By TOBY STERLING Associated Press

AMSTERDAM (AP) - On any given evening, thousands of tourists stroll down the narrow canal-side streets of Amsterdam's famed Red Light District, gawking at ladies in lingerie who work behind windows, making a living selling sex for money. Now a small educational museum is opening Thursday in the heart of the district to show reality from the other side of the glass.

RED LIGHT SECRETS

Organizer Melcher de Wind says the Red Light Secrets museum is for those who want to learn more about how the area works without actually visiting a prostitute. It's located in a former brothel, one of the narrow buildings typical of Amsterdam.

Visitors enter the museum by passing a hologram of a beckoning prostitute. Then the displays attempt to place prostitutes as part of society. There's a short film showing the many people who work with the prostitutes: cleaning or repairing their rooms, doing their laundry, or running over to their windows with coffee or food during shifts.

Prostitutes rent windows on a half-day basis and can work shifts that are 11 hours long, six days a week. They spend a lot of time waiting for customers. In their free time, they visit local hairdressers, nail salons and clothing shops.

There's also a nursery school in the heart of the Red Light District, right next to the windows. In one scene in the film, a middle-aged prostitute in red leather receives an afternoon visit from her grade-school daughter.

A LONG HISTORY IN AMSTERDAM

The museum makes only a passing attempt to document the history of prostitution tolerance in Amsterdam - starting from the 16th century, when it was a port city flush with wealth from the spice trade and authorities turned a blind eye when sailors went ashore looking for women. Or during the Napoleonic Wars, when prostitutes first began to have mandatory medical checkups to combat venereal disease among soldiers.

The museum focuses on the era since 2000, when prostitution became legal in the Netherlands. Since then the city has been struggling - it says with some success - to eradicate pimps and human trafficking.

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Red Light Secrets Museum opens in Amsterdam - NBC40.net