Thursday, September 1, 2011
Sex Work in Germany
Sex work brings up a lot of human rights issues. Is the buying and selling of sex in and of itself a violation of human rights? What about the human rights of sex workers? Many of these issues come up in this story about a new tax on street walkers in Germany. The city of Bonn has installed a parking meter of sorts, which sex workers who work on the street can now use to pay their taxes. The idea is that sex workers who work out of brothels are already paying taxes, so the streetwalkers should also pay taxes. Prostitution is legal in Germany--and the city of Bonn provides a great many services to the sex workers. It pays for a security firm to watch out for the neighborhood and has even built "special wooden garages nearby where customers can park their cars and have sex." How would you begin to think of this issue in terms of rights?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I'm a little confused by this article. Towards the beginning, it cites tax fairness as the main reason behind the meter; "The women in the bordellos and the sauna clubs also pay the tax, and so should those working on the streets." But in the very last paragraph it claims "prostitutes in Germany already pay income taxes." Unless I'm not understanding and/or missing something, this seems really contradictory. Which one is it?
ReplyDeleteRegardless... as far as human rights go, I can see how this could potentially violate Article 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which claims that "all are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law." The prostitutes who work on the street and not in registered brothels are being discriminated against in that they have to pay an obligatory fee just to go to their jobs. And the fine for being caught working without a "ticket" just adds salt to the wound. To me, it sounds like Germany is looking for an easy way to collect money and is going about it by discriminating against the people that generally get a bad rap to begin with.
I think that the brothels in Germany pay a special tax, so the notion is that anyone doing sex work should pay the special tax. I don't think the fact that people in a specific industry have to pay a tax is generally seen as a violation--there are airplane taxes and hotel taxes and all kinds of industry-specific taxes.
ReplyDelete