<Prostitution is legal in Germany Photo: AP>German chief police reported yesterday sex trafficking is on the rise in the country. The chief officer also said that sex trafficking has increased 11 percent from last year and 70% over five year period. While many advocates for legalized prostitution argued that legalization should improve the rights of prostitutes and eliminate discrimination, the case in Germany shows otherwise. Rather, the sex industry in Germany became a magnet for sex traffickers from Eastern Europe and African countries. Further, it became a source of exploitation of German as well as other foreign women rather than their emancipation to support their right to sell their bodies.
German's current prostitution legislation
According to the police report, since the legalization, sex trade is tolerated in most part of German soil except for a few industrialized area. Many Eastern European women are forced into prostitution in Germany, but forced prostitution of African women are on the rise as well. The African women are manipulated or coerced into prostitution by using voodoo rituals to intimate victims in many cases. But the greater concern lies elsewhere. The police said that child trafficking comprises 65 out of 534 cases reported last year, and 41 of them were under the age of 14.
Unfruitful result
Initially,the German government thought that legalization would lead to the decrease in sex trafficking, safer conditions for prostitutes, and removal of "some of the stigma from the industry." But in reality, legalization not only increased sex trafficking of women and children but also fail to change the stigma attached to prostitution for the past few years. A study shows that the majority of prostitutes in Germany prefer to "do the job secretly because they still experience discrimination." The same study also shows that even the government agencies are not willing to broker jobs or offer retraining as they do for employees in other industries. Further, the health insurance company does not provide special health provisions for prostitutes. In terms of their rights, many prostitutes in Germany are still live in poor conditions and exploited by the pimps and the landlords who take the majority of the prostitutes' earnings.
Women become cheaper
As German law recognizes prostitution as a legitimate employment choice, some women are forced into prostitution when they are unemployed. Under the German law, any unemployed women under the age of 55 are required to take a job available on the national listings if they have been out of job more than a year. Otherwise, their unemployment benefit will be taken away from them. In 2005, a government agency threatened a qualified information technologist to take away her unemployment benefit if she refused to take a job as a prostitute in a legalized brothel. Working at a legalized brothel and selling her bodies therefore became another employment option that she has explore before facing the suspension of her benefits. In other case during the recession in 2009, the German brothels began to offer a flat rate sex promotions. As sex industry and prostitution are legalized, the brothel owners are required to pay the prostitutes daily wages regardless of how many customers they offer sexual services. Therefore, the brothel owners offered a deal to the johns that they can sleep with as many prostitutes as they can to attract more customers for cheaper deal. According to the report, the promotion is based on "all you can eat buffet" principle. Yet, the law enforcement could not do anything about such inhumane practice of mistreating women because prostitution is legalized in Germany.
Still want to legalize prostitution?
The case in Germany shows that legalization of prostitution commodified the view of women regardless of her professions or intellectual levels. Though some women cry out for legalization of prostitution and their rights to sell their bodies, there are many others who do not want to put up with johns perceiving them as nothing more than sex objects. The German case also teaches one a lesson that the solution to fight against sex trafficking is not to legalized prostitution but to lock away johns. Perhaps, some women need to realize that their bodies and personhood as well as those of other women are meant some greater than sexual services imposed on themselves by this hyper-sexualized culture.
Comments
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Some women need to understand that when you give power over our lives to law enforcement officers, they tend to abuse it and end up extorting us for sex, money and information. Regardless of how many women are victims of domestic violence and spousal abuse, no one argues that we ought to criminalize marriage and lock up ALL husbands on the outside chance they might be violent! Lady, you need to learn the definition of "Choice" because it doesn't mean we get to choose only what you abolitionists want for our lives! Sex workers can and should make choices for themselves that LEAVE YOU OUT OF OUR DECISION MAKING PROCESS!!!!!! Go help the victims of domestic violence, and leave us hos alone!
As Youngbee Dale has written, in Germany legalized prostitution has resulted in MORE trafficking, not less. In pimp and john terms, this can be translated as: when you advertise women for sale someplace with no penalty for that, the johns come running, from all over. This same phenomenon: legal prostitution and then more trafficking, more sexual exploitation of children, more johns roaming the location where prostitution is legalized or decriminalized, has been seen in the Netherlands and Australia as well, and in the state of Nevada (where the rape rate is one of the highest in the US). Thanks for this valuable reporting.
