Museum provides glimpse inside Amsterdam's prostitution scene

AN ENDLESS male parade is passing by, all of them some woman’s boyfriend, husband, brother or father. Most of the men wear dark casual clothes and very few look shabby.

All age groups and an ethnic mix are here. The old men have practised paternal smiles, turned up full volume as they return for a second look. A younger man in a puffa jacket, hood pulled up, licks his lips as if viewing tantalising cakes in a shop window. Another passer-by stares in angrily and spits in a gesture of disgust. Giggling teenage boys steal guilty glances while covertly snapping forbidden photos on their smartphones before running off into the gloom of a canal bridge.

Welcome to the other side of the glass, and what hundreds of scantily dressed women in one of the world’s best known red light districts see from their neon lit windows as they wait for customers in the heart of old Amsterdam’s De Wallen.