Prostitution: Something is happening!

The speech by the President of the Bundestag was the beginning. With a clarity previously unknown in politics, Julia Klöckner named the misery of prostitutes and the shame of Germany's Sonderweg. While many countries now consider prostitution a crime and a serious violation of human dignity, the trade in women as commodities and the purchase of women is still legal in Germany, a business sector like many others, and there is hardly any help available for women to get out of it. Germany has degenerated into the European hub for trafficking in women, the "brothel of Europe" (Julia Klöckner).

The day after Klöckner's speech at the Alice Schwarzer Foundation's Heroine Awards ceremony on November 4 in Berlin, Health Minister Nina Warken (CDU) also came forward. She declared: "Like other countries, Germany needs a criminal ban on the purchase of sex for clients." Prostitutes should remain exempt from punishment and receive comprehensive assistance to leave the industry. "Germany must no longer be the brothel of Europe."

Just because ten percent do it voluntarily, we must not abandon the other 90 percent.

One day later, Anja Weisgerber said on ARD's Morgenmagazin: "We have a Prostitute Protection Act – and it has failed. The aim was for prostitutes to register so that they could even have access to social security, health insurance, and unemployment insurance. The fact is that only 10-15 percent of women are officially registered. This means that the rest are already working in secret and are at the mercy of pimps and clients," complains the deputy chairwoman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group. "The ten percent who do it voluntarily do not justify us abandoning the 90 percent."

Science Minister Dorothee Bär has long been known to be in favor of criminalizing those who profit from the prostitution industry: clients, pimps, and brothel operators. The same applies to Mechthild Heil, chairwoman of the women's group in the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, and Elisabeth Winkelmeier-Becker (CDU). The member of the Bundestag and long-time chairwoman of the Legal Affairs Committee has been campaigning against this scandalous law for many years.

Such a broad and powerful women's front can hardly be ignored by their party any longer. The CSU has been opposed to the law for some time. The CDU had included the punishment of clients in its 2024 policy platform. The Union had thus taken a clear critical stance even before the elections. It declared that it was in favor of punishing clients and providing exit assistance for women. That is also the position of Chancellor Friedrich Merz, according to behind-the-scenes party sources. But the demand is no longer in the coalition agreement. Where has it gone? The SPD negotiated it out, they say.

The SPD. Not exactly a leading advocate for women's rights. During the traffic light coalition, only a few individuals, such as Leni Breymaier, who has since left parliament, and Saskia Esken, a member of parliament and former party chairwoman, were in favor of punishing clients and providing exit assistance for prostitutes. And Maria Noichl, Member of the European Parliament! She has been fighting for many years in Brussels against the disastrous German law and the prostitution lobby, which represents the interests of those who trade in women as commodities. They usually send "happy sex workers" to the media front.

And, not to forget, Chancellor Olaf Scholz! In the fall of 2023, he declared: "I find it unacceptable that men buy women!" Labor Minister Bärbel Bas (SPD) also finds the so-called Nordic model "well worth considering." Her hometown of Duisburg is notorious for its red-light district, where the Hells Angels and Bandidos operate with particular abandon. "I see the misery and that it's getting worse and worse with forced prostitution," said Bas. "Things can't stay the way they are now."

And now? What should be done, Ms. Bas?

The Duisburg native could listen to Duisburg Police Chief Alexander Dierselhuis. The former prosecutor specializing in organized crime explained as an expert in the Family Committee: "We know where the brothels are, but we don't have the slightest idea what happens there. We have a massive blind spot in the current system!" Because the few cases of human trafficking often fail because the intimidated women do not testify, Dierselhuis is in favor of punishing the purchase of women as such. "We would then have an easily provable crime and thus a gateway into the investigations."

"The worst thing is that we have a legal situation that makes all this possible," says Jasmina Hostert. The SPD parliamentary group's spokesperson on women's issues comes from Bosnia and knows how women from Eastern Europe are lured to Germany. "We have this distorted image that prostitution is voluntary and that women enjoy it. But most prostitution in Germany is forced prostitution." She said this on November 6 at the "expert dialogue" of the Federal Association for the Nordic Model in Berlin. Hostert sees the decisive factor on the demand side, the clients: "We have to teach boys that women are not commodities. We have to change the mentality, and that can be done through the Nordic model."

We have to change the mentality and teach boys: Women are not commodities!

On November 16, the SPD women will meet for their federal conference. It is said that around half of them are (now) in favor of banning the purchase of sex. That would even be a relative step forward, because not so long ago, 99 percent of SPD women were in favor of the disastrous law passed by the red-green coalition in 2001, which turned Germany into a destination for clients, the "brothel of Europe."

Now, two women who were ministers at the time have declared: "The reform was a mistake." This is according to Herta Däubler-Gmelin, who was Minister of Justice at the time and who "has yet to meet a prostitute who would not quit if she could." Former Health Minister Ulla Schmidt is now also a supporter of the "SPD pro Nordic Model" network, because "women are not commodities."

And the Left Party? It used to be pro-prostitution. It is not yet known whether this has changed in the party, which has since become younger and more feminized. At least there is now a network called "The Left for a World without Prostitution."

Finally, the Greens. They are the inventors of the slogan: "Prostitution is a job like any other." For them, women in prostitution are "sex workers." But even in this darkness, there is a light—and not a small one. Party leader Franziska Brantner is said to be in favor of a ban on buying sex "based on the French model." Brantner had already signed the Brussels Appeal as a Member of the European Parliament: "For a Europe without prostitution." In France, prostitution is considered a serious violation of human dignity, clients are punished, pimps and brothel operators are punished anyway, and women who want to leave prostitution are helped. So that's fine.

Punishment for rape in marriage:
Only through a cross-party alliance

In 1996, a cross-party alliance of female politicians finally succeeded in pushing through the punishment of rape in marriage. Until then, it had been considered a man's right. At that time, SPD member of parliament Ulla Schmidt took the initiative and everyone joined in.

It would be good if the CDU/CSU women took the concrete legislative initiative this time, and it would be wonderful if everyone joined in again. Because prostitution is so much more than "just" a slave market in the middle of Germany, where the poorest of the poor from Eastern Europe are sold off. "As long as prostitution is legal, there can be no real equality, not between the 'sex trade' and the (potential) buyers of women," says Alice Schwarzer. It's about human dignity. For both sexes.