerk's career came in the last few days when it emerged he
was a regular on the Theemsweg in Amsterdam. A special zone had been set
up there in 1995 as a safe environment to allow Dutch women addicted to
hard drugs to work as prostitutes. A meeting of the PvdA faction on the
Amsterdam Council agreed on Monday night that Oudkerk's position was
untenable because the council was debating in 2002 — when it seems
Oudkerk might still have been a regular client — to close the area down
due to rampant illegal activity in the area. Councillors acted on
reports from the police that guns and drugs were being traded on the
Theemsweg and that many of the women working there were illegal
immigrants and were the victims of human traffickers. Mayor Job Cohen
and the executive committee — made up of all aldermen and women,
including Oudkerk — voted to abolish the zone. It officially closed down
in December 2003.
But Amsterdam is not turning its back on sex completely. The city's Red
Light District of bars and whores will stay, and in fact, the city
council voted in February 2003 against banning the sale of sex between
3-6am. Supporters of the proposed ban claimed it would reduce crime and
disturbances cause by public drunkenness in a city district which
attracts three million tourists every year.
It was decided, however, that Amsterdam and window sex go hand-in-hand,
but when it came to street prostitution, the council said it no longer
wished to operate an area where women continually fell victim to human
traffickers. Mayor Job Cohen said the situation was a "devils dilemma"
because it "appeared impossible to create a safe and controllable zone
for women that was not open to abuse by organised crime". But he also
said uncontrollable street prostitution could spread again across the
city.
Ironically, it was this spread that led to the creation of the zone, an
area where women addicted to drugs could work safely as prostitutes
without causing a public nuisance. Police patrolled the area, medical
services and social work were offered to the sex workers and private,
screened areas were set up for the nitty gritty. A fence surrounded the
zone and prostitutes said they felt safe working there. But the target
group of women was hardly seen. Instead, illegal immigrants were the
main attraction and it attracted Eastern European crime gangs. A
investigation by research bureau DSP indicated the number of prostitutes
in the zone had declined from 130 to 50 per night. But it also revealed
a large majority of the remaining street walkers were illegal
immigrants.
The windows remain open
Amsterdam is not alone, however, in moving against street prostitution
and the proposed closure of the tolerated zone in Rotterdam at the end
of 2005 has also sparked heated discussion. But up until now,
Rotterdam's executive council has only said that prostitution will in
future occur in an "accessible, controllable" erotica centre or brothel.
But while Rotterdam street prostitutes await official answers about
their future, it appears increasingly likely that the Dutch experiment
with tolerated, police-patrolled street prostitution zones offering
medical and social work assistance to sex workers is on the way out.
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