Berlin Vice

‘We work in pairs because it’s safer,’ says Sandra. ‘But it’s not very dangerous. The police look out for us. It’s better as well for the companionship, working together. For a student boy we do a good price, maybe €80. For a businessman we could take €200 a time.’

It’s 11pm on Berlin’s Oranienburger Straße and Sandra and Daisy, both dressed in tight-fitting outfits and knee-high boots, are hustling for business; they pose provocatively, trying to catch the attention of passing men with calls of ‘Hey honey’ and ‘Where you going, handsome?’ Meet two of Germany’s estimated 400,000 prostitutes. 

The one-kilometre strip in the Berlin Mitte district, also home to Berlin’s New Synagogue, is synonymous with the city’s liberal stance on prostitution. Each night sees many girls plying their trade: just like Sandra and Daisy, they’re taking advantage of Germany’s 2002 Prostitutionsgesetz (Prostitution Act), which made prostitution a legally recognised activity.

On paper, it is a job just like any other; sex workers can be self-employed, as is the case with Sandra and Daisy, or they can have a working contract with an employer. Sex workers also have access to pension plans, health insurance and tax deductible work necessitates. The German statistics office estimates the sex trade to be worth around €15 billion annually, with up to one in three Germans paying for sex on a regular basis.
 
Unlike other German cities, prostitution is permitted anywhere in Berlin, provided the girls are registered and paying the €30 a day flat rate tax. Once Sandra or Daisy find a client they disappear to a nearby apartment, or for a discounted price, to the park opposite. In Munich, for example, sex work is banned from the city centre, while Hamburg and Frankfurt have designated red light districts.

In the UK, prostitution itself isn’t illegal, but related activities, such as brothel keeping, kerb crawling and street soliciting are. In France, a change of legislation is currently being considered, which would make paying for sex a criminal activity, following the models of Sweden, Norway and Iceland. This model stresses the fact that most sex workers are trafficked, migrant women who have been coerced into prostitution.

Sandra is 23 and Daisy is 25. Both are from Germany. Sandra has been working for two years now. She plans to get enough money together to start her own business or get a mortgage. ‘An apartment in Berlin would be nice, or a house out in the country, but I think I would get bored there,’ she says. Daisy’s motivations are slightly different: she has a young daughter. ‘The father left soon after she was born. She lives in Dresden with my mother. I see her every two weeks. My mother and I don’t speak about what I do, but she is understanding. I plan to do it for one more year.’   

Despite being a legally recognised activity, life as a sex worker in Berlin is neither normal nor stable. While benefits have been acknowledged, the Prostitution Act still is widely regarded as more theory than practice and the problems that it set out to eliminate, such as unsafe working conditions, lack of legal protection and exploitation, are still prevelant. Implementation of good working conditions is a contentious issue; pimping remains illegal in Germany and employers are wary about drawing up employment contracts for fear of prosecution. The problem is compounded further by the fact that there are no legally set standards of what constitutes as ‘good’ working conditions.

Stigmatisation means that most sex workers still operate on a self-employed basis, and often illegally, to avoid extra costs and paperwork, meaning they cannot work busy, police-protected districts like Oranienburger Straße. This in turn encourages movement towards unofficial red light districts, which increase competition and leave sex workers more vulnerable to violence.

Dr Barbara Kavemann of SoFFI F., a Berlin-based social science research institute, observes that the advantages of legalisation, such as the basic social security benefits, are often not compatible with working as a prostitute, especially in the short term. Meanwhile TAMPEP, a Europe-wide organisation working with migrant prostitutes, noted in a 2009 study that the Prostitution Act had made few, if any, notable improvements to the lives of the migrant women who constitute over 65% of Germany’s sex workers. The figure has been increasing every year, since the opening of the EU.

‘Migrant women in particular are very vulnerable to exploitation,’ says Veronica Munk of TAMPEP Germany. ‘They are less likely to know their rights, and not speaking the language requires a middleman.’

Most migrant sex workers in Germany are from new EU countries such as Poland, Bulgaria and Romania, with a quota also coming from Thailand. But although migrant sex workers are more vulnerable to exploitation, similar issues continue to apply to German nationals working in the sex trade, as Joanne Lesniak from Berlin-based NGO HYDRA notes:

‘Even with the legality, many women are still working in exploitive situations. They may not fully understand their rights and suffer from low self-esteem. They may be fully legal, paying taxes, and may not have a pimp per se, but often the woman is working for her partner, who’s without a job or with some kind of addiction.’

For now however, Sandra and Daisy continue to stand and smile on Oranienburger Straße. ‘We both have goals we want to achieve. We don’t want to do this forever,’ Sandra says.

As the evening draws to a close, a smartly dressed man, who appears to be in his mid-forties, approaches the girls. The man’s eyes light up during the exchange, as the pair stroke his chest and whisper in his ear.

‘We have to go now honey,’ Daisy says with a smile. ‘But it was nice talking to you and good luck.’