‘Germany is hotspot for sex trafficking’

Men using foreign prostitutes may be contributing to rape and slavery, a WEA representative tells university students in Cologne.

Evangelical Focus

Idea Spektrum · COLOGNE · 18 FEBRUARY 2020 · 14:29 CET

Photo: Valery Rabchenyuk (Unsplash, CC0),
Photo: Valery Rabchenyuk (Unsplash, CC0)

Prostitution in Germany has a dark parallel world that has to be denounced.

Dozens of Christian organisations fighting sex trafficking in Europe have said that in recent years, and the World Evangelical Alliance Associate Secretary General for Theological Concerns Thomas Schirrmacher insisted on this issue in a talk with students of the University of Cologne.

Invited by “Campus Connect Köln”, Schirrmacher said that in every European society where prostitution is tolerated, there are thousands of women and men who are enslaved and exploited.

Foreigners are often brought to Germany with false promises of job opportunities and then forced to pay high sums to traffickers to return alleged debts.

Sex traffick victims lose their freedom and are forced to “work” responding to whatever requests prostitution clients ask of them, for as many as 20-30 times a day.

Europe has become the centre of an illegal industry that moves millions of Euro of which the victims do not profit.

Even countries like Germany and the Netherlands that are known for their open legislation about prostitution, statistics show a dark reality in which many are victims of three severe crimes: deprivation of freedom, rape and forced prostitution.

Schirrmacher warned the audience that whoever uses the so-called services of foreign prostitutes is in serious risk of “taking part in one of these crimes”.

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