Melissa Farley
www.prostitutionresearch.com
Dear Norma Jean,
As one who managed to escape this "choice" of mine, I'm still dealing with the consequences of my "choice" so many years ago. I still get sickened, sad, nervous, and sometimes I even weep. My choice was "prostitute & survive" or "don't prostitute & don't survive." Tell me, would you choose to go into a dark cave that might be infested with rattlesnakes if you could instead choose to go shopping at the mall with $500? Of course not. But if you had to choose between getting blown up by a car bomb and stepping into the cave for a sec, you might enter the cave for cover - especially if a friend told you the rattlesnakes never bite. You hope "I'll be okay if I just stay till the explosion passes & am careful about my steps. It's better than being out THERE." But once you get bit by the snakes, get sick, confused & wander deeper into the cave, you forget who you are, where you are. You're barely alive, hurting, devastated. That is no one's choice. Prostitution is hell.
Dear Survivor,
I really hope you can write in more forums. The insane idea of "pretty woman" and the believe that we can choice everything in our lives blind us for reality. The difference between Norma Jean, you and me was only few different choices and lucky. The similarities are that we are woman, we made bad choices in our life and we need to dealing with consequences. I believe that prostitution is infamous, because you and every woman are very valuables and not only a disposable merchandise. If you can go out; you are a light who can teach us a lot.
Yes still I want to be legal prostitution in every single country in the world and to increase minimum wage to 9 dollars per hour then Germany will not have those problems anymore.Prostitution is oldest job in the history of this planet and anyhow most of the females are antifamily oriented people on this world which tells us data that in USA here are around 60 percent of single parents just because of the power which woman have.
Sadly, your arguments are weak and circular. Every market has a dark side. The sale of alcohol has resulted in an increase of drunk driving (go figure), the sale of guns has resulted in an increase of gun related crimes (duh!), the sale of fast food has resulted in an increase of obesity and heart disease, the sale of cheap fruits and vegetables has resulted in an inflow of exploited labour from Mexico. Do you get my drift?
Furthermore, making something illegal doesn't make it go away. Reading your article makes me wish that our education system taught logical thinking :-(
Thinker, I am sorry, but my argument seems week and circular to you because my argument, lies fundamentally different assumption than what your argument relies on for its validity. I cannot emphasize enough that prostitution or sex market, cannot be comparable to the markets of other products including, guns, fast food, or alcohol, as you mentioned on your argument unless you wholeheartedly embrace the assumption that sex and women and their bodies are commodities or products in the market just as fast food, guns, and alcohol, (which as I don't). Therefore, sex industry is not comparable to other markets as you listed in your argument. Women as well as men have intelligence, emotional, and spirit as even the medical scientists admit that sex affect women themselves ( regardless of what they would say to you). Their values as human beings are far greater than fast food, guns, and alcohol unlike you have assumed (even if prostitutes themselves do not see or refuse to see the truth.)
Thinker, I have never mentioned on my article that making prostitution illegal will bring complete abolishment of prostitution. It was strictly your speculation that you drew out of my argument. But to mention where I stand on the issue, my study on the prostitution history shows that making prostitution illegal certainly has a deterrence effect ( Though if you ask me to choose between Swedish and Victorian models, I would answer that i prefer Swedish model to Victorian model).
Dear Dr. Melissa Farley,
Thank you. It's my honor to have you as my reader. I wish that you visit again in the future.
Youngbee Dales’ article is critical as globally governments see legalisation as the solution to the explosion of a global sex trade and sex trafficking. In Australia prostitution has also been widely legalised. There has been no reduction in the violence and harms of prostitution for women in the industry nor has legalisation been successful in reducing related harms to the wider community. Legalisation resulted in an increased demand for prostitution and a large expansion of the brothel trade both legal and illegal. Street prostitution continues. Sex trafficking and child prostitution continue. Of course this is inevitable as the increased demand requires a steady flow of women and girls for sex and profit. In the 'safer' legal brothels violence remains entrenched in everyday ‘work’ practices and the ‘work’ environment. Such violence includes rape, sexual harassment, abuse, unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections and psychological distress.
Mary Sullivan, Australia
The Indian law does not legalize prostitution but says prostituion per say is not illegal for adults but for children and for it is illegal. It also says trafficking is illegal. It does not help that way. The Indian Govt is still in a dilemma. With 1000 of brothels the pull factor is very establishes and thus the push factor works very well. Almost all prostitutes say they were trafficked but now at 30/40/50 they are brothel owners and, madams and traffickers helping their mail counter part. How do we differentiate who was trafficked and who was not. The Govt cnnot take a clear stand with many UN and INGOs. The power of the health and HIV AIDS industry is there and those working with children do not want to get into the debate and hence the business of porstitution and trafficking goes on and many children suffer as they are in demand.
