Utrecht could ban at-home prostitution

Utrecht is against prostitution in homes. Part of the municipal council had proposed at-home prostitution as a temporary solution for the women who have been unable to work as prostitute in Utrecht since 2013. According to a letter that Mayor Jan van Zanen sent to the council on Thursday, the city administration fears disturbances in the neighborhoods, too little monitoring of the activities, risk of abuse and a thread to public health. Zanen also pointed out that home prostitution is not allowed in other major cities. In the past Utrecht has acted against women working as prostitutes from home 24 times. Among them were four women who formerly rented a room on a sex boat on Zandpad. Utrecht cancelled all the permits of these sex boats because of abuse. Van Zanen writes that Utrecht can again have sex windows in the spring of 2017. These will be in containers in the Zandpad area. The municipality wanted to organize this earlier, but could not find an investor. This caused so many delays that organizing a temporary location for window prostitutes no longer makes sense. If everything now runs as expected, permission for the construction of a new prostitution zone will be granted at the end of next year. This construction should be finished about a year later. In the planning, the municipality has already taken into account an objection session at the Council of State. An investor still has to be found, but the council has a new, as of yet unrevealed, plan. Council party GroenLinks is unsatisfied with the mayor's letter. "It is all too slow. The council does not emit urgency. All sex workers will soon disappear from our radar." GroenLinks wants the municipality to build a prostitution zone itself if necessary, and put the operation in the hands of a social organization. The party is considering to again raise the temporary home prostitution proposal.