The #Pascha was until recently German's biggest brothel: 10 stories high, with 126 rooms. Reactions range from sadness over "good ol' times" coming from sex buyers, to joy from those opposed to the sex trade, to concern about "good work places lost." bbc.com/news/world-eur…
Nearly everyday I encounter the assumption that a place like the Pascha is what a modern society should strive for, cause it affords legitimacy, dignity & safety to the women in it - the assumption being that legal brothels only employ women there by choice & are low on violence.
This is not true and I'm only going to a list a few facts to get this story straight: First of all the brothel was built, because the city government of Cologne wanted women out of the inner city, away from respectable parts of town, where people "don't want to see that."
Women in prostitution did not want to be in a more isolated place in a poorer part of town and neither did anyone ask the residents of the area, if they consented to having their businesses and their safety comprimised by the presence of mega-brothel teeming with pimps.
Because it did teem with organized crime. Over the years both the owner & several employees were arrested for a variety of crimes including drug smuggeling, serious bodily injury, systematic tax evasion and exploitation of women & girls without passports. rundschau-online.de/nur-geldbusse-…
You might think the presence of partially armed strongmen security would have at least prevented violence against women in the #Pascha, but no: In 2016 for example a sex buyer attacked a woman seriously injuring her, exposing the silicone in her breasts. focus.de/regional/koeln…
Also in 2016 a sex buyer almost strangled a woman in one of the #Pascha rooms to death. He suddenly began severely strangeling her during "sex", giving her bloodshot eyes and making her loose conciousness. He wanted to rob her to pay for his gambling debts express.de/koeln/lebensla…
In 2006 a sex buyer attacked a woman in the #Pascha brothel with a knife, stabbing her mouth and throat, almost killing her. The security pimps did intervene and beat him senseless, but this doesn't change that the women will carry that trauma for life. ksta.de/pascha-prostit…
In 2003 a woman (28) from Thailand, going by "Cat", was stabbed in her torso and belly 14 times by a sex buyer while in her room in the legal #Pascha megabrothel and died. The brothel owner promised better security, but we already know what came of that. sexindustry-kills.de/doku.php?id=pr…
If any of you had people trafficked, strangled, stabbed and murdered at your work place - you'd leave. But the women at the #Pascha had to go right back the next day. Because the reality of #prostitution is that women fear violence from men every single day and for good reason.
The #Pascha is by far not the only legal brothel in Germany with cases of trafficking/pimping or #VAW. I compiled an incomplete list here: dieunsichtbarenmaenner.wordpress.com/establishments/ This list includes most major brothels in the country and that's just those were there is conclusive evidence.
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The life of Joop Wilhelmus - an exemplary tale of many a "#sexualrevolution|ary's" extreme hatred of women and children...🧵
Joop Wilhelmus is born in 1944, son of a Communist, sent at an early age to GDR socialist fraternization camps. Begins writing in leftwing papers at 14. Noticed for his braggadocio, claims of having first had sex at 12 years of age, and attracting "hot chicks" with his politics.
Jumping on the bandwagon of the sexual revolution in the 60s he soon becomes one of the Netherlands' most notorious pornographers, founding (among others) the adult porn magazine "Chick" in 1968. His fans are proud of the fact that he is hated by "the bourgeoisie and feminists".
There's a new website educating about the largely forgotten and understudied history of Nazi military brothel networks during WWII by German feminist historian Anne S. Respondek. "The male right to sex" in full brutal force looks like this... 🧵wehrmachtsbordelle.de/2023/09/12/gla…
During their time in power the Nazi war machine established a brothel network stretching entire occupied territory. Brothels catered to (nearly) every sector of the male population incl. not just soldiers, SS, police and elites, but military allies, workers and even camp inmates.
The history is glossed over in large part because post-war Germany still maintained its hatred of prostituted/sexually exploited women while also wanting to justify its continuance of the prostitution system (openly in the West, covertly in the East).
One of Germanys biggest news magazines, Der Spiegel, headlines:
"We will be ashamed"
Deploring 20 years of failed German #prostitution policy.
Here's the story of how the law let women down, the people (often survivors) ringing the alarm & the politicians admitting the mistake
The article opens with the story of "Lena" (20), the victim of a "loverboy" pimp, a trafficker who makes their victim think they're in a loving relationship - in Lena's case a martial arts world champion. Atypical about her story is that he got sentenced to 6 years and 3 months.
Lena's story is not a singular case, the article explains. There are countless women and some men & trans people trafficked to Germany annually. Most traffickers dont have a day in court nevermind the men literally paying to rape, the latter's actions are only criminal since 2017
Every femicide in the sex trade warrants action and no country is doing enough to stop men using lethal violence against women in #prostitution. But the radio silence on the recent case of a woman murdered in a German apartment brothel, compared to the Irish case is deafening.
I don't think anyone can prove their case on what policy is better based on homicide data alone because as far as I'm aware no country is tracking murders of women in prostitution specifically. The cases and survivor reports we do have indicate lethal violence is a concern always
In any country, call it "legalization", "liberalization" or "decrim" women in #prostitution are given advice on how to not get robbed, raped, and murdered on the job from organizations that speak of #sexwork. Clearly, it remains a significant concern under all models of law.
Reading about legal experts and sexologists who work with child rapists repeatedly going "oh, if they'd just pay someone 18+ for it, it's totally fine!" and the totally fine thing is cutting someone's skin or keeping someone in a basement for a dozen men a day. I'm furious.
Women in prostitution are not sponges for rape and abuse. Not only are men very capable of raping both their stepdaughter and the barely 18-year-old woman at the brothel, a disproportionately large number of women in the sex trade are themselves child sexual abuse survivors.
Some women in the sex trade have reported that men tell them "I chose you because you look like my niece/daughter/granddaughter/student". How does that make her feel esp. considering the significant chance she is a survivor of incest/child abuse? Why are "experts" endorsing this?
Having made terrible experiences with window #prostitution in Amsterdam, the city plans to build a mega-brothel euphemistically called an "erotic center" instead. 100 women in rooms plus social and health service, security, hospitality, entertainment, education & cultural events.
In Germany, we call these places "mega brothels" and we have many of them. The biggest is the Pascha brothel in Cologne with 150 individual rooms. Such places may also include strip clubs, restaurants, spaces for concerts and business meetings. None of this has made women safe.
Not only are mega-brothels dehumanizing to the women in it, presenting them often based on "flavor" as in sorted by race or transgender status, bouncers and cameras have not made them remotely safe. The Pascha in Cologne has seen drug and human trafficking + 1 murder & 2 attempts