Amsterdam’s mayor <person>Femke Halsema</person> has called for changes to the city’s red light district, arguing that turning prostitution into a tourist attraction is ‘humiliating’ and ‘unacceptable’. The mayor, who took office last June, told <person>Het Parool</person> she wanted to consider all options for reforming the area, including the status quo, but gave a clear signal that the current situation was untenable. ‘The circumstances in which women have to do their work have worsened. So I can understand why a lot of Amsterdammers think: this is not the way we want prostitution to be or how it was supposed to be,’ she said. There has been growing concern that the number of tourists flocking to the red light district has made it more difficult for prostitutes to work in the area and compromised their safety. Unlicensed prostitution remains a problem in the city and has been linked to human trafficking. Halsema said Amsterdam’s tradition of open prostitution was ‘increasingly linked to the humiliation of women by large groups of tourists’. She plans to draw up a package of measures before the summer to address the red light district’s problems.