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 A proposed law which would allow sex workers to operate from their homes has met with a mixed reception from Dutch councils.

Sex work has been legal in licensed premises in the Netherlands since 2000, but traditional brothels are “increasingly being replaced by sex workers booking clients online and seeing them at their home”, said The Telegraph.  

A number of Dutch cities, including Rotterdam, Utrecht and Tilburg, already issue licences for individual operators to work from their own homes. But many of the 150 municipalities surveyed by NOS, the Netherlands’ largest news organisation, believed legalisation of at-home sex work on a national level would be a “nuisance” for their communities.

One town argued that it would lead to traffic congestion, disturbances in the streets, and “people in the area feeling less safe”, reported Dutch News. 

Shifting sex work into the private sphere would also make it difficult to “gain insight into possible abuses”, the municipality of Kaag en Braassem told NOS.

However, the city of Tilburg said that unlicensed sex workers forced to operate underground “become more vulnerable to coercion, violence and blackmail”.

Local authorities who currently permit at-home sex work specify that the licensee “must live at the address and work completely independently”, said Sky News. Other municipalities impose additional conditions, such as limits on proximity to schools.

To obtain a licence under the proposed nationwide legislation, applicants would need to demonstrate that they are “over 21, working independently and not under duress”, said Dutch News.

The proposal was introduced by Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s cabinet, but has been left in limbo since the coalition collapsed in July. Talks to form a new government have been ongoing since the federal elections in November, and there is currently no date set for the legislation to go before parliament.