Thread by @EllyArrow

TW: R A P E!

Here are quotes by German men from the thread. German legal "sex" buying is one of the most shameful things my country is currently tolerating. We didn't criminalize paying to rape trafficking victims until 2017 (and have had 0 convictions since).

https://twitter.com/EllyArrow/status/1458109693977636866

It is really important that we come to understand that prostitution and sex trafficking are not separate AT ALL. They happen frequently in the same locations, women are advertised on the same websites and the same men purchase access to (and commit rape against) both groups.

Its impossible to legislate on prostitution without affecting sex trafficking & vice versa as Germany poignantly illustrates: If the man who pays is just a "client" then our law held for the longest time he can't be held accountable for the "service providers" circumstances.

German law pretends that #prostitution is a "job" and that mentality enables the pretence that a man not noticing that the woman he is touching and penetrating is being raped is the same thing as a woman not noticing the woman who paints her nails at the nail salon is trafficked.

Legal sex buying breeds the mentality that once a man has paid, his obligations to a woman end. Whether she's in any kind of distress - financial, emotional, physical, violent - he is off the hook, in his mind, in the mind of much of society and for the longest time even the law.

And since we criminalized paid rape of trafficking victims in Germany we had 0 convictions. Cause how would you prove he knew? She isn't going to go to authorities either because unless she has ample evidence to them she's just a "black market sex worker" who needs to be deported

People who advocate or support legal sex buying, brothel-keeping, etc. always shout about how the law would not affect trafficking statutes. It's blatantly untrue. It narrows the definition of pimping to an extreme. It erases the man who pays to rape the trafficking victim.

Not even touching how legal sex buying increases demand for prostitution which due to lack of volunteers can only be satisfied through coercion and trafficking. But mostly it means every sex buyer is an ethical "client" until proven otherwise (and every pimp an ethical "manager")

Sex buyers and pimps love German #prostitution law. And since we did wake up a little bit and realize maybe a deregulated sex industry is a bad idea, the little bit of adjusting we did do in 2017 (some of which is harmful to women so I don't endorse it) led them to shout for...

...something more like the New Zealand model which is closer to the German model prior to 2017. In NZ they haven't convicted a single trafficker since the law came into force in 2003 (nvm the paying rapists) - a glaring omission from the list of supposed successes the law has had

Here's a report clearly outlining the issue with legal sex buying, brothel-keeping etc. and the connection to sex trafficking (and lack of protections for women newly assigned "worker" status but without many meaningful worker's rights): catwinternational.org/wp-content/upl…

Here's a project similar to the one I'm running for Germany that collects sex buyer quotes from New Zealand and Australia: instagram.com/actual_john_qu…

There's a lot more to say, for now: Sex buyers and pimps want a legal sex trade with minimal regulation. That's precisely what the global "sex work" movement is advocating. How can a law endorsed by the most likely rapists and killers of women be in the interest of their victims?