Zurich opens first-ever drive-in ‘sex boxes’

Switzerland has long been famous for its mountaineering, chocolate and precision watches, but a lesser known aspect is its legal prostitution since 1942, for which its largest city is one of the main centers in Europe.

Today, the city of Zurich opened Switzerland's first-ever drive in shelters as part of a controversial attempt to reduce open street prostitution, protect sex workers and prevent organised crime.

Fashionably teak-colored open wooden garages, popularly called "sex boxes" by the Swiss media, will be open for business for drive-in customers. The several dozen sex workers who are expected to make it their new hub will stand along a short road in a small, circular park for clients to choose from and negotiate with. The park was built in a former industrial area nestled between a rail yard and the fence along a major highway.

The publicly funded facilities - open all night and located away from the city center - include bathrooms, lockers, small cafe tables and a laundry and shower. Men won't have to worry about video surveillance cameras, but the sex workers - who will need a permit and pay a small tax - will be provided with a panic button and on-site social workers trained to look after them.

Michael Herzig, a Zurich social services director who supervises the city's sex workers, defended the move: "Prostitution is a business. We cannot prohibit it, so we want to control it in favour of the sex workers and the population," he said

"If we do not control it, organised crime and the pimps will take over," he added. Just over 52 per cent of Zurich's voters approved of plans to introduce sex-boxes in a referendum held in March last year. The boxes cost the equivalent of €1.7m (£1.4m) to install and €560,000 a year to run.

Ursula Kocher a spokeswoman for Zurich's "Flora Dora" prostitute support group told Agence France Presse she approved of the sex boxes because they allowed women to remain on site and "deal with customers quickly" rather than exposing them to potentially dangerous situations by clients who took them elsewhere.

However, Switzerland's popular right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP) opposes the move. "It will not work, either because the clients will not come or because the site will not be used by prostitutes, said Sven Dogwiler an SVP politician. "It puts them in a cleaner environment but one which is subsidised by taxpayers," he added.
The Zurich sex box experiment follows their largely successful introduction in Germany, where they have been in operation in designated big city areas since 2001. They are reported to have led to a "considerable drop" in violence against sex workers.

But in Dortmund, a number of sex boxes installed in 2007, were closed down in 2011 after they fell under the control of eastern European gangs.