Drive-in sex booths to be built in Zurich to 'help make prostitution safer'

Scheme was approved by voters in a referendum earlier this year

The booths, which will come with inbuilt panic alarms, will launch in August

Prostitution will be confined to the booths and two other locations in the city

Sex workers will also have to apply for a £26 licence, register with a health insurer and buy a 'work ticket' each night for about £3



Drive-in sex booths will be launched in Zurich next year to get prostitutes off the streets and working in a safer environment, it has emerged.



Voters in Switzerland's biggest city gave their approval for the sex booth scheme in a referendum earlier this year.

Under the plan, potential clients will able to drive their car into the sex booths on a first come first served basis to meet prostitutes rather than picking them up off the street.



Discreet: Zurich city officials hope to have new sex booths, similar to those pictured above that are currently used in Germany, by August

Making the sex trade safer: It is hoped that the sex booths will get prostitutes off the streets and working in a more controlled environment (stock image)

There will be enough booths constructed on the outskirts of the city to accommodate around 30 prostitutes.

City officials hope the booths, which will come with inbuilt panic alarms, will be ready for launch in August.

An on-site counsellor will also be provided in the taxpayer funded scheme.

It is hoped the move will help make the sex industry much safer and more regulated, ABC News reported.



Prostitution will be banned in certain parts of the city and confined to the booths and two other zones after they open in August.



Michael Herzig, spokesperson for Zurich Social Welfare Department , said: 'The big difference is that until now prostitution is in a public space.

Cleaning up the city: Practicing prostitution will be banned in the Switzerland's largest city, pictured, except for in the new sex booths and in two other designated areas

'Now we are going to change this, transfer it from the street, from a public to a private space to an old industrial area which belongs to the city that give us the possibility to define the rules of prostitution in this space.

'The women will be better protected from attack, and it will also mean better business for them.

'With the women right by the sex boxes there is no "travel time" so they can deal with more customers. It's a better business model than standing on the street.'



Prostitutes will also have to apply for a £26 licence, register with a health insurer and buy a ticket each night for about £3 before they begin soliciting customers from January onwards.

