Prostitutes in the pandemic: pushed into poverty and illegality

Sex work has shifted as a result of the corona pandemic: prostitutes offer their services illegally, as SWR research shows. This puts the women at a high security risk.

When brothel operator John Heer opens the doors of his Messalina club in Stuttgart’s red-light district, he wants above all to show that he has used the pandamia phase creatively. His club and brothels – like everyone else in the city – have been closed since March 2020. He renovated his shop. He hopes to reopen in March. But will that happen? The outlook is uncertain in many ways. He simply doesn’t know at the moment, he says, whether the guests will come back and he also sees problems that enough women want to work for him again.

So was prostitution actually abolished with the pandemic? SWR research show that it has primarily shifted – to an illegal area. In Stuttgart alone, between 300 and 500 women offer their services online every day. They can be booked by phone, make home visits or receive clients in their apartment, they say. One of the women is Yarina from Romania, 21 years old. Until March 16, 2020, she worked as a prostitute in a brothel, now she works from an apartment in downtown Stuttgart.

Rent increased without protection

Since her landlord knew about her job, he immediately increased the rent, she reports SWR. You now pay 3000 euros for it. In addition, there would be costs for the ads in relevant portals, for which she would have to pay another 1400 euros. More than half of their income would go away like that.

She was back in Romania for a short time after the pandemic, but soon decided to choose the illegal route of apartment prostitution. She simply needs the money because she uses it to support her family. Without their income, the parents in Romania would not be able to make ends meet. Of course, she was more or less at the mercy of the clients: “Sometimes people come into the apartment aggressively, they insult me ​​and I can’t do anything, I’m afraid, I’m alone.”

Violence against prostitutes is increasing

A few weeks after the interview, Yarina was raped and abused by a client in his apartment, according to her lawyer. She called the police. The public prosecutor’s office in Ulm is currently investigating the case.

Apparently, violence against women in the milieu has increased nationwide since the pandemic. Corresponding reports from the police are piling up, and deaths are said to have already occurred. Yarina’s lawyer, criminal lawyer Stefan Holoch from Stuttgart, also describes violent crimes against prostitutes as almost commonplace: “Since all the brothels and whorehouses were closed as part of the Corona regulations, prostitution has inevitably shifted to risk areas where women tend to be defenseless. Clients feel superior, become aggressive, force sexual services that were not previously agreed upon, and so critical situations arise again and again.”

Many prostitutes are also homeless

The situation of women in the milieu is difficult not only in Stuttgart. Because illegal prostitution has meanwhile established itself in almost all major German cities. It also takes place in areas that are not noticed either on the internet or in public. The Mannheim social worker Julia Wege from the prostitute counseling center Amalie eV reports that many women have become homeless as a result of the pandemic and yet continue to work.

“I’ve seen women who told me they were sleeping in the car. One was pregnant. She said she slept in the car, she just didn’t know where to sleep and she could also work in the car,” reports the social worker . These are “states that we can’t really imagine”.

One of the women affected is Maria, a Bulgarian in her early 30s. During the day she spends time in a trendy Mannheim café, waiting to be approached by clients. She provides her sexual services in back rooms, in the car, at the clients’ homes, she says. Above all, hygiene is a challenge for her. “That’s why I always have a water bottle with me and use it to clean myself in any toilet,” says the woman. She also knows colleagues who sleep in the bar. She also has to pay something to the owner of the café. However, she did not want to say the exact amount.

Law hardly protects

The current desperate situation of many prostitutes shows that the Prostitute Protection Act of 2002 offers little protection. Social workers agree with many counseling centers that at least public order offices and local social authorities should now better monitor illegal apartment prostitution in order not to make the situation even worse.