Modern Day Slavery - Insights from a German policeman

English today - find the German version here/ Heute mal in Englisch! Die deutsche Version findest du hier: https://storymentor.de/2022/02/07/elementor-1922/

Dear reader, in this blog I want to forward to you some quotes of a policeman who has been working on the ground in the field of prostitution for many years. It's a collection of citations describing the reality experienced by a man who more than once helped young women to escape prostitution. He remains anonymous, since an open talk is not welcomed by several people as you can imagine...

I have done research on the topic of prostitution for more than 3 years now (unpaid, no media wanted me to do this work), and at the beginning I saw it as my duty to talk to anyone from all angles of society. So, I also talked to johns, and believe me, it wasn't always a pleasure. After about a year of intensive research we decided that we don't give voice to pimps and misogynic johns in our film, as it is told from the perspective of survivors of the system of prostitution. So let's talk about them, the profiteers, here a bit from a male (policeman's) perspective.

The prostitute - Who are we actually talking about? First of all: There is of course no such thing as "the prostitute"! Every woman, every man, every person has their own individual life path. However, individual fates can show how systems work and how people are treated as commodities. I will give you two examples from the life of a policeman:

1.Deniza has been beaten up for the Xth time by her Bulgarian pimp who brought her to Germany to the brothel. She finally decided to go to the police, where they recorded her descriptions and the injuries she had on her body. The next day Deniza was supposed to appear again for questioning, but she suddenly refused. As a police officer was able to find out, her son was picked up in Bulgaria after school and both his arms were broken. An investigation in Bulgaria is impossible for various reasons. The poorest EU country has its own rules and procedures in such cases.*

2.Karin works for an escort agency and offers submissive sex. She earns not bad, but has work absences several times a month. Why? Because she occasionally gets beaten green and blue, on breasts and other body parts. The clients pay well, and so she says nothing and goes back to it.* 

*Names, places and incidents are changed so that no persons can be identified.

Police officers who have worked in the prostitution sector for a few years can tell of countless such stories. What one of them has to say on the subject of coercion and self-determination I would like to reproduce here unchanged: 

So, let's get to the constraints. After all, there is nothing in this field that doesn't exist. There are, even according to independent studies, women who like to do the job. One prostitute told me that she really enjoys it and is "like that" in her private life, as it is reported about her in the forums.Another one had sex with her boss already as an apprentice, for money. Apart from that, a study in Switzerland showed that about 15 percent of whores enjoy their job and have fun doing it. I do not want to comment on that.

Hobbes wrote in his Leviathan that man is driven by three things: Greed, Fear and Reason. It is not for nothing that greed comes first.

It is mainly greed that drives most of them. The women live in a materialistic world and have no relationship to money. They bang out the coal, for all sorts of things, true to the motto: they always want to fuck. So, if I'm broke, then I have the next days income again and they are usually right.

Only, I have never experienced that one puts something aside for old age and that is also a problem. There are more and more whores who still have to prostitute themselves at 50 or older (some at 70).And all or most efforts with exit programs simply fail because too much is earned. A woman who earns several thousand euros a month tax-free does not work as a cleaning lady for 1500 euros.

Very many of the Eastern Bloc ladies provide their entire clans with the job. This often not voluntarily, but they are forced by the family. House for the parents, German medicines for the father, fat car for the brother. If she refuses, she is disowned or one of the relatives impregnates her and the child stays at home in the East, as a means of pressure, and she earns the money. I have testimonies from whores, they were taken out of school young, impregnated by the uncle and the child is with the aunt. That the women are put under pressure, in any form, is nothing new. Here is the alleged friend as a companion and overseer and every day money is sent home, by Western Union, under supervision. The apartment of the "friend" staying here and its maintenance, such as cigarettes or playing at the gambling machine, is of course paid by the lady.
This is called forced prostitution.

Of course, the women either don't speak German at all or only rudimentary, so that they can't defend themselves against any measures taken by the authorities. Furthermore, they do not know what is happening to them, especially since there are also very many 18- to 21-year-olds, and this is the next scandal. They are children and nothing else.

They stand on the street and hold up slips of paper: "Fuck 30". A "conversation" with the john cannot take place, so they have to endure a lot, because they cannot defend themselves verbally. In addition, they earn only a fraction as in the brothel, since they do not accommodate there, due to the language difficulties. The john drives by 5 times and pushes the price each time, so that the women have to give themselves for 20 euros when nothing is going on.
This is what I call poverty prostitution.

