When Germany legalized prostitution just over a decade ago, politicians hoped that it would create better conditions and more autonomy for sex workers. It hasn't worked out that way, though. Exploitation and human trafficking remain significant problems. Some of you reading this would be pleased to know however that when Germany legalised prostitution in 2002 it triggered an apparently unstoppable growth in the country’s sex industry. Two years later, prostitution in Germany was thought to be worth 6 billion euros – roughly the same as Porsche or Adidas that year. It’s now estimated to be 15 billion euros.
Prostitution was legalised “for the government to make a lot of money".
At the truck stop on Am Eifeltor near Cologne, prostitutes work out of caravans. There are around 30 caravans here. The prostitutes pay 150 euros a month in tax to the city
Given that at least 70 per cent of trafficking in Europe is into forced prostitution, a lot of people are arguing that the best way to reduce demand for trafficking is to reduce demand for prostitution. And one way to do that is to criminalise the buyer.
Sex trafficking statistics are frustratingly incomplete, but a recent report estimated the number of victims in Europe at 270,000. And Germany and the Netherlands have repeatedly ranked among the five worst blackspots. Denmark, which decriminalised prostitution in 1999 – the same year Sweden made the purchase of sex illegal - has four times the number of trafficking victims than its neighbour despite having around half the population.
Germany has been flooded with foreign sex workers, mostly from Eastern Europe. Their sheer number, and willingness to accept lower rates, has driven prices so low one American punter, who takes three sex trips to Germany each year, calls the country “Aldi for prostitutes”.
On the other side of the same coin, Kristina Marlen, the Berlin dominatrix, sees her work in terms of “celebrating the sexual part of the person” She’s bisexual and currently in an open relationship with a woman. She thinks of prostitution as its own kind of “sexual orientation”.
But, she says, “there are some people working in the sex industry who shouldn’t be there.” Sex workers can find themselves in “very precarious positions and not all the women can articulate themselves as I can.” Even she has had “moments in which it wasn’t clear to me how to communicate boundaries.” You need to be thick-skinned and good at negotiating with strong boundaries and high self-esteem.
http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/pr...e-to-paradise/
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So where do all the people who argue in favour of legalisation of sex purchase get their information from? Legalisation of prostitution is strongly correlated with sex trafficking.