It is in one way accepting prostitution as an existing evil. The trafficking of girls and children would never end if we do not take a dynamic decision
In Germany there are about 200.000 to 400.000 sex workers. The police report, you're refering to, mentions 710 reported cases of coerced prostitution. That's less than 1% of the total number.
Now what does 'sex trafficking' mean, when it comes to Eastern European countries, like Romania and Bulgaria, both EU members? People from these countries are free to travel and make a lving throughout Europe; women from these countries who want to make a buck through prostitution do not even need any middlemen to act for them, like they used to in the old days.
On another note: thr author makes it appear as if a large number of German brothels have resorted to the flat rate concept. That's not true at all: it's only a very small number, and contested on top of that, up to the extent that the most publicized example of these is being tried in court, as we speak.
I'm living in Germany. The problem is, that "trafficking for sexual exploitation" is punishable since 2004. And the police reports about preliminary proceedings, not about convicted criminals.
Automatically all persons, who brings a person under 21 years to prostitution are traffickers. Even if a woman voluntarily is working as a prostitute. It's a problem of (illegal) migration not a poblem of sexwork.
In the same report the BKA notes, that the number of women, which were forced into prostitution, has fallen to 10 % of the victims.
534 victims in 2010 are counted by Germany by Federal Criminal Office (Bundeskriminalamt BKA).
The real figure can be higher, because of not jet discovered cases, and can be lower at the same time, since not all police cases will become sentenced in court.
2/3 of the victims were younger than 21 years, because of the special protection age for sex workers which does not apply for service workers or soldiers. This stigmatizing age is not well known by foreigners and an easy measure of victim-hood by law agencies.
The trend over the years since introduction of the new legislation ProstG, which made sex work legal, is as follows:
2002 -- 811 victims (new law)
2003 - 1235 victims
2004 -- 972 victims
2005 -- 642 victims
2006 -- 775 victims
2007 -- 689 victims
2008 -- 676 victims
2009 -- 534 victims
Source www.bka.de
www.sexworker.at
Sex worker support centre and union.
Sex workers need decriminalisation and destigmatization in order to NOT be made vulnerable!
The assessment of this data by German authorities (and some media) is from an anti-sex work stance, with a view to creating arguments against legalised sex work.
A closer examination shows that MORE people who need assistance are receiving it thanks to the transparency of legalisation - similar outcomes to decriminalisation in NSW for sex workers.
When reporting of crimes increases it doesn't mean the crime itself has increased - it means justice is reaching more people. As Empower foundation for sex workers in Thailand says "Not drowning - waving." Sex workers want rights - don't punish us for reporting the crimes that happen against us.
Mary Sullivan you are WRONG - law reform has delivered justice and dignity to sex workers in Australia - now we just need anti-discrimination laws to protect us from careerist putaphobes like yourself and Melissa Farley.
Elena Jeffreys
Sex worker
Australia
Thinker, i hope that you realize that your "logic" has led you to compare thinking, feeling human beings to produce, hamburgers, and other inanimate objects.
Your story has some facts wrong.
I live in Germany. The idea that an unemployment agency can force a woman to take up prostitution is completely false.
See snopes dot com/media/notnews/brothel
Finally, the whole tone of your argument is that prostitution is something that should be banned. If a woman wants to sell sex, then why should a man not buy it? The ridiculous demands that modern women have make it really hard for "nice guys" to get laid. Women are always ready to go with the bad boy who treats them badly, so for many smart nice guys this is the only way to get laid. They don't want to be your "friend!" This whole idea that if you sell sex you sell your body is ridiculous---a man is not buying you as a slave--he is buying some pleasure. Using the same logic, a massage therapist, or anyone who provides pleasure through tactile sensations, is also selling her body!
Sex Trafficking/Slavery is used by many groups as a attempt to outlaw all prostitution around the world by saying that all women are victims even if they do it willing. This hurts any real victims because it labels all sex workers as victims.
