German insurance firm rewards top employees — with an orgy

[reorg]

194. false and misleading information

"Prostitution and brothels were legalized in Germany in 2002"

Prostitution was never illegal in Germany and neither were brothels. It was "sittenwidrig" (literally "immoral&quot , which had consequences in contract law:

Sittenwidrigkeit / Unconscionability: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscionability

The prostitution law in 2002 changed that and it is now possible for prostitutes to be legally employed as such and to enforce their contracts with customers, as well as for employers to live from proceeds gained through prostitution.


"... now Germany, despite legalized brothels, is seeing a huge increase in sex trafficking"

That claim is not supported by any real numbers, they cite a Press TV article quoting German law enforcement official Ziercke as saying that "investigations" have increased (from 317 to 534, nationwide). For which there may be any number of reasons - but the self-help organization of prostitutes, Hydra, disputes both the numbers and their validity.

Hydra claims the number of actual trafficking cases has been steadily decreasing in the last three years. And they say that the number of investigations into trafficking is misleading since according to the German penal code StGB § 232 "Menschenhandel zum Zweck der sexuellen Ausbeutung" it is automatically considered "trafficking" when somebody prompts a person under 21 years of age to engage or continue to engage in prostitution. IOW if a young and legal prostitute prefers to be employed in a safe brothel instead of working on her own, her employers would be considered "sex traffickers".

http://www.hydra-berlin.de/aktuelles/
http://www.hydra-berlin.de/aktuelles/presseerklaerung/ (press release, German)

Interesting to note in this context is that laws against sex trafficking were only added to the German penal code in 2005, so we can't compare the numbers with those from previous years.

Also interesting is that while the number of investigations has indeed been increasing by 29 percent, the number of victims has been decreasing by 11 percent between 2006 and 2007, according to statistics published by the Federal Ministry of the Interior:

"Nach dem aktuellen Lagebild „Menschenhandel 2007“ des Bundeskriminalamtes wurden im Bereich des Menschenhandels zum Zweck der sexuellen Ausbeutung im Jahr 2007 454 Ermittlungsverfahren, davon 318 mit ausländischen Opfern, abgeschlossen. Das bedeutet gegenüber den Vergleichszahlen des Vorjahres (353 Ermittlungsverfahren) einen Anstieg um ca. 29 %. Korrespondierend hiermit ist die Anzahl der Tatverdächtigen um ca. 8 % von 664 im Jahr 2006 auf 714 im Jahr 2007 angestiegen. Die Zahl der Opfer ist hingegen um ca. 11 % von 775 im Jahr 2006 auf 689 im Jahr 2007 gesunken"

http://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/Standardartikel/DE/Themen/Sicherheit/SichAllge/Menschenhandel.html?nn=246796