Photo: www.telegraph.co.uk
In August 2013, authorities in Zurich decided to start an experimental project in order to regulate street prostitution. They’ve created Europe’s first municipal drive-in brothel in an old industrial area. Tuesday, the helpful signposts and understated wooden drive-in “intimate-boxes” have celebrated one year of existence and Swiss social services hail it a success.
You probably guessed it already. Yes, prostitution is legal and regulated in Switzerland. It has been such since 1942. The entire system works through licensed brothels, typically with a reception and leading to several studio apartments. But one of the big problems Swiss authorities have been facing more recently, is the street prostitution which is still illegal. Local administrations have been searching for a solution, especially to reduce the phenomena in the center of the largest city in the country.
Local authorities in Zurich considered installing carport-like constructions called Verrichtungsboxen or “sex boxes” to protect street prostitution and control suburban prostitution, a project voters approved in 2012.
Among the facilities studios offer are laundry, shower facilities and cafe, but the prostitutes will have to obtain permits and pay tax, of course. “The new regulation of street prostitution has attained its objectives of protecting the population and the sex workers,” the city said in a statement, quoted by The Guardian. Besides that, it would seem fewer neighbors were bothered by the comings and goings at the drive-in, in the Altstetten district.
With an average of 15 workers per night, authorities admit that not everyone is happy, considering the prostitutes complain their earnings have fallen because off being to far from the city center. Nor the ones to have built the little “pleasure-district” are not so happy, considering the drive-in has proved more expensive than originally thought.
Local authorities in Zurich considered installing carport-like constructions called Verrichtungsboxen or “sex boxes” to protect street prostitution and control suburban prostitution, a project voters approved in 2012.
Among the facilities studios offer are laundry, shower facilities and cafe, but the prostitutes will have to obtain permits and pay tax, of course. “The new regulation of street prostitution has attained its objectives of protecting the population and the sex workers,” the city said in a statement, quoted by The Guardian. Besides that, it would seem fewer neighbors were bothered by the comings and goings at the drive-in, in the Altstetten district.
With an average of 15 workers per night, authorities admit that not everyone is happy, considering the prostitutes complain their earnings have fallen because off being to far from the city center. Nor the ones to have built the little “pleasure-district” are not so happy, considering the drive-in has proved more expensive than originally thought.
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