The first National Urination in Public Urinals Day in the Netherlands took place on September 23, 2017. Strange celebration. with that Power to the Peepeewomen from five Dutch cities, including Amsterdam, took to the streets to protest against the inability to use public urinals. Because? Because they are designed exclusively for men.
Seven years later, the authorities of Amsterdam have decided invest 4 million euros in improving the network of public urinals and do it taking into account women as well. The city council has not yet specified how many public toilets it will add, but they will begin to be installed this year.
The pressure from women during these years has borne fruit and has contributed to the fact that the matter ended up reaching Justice. In 2015, student Geerte Piening was fined for urinating in public. She appealed to the courts before which He explained that he had no choice but to urinate in the street because in the center of Amsterdam there are very few public toilets for women.
35 for men and only 4 for women
The judge did not agree with Geerte. She maintained the fine (although she reduced it from 140 to 90 euros) and justified it by saying that the woman could also have used a men’s urinal. In that 2017, in the center of Amsterdam there were 35 public urinals for men and only four for women, according to details the diary Het Parool.
The judge upheld the fine and justified it by saying that the woman could also have used a men’s urinal.
As NOS explains, Dutch public radio, the sentence caused a stir. Women They began to urinate en masse in the street as a sign of protest and they carried out actions in the urinals. This is how they arrived at that National Urination in Public Urinals Day in the Netherlands in 2017. The photos of that day were sent to the Minister of Education, Culture and Science, along with a petition titled “Equality for Urination in the Netherlands.”
2019 motion: urinals are coming now
The issue could not be foreign to the dynamics of the political parties and in 2018 one of them, Democrats 66 (liberals), presented the motion called Baas in Eigen Blaas (something like Boss of my own bladder) asking for more public toilets accessible to everyone… and everyone. The motion was approved in 2019 and now the city council begins to apply it. The first toilets, adapted for women and also for wheelchairs, are expected to be installed this year.
Now, seven years after the trial, we can see the first new public toilet It’s a victory for Piening. “It took a while, but it’s very good that it arrived,” declared on television AT5 the student who took her fine for public urination to court.
A toilet in a “house” in the Red Light District
On that occasion, the woman was fined 140 euros for urinating near a bank office on Leidseplein in Amsterdam. Because public urination in urban areas is illegal in the Netherlands. There is also a 140 euro fine if it is done in one of the city’s famous canals.
Those public toilets for women are missing. Account Dutchnews that the city hall map still shows that in the center of Amsterdam there are only nine public places where women can urinate without breaking the law.
That is why resources have been emerging, such as app HogeNood (“very urgent”) that Helps locate public toilets throughout the Netherlands. Even one of the Red Light District brothels have opened their own urinal public (using it costs 2 euros) and, of course, decorated with its particular theme.
