Red Light Area

Growing up in a quiet, middle-class suburb outside of Amsterdam, childhood best friends Anna and Olivia had their whole lives ahead of them. But every parent's worst nightmare came true when the teenagers fell in with the wrong crowd. Eleven years their senior, Ricardo was charming and good-looking - and Anna and Olivia easy prey. Blind to his grooming, the girls were soon trapped in a terrifying cycle of sexual and physical abuse. But their nightmare was only just beginning. Trafficked to the neon-lit windows of Amsterdam's Red Light District, Anna and Olivia were forced to work as prostitutes, servicing countless men night after night against their will. Body for Rent reveals the disturbing truth behind Amsterdam's Red Light District, and the shocking ease with which ordinary girls can be exploited. But despite the unimaginable horrors they endured, the damage done to their bodies and their minds, their friendship remained as strong as ever, giving them hope that one day, they would escape...

In 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in Canada v. Bedford that key prostitution laws were unconstitutional. Red Light Labour addresses the new legal regime regulating sex work by analyzing how laws and those who uphold them have constructed, controlled, and criminalized sex workers, their clients, and their workspaces. This groundbreaking collection also offers nuanced interpretations of commercial sexual labour from the perspectives of workers, activists, and researchers. The contributors highlight the struggle for civic and social inclusion by considering sex workers’ advocacy tactics, successes, and challenges. A timely legal, policy, and social analysis of sex work in Canada.

Taboo! is a journey of discovery into a famous red light district of Lahore, Pakistan, known as Shahi Mohalla, the Royal Bazaar, or Heera Mandi, the market of diamonds. The phenomenon of prostitution coupled with music and dance performances has ancient roots in South Asia. Regardless of the stigma attached to the prostitution, it has given birth for centuries to many well-known performing artists. The book captures a more realistic picture of the phenomenon through the stories of the people living there: the musicians, the prostitutes and their pimps, managers and customers. These people are struggling to make a living by following ancient traditions, yet not knowing clearly where they fit in the larger picture of present day society. Taboo! helps eradicate a blind spot in our understanding of the power relations associated with gender roles throughout our society.

This book unravels the lives, needs and experiences of Nigerian and Ghanaian women working in prostitution in Brussels. This volume casts a light on the working conditions and the experiences of 38 women of Nigerian and Ghanaian origin, whose daily struggles and challenges are recalled from interviews in the field. Working within the red-light district of Brussels, an area with high crime rates and lacking in basic healthcare provision, the women are faced with a number of issues on a daily basis, ranging from security and health-related concerns, to work-related stress, discrimination and perceived stigma. Full voice is given to their stories, as well as contributions from state actors and local inhabitants, with the chief aim of building safe and healthy places for both residents and workers alike. The authors conclude in presenting clear recommendations and tools for practitioners and policy makers, designed to improve the outcomes of migrant women working not just within the red-light district of Brussels, but also within wider European and global contexts. This book will be of particular interest for researchers and students of Migration Politics, Development Studies, Social Work and Sociology, as well as a useful guide for policy makers and practitioners in the field.

The author of Hidden History of Terre Haute and Wicked Terre Haute explores the home of sin in the Sin City. Home to uproarious saloons, swindling gambling dens, and thriving brothels, Terre Haute's infamous West End was so wild the Chicago Tribunecalled it "the scene of a hundred all night carousings." Pimps, pickpockets, and conmen roamed the crowded streets where legendary Madam Edith Brown's pleasure palace was the crown jewel of brothels. Yet more than a mere den in inequity, the West End was also a community that could put bickering differences aside and pull together to help their neighbors. And it wasn't only a place for seedy enterprise, but also a place for stores, cafes, and homes. Historian Tim Crumrin presents the first complete history of this legendary area and separates myth from reality to reveal the very human side of the West End.

AMSTERDAM 1980 A city in turmoil: rife with drug abuse, riots and terror threats in the run-up to the coronation of Queen Beatrix. As Amsterdam's police force is overwhelmed by the civil war between law enforcement and squatters, local neighbourhood policeman Piet Huizen is seconded from his hometown Alkmaar to this cauldron. It should be daunting but he feels strangely liberated from the responsibilities of home and everyday work. Together with his three colleagues from across the country, he's only there temporarily and can even laugh at his own provincial outlook. Until a student goes missing. AMSTERDAM NOW Detective Lotte Meerman doesn't want to hear about her father Piet Huizen's past because his month in Amsterdam in 1980 led directly to her parent's divorce. The less she knows, the better it is. Then two men die. Their deaths are not treated as suspicious but Lotte realises there is something that links the deceased men: they were both children of her father's former team-mates. And the more she investigates the circumstances of their deaths, the more Lotte comes to realise that she could be next on the list... Praise for Anja de Jager: 'Succeeds as a portrait of both a city and, in its heroine, a delightfully dysfunctional personality' Sunday Express 'Impressive' The Times

A local historian recounts nearly seventy years of seduction and scandal along the Texas Gulf Coast in this lively chronicle of Galveston’s notorious past. Known today as a colorful resort destination featuring family entertainment and a thriving arts district, Galveston, Texas, was once notorious for its flourishing vice economy and infamous red-light district. Called simply “The Line,” the unassuming five blocks of Postoffice Street came alive every night with wild parties and generous offerings of love for sale. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, The Line was a stubborn mainstay of the island cityscape until it was finally shut down in the 1950s. But ridding Galveston of prostitution would prove much more difficult than putting a padlock on the front door. In Galveston’s Red Light District, Texas historian Kimber Fountain pursues the sequestered story of women who wanted to make their own rules and the city that wanted to let them.

This edition is an intimate photo examination of the infamous Butte, Montana sex trade once nationally recognized during the late 19th and early 20th century. Over 135 current photographs document the remnants of the famed copper mining town’s prostitution core. The work details historical anecdotes, narratives on colorful personages and perspective on an era when prostitution was locally institutionalized. The remaining Dumas Brothel is a profiled parlor house noteworthy for its operational longevity between 1890-1982. The Dumas is the longest tenured American house of prostitution. The property weathered numerous reform movements and attempts towards forced closure by governmental authorities. Owner tax evasion ultimately shuttered the property. Across the road is the Blue Range Building, the last street-facing example of the lowest extremity of prostitution once employed within the district. The seven sets of ground floor doors and adjacent windows housed segregated cubicles called cribs. Diminutive cribs accommodated only a single bed and an occasional washbasin. Lower esteemed prostitutes serviced clients from these utilitarian spaces. Butte’s prostitution industry reinforced a rigid hierarchy of distinguishing elite mistresses for the affluent and influential, from lowly street solicitors. The lifestyle of sex professionals was plagued by drug addiction, financial debt, sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, abortion, violence and abuse by their patrons and jealousy-motivated clients. Suicide was common even amongst the highest regarded women within such a cannibalistic environment, During the turn of the twentieth century, Butte was one of the largest Rocky Mountain population centers. Its licentious reputation mirrored contemporary Las Vegas. Unlike many western frontier settlements, cowboy culture made minimal intrusion. Butte’s red-light district is a haunting environment with a complex past.