The women who belong to rockers, of course, go whoring, otherwise there will be beatings or abuse. Simplified.

There are also women (Germans) who are divorced and have children to take care of. They then work, because it is not enough at the back and front, in escort or offer themselves on the net. The children are then told, as I know in one case, that mom works in the gastronomy.
So financial constraint.

The next want to buy a property or take a fat vacation, so compulsion for luxury. The worst is what happens with the Eastern European women. These are often women who come from gypsy circles, or from the Black Sea. This region is considered very poor. Nobody really knows what's going on with the women from Africa and China. Some things have been found out, but it is almost impossible to penetrate these circles because of the language and the appearance. Only one thing is clear: the alleged Japanese women are all Chinese, because the ladies from Japan do not actually prostitute themselves in Europe.

Again and again, I am surprised that the state (allegedly) protects every minority, but here shows zero interest in implementing Article 1 of the GG (= constitution), because what is going on clearly violates human dignity.
(German criminal investigator, anonymous)

The greed that the policeman mentions here in connection with a few women as a motivator for prostitution activity is certainly only one of many factors that can lead to ending up in prostitution. But it shows once again the monstrous excesses of a capitalist-driven world that objectifies everything into a commodity from which profit can be made.

So, we come to those who actively keep the system of prostitution alive and in the vast majority of cases can live very very well from it themselves...

The profiteers - The monster in different guises

Let me say in advance: Without demand, no supply - that is, the numerous customers ("clients") in Germany make prostitution possible in the first place. Questioning their motives is an important step to get to the bottom of the prostitution system. In our documentary film AUFBRUCH, this analysis will be done.  

Now let's do a little math.
A brothel operator who has 15 rooms and collects 130 daily rent per room takes in 711,000 euros in rent per year. Of course, it's a little less than that because not all the rooms are always occupied. Even if you deduct 70 percent of that in taxes, business tax, sales tax, income tax, electricity, heating, personnel, entertainment tax, repairs, he still has about 200,000  a year net. Not bad.
 
In running houses (brothels) with bar or attached table dance, it is of course even more. The dirty work, like organizing and making the women compliant, is left to the Eastern Europeans, who then deliver the women. But there are also cases that rooms that are occupied are shown as unoccupied and thus black rent is collected. To be caught by a control is unlikely and if, you just pay the penalty.

Most running houses take a deposit from the women. There are also incidents that the women leave at some point and demand their deposit back and this fails because there is usually no receipt for the deposit and the women speak little German and thus can enforce their rights only poorly. This is then also an additional income. 

Now, there are not only running houses, but also the escort sector, sauna clubs, residential prostitution, street prostitution etc. If a prostitute does not work on his/her own, there are always people who not only earn money, but also collect a large part of the income. The sums are incalculable, since there are probably in almost all cases "side earnings", which are handled black. In Corona times, this was even more pronounced. 

Criminologists and human rights organizations assume that 80-90% of prostitutes in Germany are forced prostitutes. Even if these numbers can never be validated unambiguously, we assume 10-20% of people who prostitute themselves voluntarily (and to a certain extent perhaps self-determined, without pimps, etc.). But even in this group, the line between voluntariness and coercion is a fine one. 

The classic brothel is still widespread in Germany, because demand is high and even in lockdown times, investors continued to pursue new construction and conversion plans for their running houses. Why should one give up this profitable source of income? Because the following question is guaranteed not to be of interest for the profiteers:

What does that do to women (and to a smaller extent men) who make their body openings available for men to use, in exchange for money to give that money, or a large portion of it, to other men? And these men, in turn, drive around in a Porsche and have bought several properties, while the prostitute has not even generated a pension reserve...

With the film AUFBRUCH we want to focus more on the topics of trauma, johns and gender justice. Here is a trailer:

In order to complete the long documentary film, we are dependent on support. There are only a few steps to post-production that need to be financed.
Here you can contribute: https://www.betterplace.org/en/projects/99628-aufbruch-documentary-film

On September 5, betterplace will add 20% to every donation up to 100€ (while the contingent lasts - so donate early in the morning!).

For 500€ we will include the logo of your company/organization in the film credits. Please, contact me for individual donations at kristinetauch@storymentor.de   

A state must always act according to the maxim that the constitution is at the center of political action and justice. This is not the case in this area.(German criminal investigator, anonymous)