Professed Protection, Pointless Provisions – Germany’s new “Prostitutes Protection Act” (ProstSchG)
“Forced registration – Not with us!” Sex workers and allies demonstrate against the ProstSchG in front of the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs in Berlin © 2015 Emy Fem
ICRSE launches Briefing Paper on
Germany’s new ‘Prostitutes Protection Act’
[Deutsche Version hier]
To mark the International Sex Workers’ Day, celebrated each year on June 2nd to commemorate the occupation of the Saint-Nizier Church in Lyon, France, by 100 sex workers in 1975, ICRSE launches a briefing paper titled “Professed Protection, Pointless Provisions – Overview of the German Prostitutes Protection Act (Prostituiertenschutzgesetz – ProstSchG)”.
![ICRSE ProstSchG Briefing Paper Cover [English]](https://researchprojectgermany.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/icrse-prostschg-briefing-paper-cover-english.jpg?w=197&h=277)
The briefing paper was developed by ICRSE in collaboration with Hydra e.V. and the Professional Association Erotic and Sexual Services (Berufsverband erotische und sexuelle Dienstleistungen, BesD e.V.). It aims to offer policy makers, sex workers, and sex workers’ allies an analysis of Germany’s new “Prostitutes Protection Act” and its expected impact on sex workers, and outline recommendations from the sex worker community.
As noted therein, ICRSE has serious concerns about the ways the “Prostitutes Protection Act” will significantly undermine many of sex workers’ fundamental rights. The mandatory registration of sex workers and the possibility of issuing administrative orders against them limit their right to freedom of vocational choice, and the extensive means of surveillance that the “Prostitutes Protection Act” affords the authorities infringes the constitutional right of the inviolability of the home. The recording of personal data in connection with information about persons’ sexual life is a particularly serious issue as it violates the fundamental right to informational self-determination and the directive of the European Parliament on “the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data”. Given the impossibility of providing absolute data protection, the upcoming collection of this personal information is highly problematic.
Conclusion
The “Prostitutes Protection Act”, in the form that it will come into effect on July 1, 2017, only pretends to be a law for the protection of sex workers. The regulations provided therein fail to support both sex workers and trafficked persons. Instead, the law will force sex workers into illegality, especially those working together at apartments as well as migrant, trans, and otherwise particularly vulnerable individuals in sex work. What is labelled as protection is in large parts simply a law aimed at repressing sex work.
We invite sex workers and policy makers to read the briefing paper and take note of the recommendations from the sex workers’ community.
Download
Click here for the English version.
Click here for the German version.
Credits
Authors: Angela Herter and Emy Fem
Contributing Author and Copy Editor: Matthias Lehmann (Research Project Germany)
Translation: Ursula Probst
Design: Aleksandra Haduch
Photos: Matthias Lehmann and Emy Fem
![ICRSE ProstSchG Briefing Paper Quotes [English]](https://researchprojectgermany.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/icrse-prostschg-briefing-paper-quotes-english.jpg?w=590)
This article was first published as “Sex Workers’ Rights Day: ICRSE launches Briefing Paper on Germany’s new ‘Prostitutes Protection Act’” on the website of the International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe (ICRSE) on May 31st, 2017. Republished with kind permission.
“Sex workers have the same rights as everyone else” – Press Release by Voice4Sexworkers
Amnesty International supports the human rights of sex workers and calls for the decriminalisation of sex work
Please click here to view the German original.
At the conclusion of its International Council Meeting in Dublin on August 11th, 2015, Amnesty International voted to henceforward support sex workers’ human rights and call for the decriminalisation of sex work.
Voice4Sexworkers, an NGO by and for sex workers, welcomes the long overdue decision by Amnesty International, as the global sex workers’ rights movement has demanded the very same since decades already.
In Germany, for instance, abolishing the pimping law [§181a of the German Criminal Code] was already suggested in 1973, since labour exploitation and taking advantage of the plight of third parties are already prohibited in accordance with the human trafficking law [§233 of the Criminal Code].*
People who work in the sex trade are not helped by destroying its logistics and infrastructure or through wholesale prosecution of operators of prostitution venues. In many countries, e.g. in France and Sweden, it is already considered as pimping when two women share an apartment to work from. They are then charged and penalised for mutual pimping. Instead of being able to support one another, they are thus forced to work alone and under increased risks.
Decriminalisation does not mean to protect criminals or criminal networks. Those remain criminal under the existing criminal code that also applies to all other citizens. Rather, the objective is to abolish special laws that concern sex workers exclusively and make their work more dangerous. Other occupational groups are not controlled by the police in that fashion. In addition, special laws have a signal effect and lead to greater stigmatisation and discrimination against sex workers, which in turn affects their families and friends, too.
When criminal offences occur in the sex trade, the criminal code is sufficient to prosecute offenders, just as when they occur in any other trade. There is no need for special laws for the sex trade. The case numbers in the reports about human trafficking in Germany have consistently decreased, as evident in the reports by the Federal Crime Office [BKA].
Sex workers have the same right to free choice of employment as everyone else, and their choice must not result in being classified as criminals or in being subjected to controls at all hours without any suspicion of a crime being in progress.
*To avoid confusion: the call for the abolition of this paragraph is not tantamount to a call to legalise or decriminalise pimping but only to abolish special laws for sex workers, since exploitative labour practices in other occupations are all prosecuted under existing human trafficking law. Although the press release by Voice4Sexworkers amply explains this point, an additional clarification seemed necessary in light of countless misleading reports, incl. from well-respected media outlets, that Amnesty International‘s sex work policy was aiming to legalise pimping (see also below).
Original by Voice4Sexworkers. Translation by Matthias Lehmann. Published with kind permission.
“Let’s debunk the myths” – Video by Amnesty International
In an interview with Katie Nguyen of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Amnesty policy adviser Catherine Murphy explained:
“We have to be careful with words like pimp because people often interpret that to mean an exploitative third party and we would not be calling for the decriminalisation of an exploitative third party. What (the new policy) would mean is the decriminalisation of laws on consensual sex work. Exploitation or trafficking within sex work would still be criminal offences. So the the low level operational aspects of sex work such as working together for safety, renting premises, organising together… these things would no longer be criminal.”
Amnesty‘s video below explains how protecting the human rights of sex workers does not mean protecting pimps. Alternatively, you can read Amnesty‘s Q&A on the Policy to Protect Human Rights of Sex Workers.
