Report demolishes legitimacy of Prostituierten”Schutz”Gesetz

First Worker’s Collective Escort Agency Demands Common Sense Reforms

As the Bundes Deutscher Frauenvereine recognised way back in 1918, there is a central misogyny at play when a government regulates the bodies of sex workers but not their clients. But even in 2016, this practice was enshrined in the ProstituiertenSchutzGesetz (ProstSchG), which mandated the registration of sex workers. Such regulation dates back to the Protestant Reformation, when sexual desire was — quite literally — demonized, meaning that sex workers lost their personal autonomy in favour of “protecting” society at large. It was thought necessary to control the behaviour of creatures capable of seducing men into a loss of control over themselves – a phenomenon that would, in their view, cause the downfall of society. 

We often think that we have come so far in women’s rights in the past 100 years. But have we?

The German Sprachraum has a fascinating and unusual history where sex work policy is concerned. Unlike most of the world, it has almost always had legalized sex work with heavy regulation of the bodies of sex workers—but not their clients. Each era had its own rationalization for controlling the women who evaded the rules of the patriarchy by using their own bodies as their means of (re)production and upward financial mobility—usually either a moral panic (“The moral insanity of prostitutes is socially contagious to good, virtuous housewives!”) or a health panic (“Prostitutes are superspreaders of syphilis/HIV/Coronavirus!”).

In the modern era, politicians have justified repressive measures with concern over human sex trafficking. Sex workers have been told that we must give up the right to privacy (enshrined under both the EU human rights charter and German Grundgesetz) because we are a “special class of people” who must therefore be subject to special laws of protection. A common narrative is that we are universally too drug-addicted or traumatized to make healthy decisions about our own lives. Hence the need for a ProstituiertenSchutzGesetz, which forces sex workers to register “for our own good.” This incudes a mandatory screening by a social worker (none of whom have lived experience in our nuanced work) in order to make sure that none of us are being forced our coerced into sex work against our will. The members of Paramour often come away from these appointments feeling angered by their paternalistic vibe.

At the exact same time, coercive measures are commonplace in brothels, agencies, and other sex workplaces, where industry standard is violating Zühalterei (aggravated pimping) laws. Regulatory authorities usually do not recognise that these legalised workplaces already meet internationally recognised criteria for human trafficking.

Under current law, private data of sex workers are recorded and kept in a government database. With the AfD increasing in every election, no one seems to recognise that this is exactly the same system that allowed the Nazis to round up and deport “sexual deviants” to concentration camps.

Now, we learn that this sacrifice of our human rights was all for nothing.

The evaluation was unable to find that the ProstSchG reduced human sex trafficking. Indeed, it references that, already in 2021, we knew that the law had failed in that respect:

Henning et al. concluded that the ProstSchG, despite the conducted counseling sessions and registration procedures, and despite the expanded on-site inspections and stricter criminal provisions on human trafficking and sexual exploitation, has not led to an increased detection of offenses in this area. 

To bring this more explicitly into focus: 

According to the KOK (German NGO against Trafficking in Human Beings), 68,01% of the exploitation of people attending their counselling centers (81% of which are victims of human trafficking) took place in the context of unregistered sexual services. Only 6,03% of these people were registered as sex workers with the government. This means that the registration system is coming into contact with only 32% of trafficking victims at most, and often not identifying them as such.

What is Paramour Collective, and why does this matter so much to us?

Paramour Collective is the first all-gender, worker-owned escort agency. We operate as a worker’s collective (Genossenschaft), and are horizontally organised. 

We founded Paramour because of the level of exploitation that its members had already experienced in legalized sex work businesses in Germany. The government has spent much effort in regulating the bodies of the sex workers themselves, but very little ensuring that exploitation does not occur within a legal context. 

For example, it is standard in Berlin for brothels to take 40-50% of their workers’ earnings, in addition to a variety of other arbitrary fees. Altogether, this often totals more than 50% of a worker’s earnings, which meets the definition of human trafficking as defined by the Palermo Protocol.

This exploitation is not tracked in any way. Therefore, we have no data regarding what percentage of workers in legal, registered businesses are actually human trafficking victims. The report did not cover this aspect of legalised sex work at all; in fact, it used self-reported data from business owners (bosses) to analyse whether they broke aggravated pimping laws.

Why is it imperative that sex workers be involved in writing a new law? What is an example of the kind of dangerous policy created when politicians don’t consult sex workers?

Let us tell you about our mandatory “health counseling.”

Since the emergence of Syphilis in the 15th century, there has been a stigma that sex workers are “superspreaders.” As recently as the 1990s, this meant police-enforced mandatory HIV testing of sex workers. But is this actually true in our modern world?

The ProstSchG review found the same prevalence of HIV among insured sex workers as in the general sexually active German population: 0.2%. 

However, the stigma remains. This means that, in writing the 2016 law, the government seems to have felt the need to “be seen to be doing something” to quiet public concerns over sex workers and STIs. To us, the protocol developed for the ProstSchG is genuinely strange and pointless: Every year, to retain one’s registration, each sex worker must go to a mandatory health counseling. 

“By a medical health professional?” a reasonable person might ask. 

Unfortunately not. These counselings are done not by a doctor, nurse, or other person with medical expertise; they are conducted by social workers who have taken a very basic training. 

What is the result we have seen in the community? At best, sex workers leave their health “counseling” with no new information. At worst, they leave not even knowing how to use a condom or having been given misinformation. For example, these social workers do not have the most up-to-date knowledge about the use of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis for HIV (PrEP), one of the most miraculous and useful drugs of our modern era. There have been instances of social workers telling sex workers NOT to use these drugs, because they are “not appropriate for those assigned female at birth.” This is dangerous misinformation that could result in HIV infections for female, non-binary, and trans sex workers. We find this completely unacceptable.

We endorse a “government hands off my body” approach. Instead of the prostitution office, a government policy that would have real utility would be a dedicated free and anonymous testing station for sex workers only with especially rapid result times. While the family planning centers at Gesundheitsamt are a good start, sex workers have different needs when it comes to STI testing. We need to be able to go as soon as a condom breaks, without waiting weeks for an appointment. We need results as quickly as possible, because some of us can’t stop working while we wait 2 weeks for results. Sex workers understand that, for most of us, we keep ourselves healthy when we have the resources to do so. None of us want to be sick. 

During the Corona Pandemic, we saw the government subsidise and implement a massive testing effort in response to Covid-19. On the other hand, many people–even sex workers!--must undergo unnecessary scrutiny and questioning about whether or not they are eligible for testing. The continuing absence of free, easy, and non-stigmatized STI testing shows an intrusion of the government’s moral concerns into what should be a purely medical issue. 

Ask any sex worker: To us, this is common sense. But we–the actual experts–have to be consulted. Making policy based on anxiety over a bigoted public will always be both harmful and ineffectual. Sex workers knew that the ProstSchG was the wrong approach–and they said so loudly at the time. They were not listened to.

It’s time for a change.

Our community awaits invitations from the BMFSFJ to join the panel that will write the next law; because 500 years is long enough to wait for policies based on lived experience and data instead of political guesswork.

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We welcome interview requests. Please feel free to contact us via Info@ParamourCollective.de