This is done by the media, aid groups, NGO’s, feminists, politicians, and religious organizations that receive funds from the government. There are very strong groups who promote that all adult women who have sex are victims even if they are willing, enjoy it and go out of there way to get it. These groups try to get the public to believe that no adult women in their right mind would ever go into the sex business unless she was forced to do so, weather she knew it or not. They say that 100% of all sex workers are trafficking victims. They do this in order to label all men as sex offenders and wipe out all consensual prostitution. Which is what their real goal is. There is almost no one who challenges or questions them about their false belief
There is a lot of controversy over the numbers of adult woman who are forced sex slaves. The real factual answer is that no one knows. There is hard evidence that the sex slavery/sex trafficking issue continues to report false information and is greatly exaggerated by politicians, the media, and aid groups, feminist and religious organizations that receive funds from the government, The estimate of adult women who become new sex slaves ranges anywhere from 40 million a year to 5,000 per year all of which appear to be much too high. They have no evidence to back up these numbers, and no one questions them about it. Their sources have no sources, and are made up numbers. In fact if some of these numbers are to believed which have either not changed or have been increased each year for the past twenty years, all woman on earth would currently be sex slaves. Yet, very few real forced against their will sex slaves have been found.
Sex trafficking is illegal and the pentities are very severe. It is very difficult to force someone to be a sex slave, they would have to have 24 hour guards posted and be watched 365 days a year, 24 hours per day. Have the threat of violence if they refused, and have no one notice and complain to the authorities or police. They would need to hide from the general public yet still manage to see customers from the general public. They would need to provide them with medical care, food, shelter, and have all their basic needs met. They would need to have the sex slaves put on a fake front that they enjoyed what they were doing, act flirtatious and do their job well. They would have to deal with the authorities looking for the missing women, and hide any money they may make, since it comes from illegal activity. They must do all of this while constantly trying to prevent the sex slaves from escaping and reporting them to the police. This is extremely difficult to do, which makes this a
A key point is that on the sidelines the prostitutes themselves are not being listened to. They oppose laws against prostitution. But no one wants to listen to the prostitutes themselves. Only to the self appointed experts that make up numbers and stories many of which have never met a real forced sex slave or if they did it was only a few. The media and government never ask the prostitutes themselves what would help them in terms of laws.
There needs to be a distinct separation of
1. Child sex trafficking
2. Adult sex Trafficking
3. Adult consensual
prostitution.
4. Sex Slavery
They are not the same. Adult Women are NOT children.
Media coverage of trafficking and adult women's migration and sex work is confused and inaccurate. The media wrongly uses the terms 'sex work' and 'trafficking' and adult sex work and child sex trafficking synonymously, perpetuating stereotypes and stigmatization, and contributing to the violation of women's right to free movement and livelihood options. They assume that if any woman moves from place to place for sex work that they are being trafficking. The media, politicians, aid groups, feminist, and religious organizations does not take into account that she may do this of her own free will. Too often women are treated like children. Adult women are not children.
Most migrant women, including those in the sex industry, have made a clear decision, says a new study, to l
You cannot separate the illegal from the legal, the trafficked from the free, the child from the adult. They all feed into each other and feed demand for sexual exploitation. I was a prostitute in my teens. It has completely destroyed my life - my physical health, my mental health, my ability to have intimate relationships, my working life, my financial security. I think what people don't understand is that it's the act itself, over and over and over. It destroys you mentally and physically, no matter if you are in a high class brothel or in the gutter in the street. Throwing money at someone after the act does not take away the violence or the profound feeling of violation. It's disengenuous doublespeak to label that violation 'work'. Legalisation has failed everywhere it's been introduced. The illegal sector has expanded everywhere there is legalisation, to many times that of the legal 'industry'. How prostitution can be regulated or made 'safer' in those circumstances is beyond me.
you idiots are all wrong legal prostitution protects the workers
this girl who wrote this article is wrong. prostitution is ilegal in eastern europe, so being it ilegal in eastern europe is part of the problem, that is why it should be legal everywhere.
now she does not tell us all the negative unintended consequences of prostitution prohibition, she is cherry picking by only talking about the trafficking aspect. what about the freedom?? what about the police resources being put for better use? what about the cost of prison overpopulation, what about the danger that comes by making the activity underground, what about std control, also in Germany there is less sex abuse of children and incest, There is also significantly less murder and crime in Germanyy than I nthe United States. ifit were done properly; prostitution would actually decrease trafficking!!, if we spent resources going after traffickers, instead of arresting and humiliating consensual adults
The reason it was made illegal in the first place is because it violates the Master's right to exploit the labor resource.
Honestly. Compared to what the gov't does to men, the women of Germany have a cake walk if all they've gotta do is spread them legs.
It's not like women care about what they're having sex with anyway.
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