Public broadcaster ARD has shaken up Germany´s look on prostitution just over ten years after it became legal in Germany. A new documentary exposes Germany “Europe’s biggest brothel,” with booming profits being made at the expense of women working in the sex trade.
Ten years ago the government hoped to clean up the industr, giving prostitutes more rights and security. Now the documentary on ARD - using hidden cameras at red light establishments - do not quite show a success story. Instead it shows that “women have become a resource, which are being used as efficiently as possible.”
Over a million men pay for sex each day in Germany. Many of these now visit “flat-rate” brothels where men can paid a mere €49 for a night of as much sex as they can muster. These have become an increasingly popular business model in Berlin where “sex is cheaper than anywhere else,” a brothel owner told the journalists.
What the government does seem to be profiting from since legalizing prostitution though, is the tax it generates, daily newspaper the Frankfurter Rundschau noted. Even street prostitutes pay tax, meaning what one brothel press spokesman said, “the state has become the modern day pimp.”
Source: DPA/The Local/jcw