Prostitution in Austria is legal and regulated. Most prostitutes are migrants, mainly from the former Eastern Bloc countries.

History

The last time prostitution was completely forbidden in Austria was under Maria Theresa of Austria, who shipped prostitutes along with other "asocial" people down the Danube to the Banat. Since this did little to reduce prostitution, however, Austrian laws changed to consider prostitution as a necessary evil that had to be tolerated, but regulated by the state. In 1850, the physician Dr. Nusser of the Vienna police suggested that prostitutes be required to register with the police, receive medical examinations twice a week, and obtain special health certificates. In 1873, Anton Ritter von Le Monnier, head of the Vienna police, reformed Vienna's prostitution law, and health certificates have been obligatory since that time. Prostitutes who complied with the requirements of registration and examinations were no longer prosecuted by the police. A newspaper article of October 27, 1874 reported that 6,424 prostitutes had received health certificates and were under observation by police and health authorities. According to police estimates, at least 12,000 more women lived on the proceeds of "free love" without being registered. Most of these were factory workers who received so little pay that they needed the additional income. Of the registered prostitutes, 5,312 were unmarried, 902 widows, and 210 married. The youngest was 15 and the oldest 47 years old.

Homosexual male prostitution (§ 210 Strafgesetzbuch) was legalized in 1989. A major reason for legalization was to reduce the spread of HIV through regular medical examinations.

Current laws

Today prostitution in Austria is regulated by the Strafgesetzbuch. Prostitution is not forbidden, but clients of prostitutes younger than 18 are prosecuted under § 207b (sexual abuse of juveniles). Additional restrictions are specified in § 214 to 217. Medical examinations are required by the AIDS and STD laws. The laws of the federal States of Austria place further restrictions on the times and places where prostitution may occur. The most restrictive law is that of Vorarlberg, where prostitution is legal only in licensed brothels and to date no such licenses have been issued.

The Austrian Oberster Gerichtshof (Supreme Court) held in 1989 that Prostitution was a "sittenwidriger Vertrag" (Unconscionable contract); therefore, a prostitute has no legal recourse against a customer who refuses to pay (OGH 28. Juni 1989, 3 Ob 516/89). According to Strafgesetzbuch § 216, it is forbidden to receive a regular income from the prostitution of another person, so a prostitute cannot legally be considered an employee. Prostitutes are considered to be self-employed, and since 1986 they have been required to pay taxes. The Arbeits- und Sozialrechts-Änderungsgesetz (ASRÄG) 1997 included them in social insurance.

Current situation

Austrian cities do not have red-light districts like the Bahnhofsviertel , the Reeperbahn in Hamburg, or the De Wallen in Amsterdam; the sex industry is widely distributed over the cities and its presence often goes unnoticed.

Number of registrated prostitutes in Vienna

Year	Female	Male
1874	6,424
1913	1,879
1920	1,387
1993	711
2003	460	14
2004	625
2006	1,132	18
April 2007	1,352	21
Nov 2008	1.728

In April 2007 1,352 female and 21 male prostitutes where officially registered in Vienna. In 2003, the oldest prostitute was a 71 year old Austrian woman, who offered her service in the second district of Vienna, the so called Leopoldstadt. The number of women working legally and illegally at least from time to time as prostitutes is estimated between 3,500 and 6,000; it is estimated that they totally serve 15,000 clients per day. A similar relation of prostitutes to population number can also be found in other Austrian cities. For example, in 2008 there were 120 registered prostitutes in Linz, which has approximately 10% of the size of Vienna.

Before the Wende there was a relatively good cooperation between police and prostitution from which both sides had their benefits: The pimps where allowed to regulate their turf wars themselves; on the other hand they served as informants for the police. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, however, the situation changed. A lot of young women from the former Eastern bloc came to Austria and were willing to prostitute themselves for less money than the Austrian women. Additionally organized crime groups from southern and eastern Europe entered the prostitution scene in Austria. In the following years, in particular in the 1990s the number of legal prostitutes decreased and the number of illegal prostitutes increased. Nowadays 60 to 90 percent are migrants, mainly from the former east bloc countries, among them many commuters from the close Slovakia. For example, the police caught several nurses from Bratislava who earned more money in one night on the streets of Vienna than in a whole month in the hospital in Bratislava.

The Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior considers the illegal prostitution as a problem because it comes along with crimes like human trafficking, pimping and rape. In addition, illegal prostitution creates health problems. A quarter of the arrested illegal prostitutes had multiple infections with sexually transmitted diseases. On the other hand, according to the health authorities of Vienna, registered prostitutes are the most healthy group of persons.. Because of this the Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior wants to transform illegal prostitution to a legal one. Similar to the ministry, several human rights and migrants organizations who highlight the bad life and working conditions of prostitutes want a detabooization of prostitution and improve the working and social conditions of sex works and to abolish the discrimination in the working rights and in the rights of residence. In early 2007 this topic was also discovered by politics and it was discussed to end the unconscionable state of prostitution and to find a legal regulation similar to the German law.

Counselling centres for prostitutes exist in Vienna (Sophie) and Linz (Lena). Additionally the organization LEFÖ (Counselling, Education and Support for Migrant Women) in Vienna and Maiz in Linz offer consulting for migrants working in sex industry.

There is an increase of Nigerian prostitutes in Austria, where by it was found out that many of them are victims of human trafficking and forced prostitution. The NGO Exit documents stories of these victims to increase public awareness. Furthermore, Exit counsels victims who seek help in special African dialects. Exit was initiated by Joana Adesuwa Reiterer, a Nigerian actress and writer based in Vienna who, after escaping a marriage with a pimp, started her research on human trafficking from Africa to Austria for sexual expliotation.

Human trafficking

Austria is a both a transit and a destination country for womenand children trafficked from Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary,Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine, Slovakia, Nigeria, and sub-Saharan Africa for the purposes of commercial sexualexploitation.

Most trafficked women are brought to Austria with promises of unskilled jobs, such as nannies or waitresses. Upon arrival they are often coerced into prostitution.

According to police, there also were some women who knowingly entered the country to work as prostitutes but were forced into dependency akin to slavery. Most victims were in the country illegally and feared being turned over to authorities and deported. Traffickers usually retained victims' official documents, including passports, to maintain control over them. Victims reported being subjected to threats and physical violence. A major deterrent to victim cooperation with authorities was fear of retribution, both in Austria and in the victims' countries of origin.

Traffickers include citizens, who are generally connected with licensed brothels, and foreign nationals, who are involved primarily with unlicensed brothels. Authorities estimated that organized crime groups from Eastern Europe, including Russia, controlled much of the trafficking. Police were also aware of cooperation between domestic and foreign citizens to traffic foreign prostitutes through the country.

Some victims are trafficked through Austria to Italy, France, and Spain.Women from Africa are trafficked through Spain and Italyto Austria for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

Police and NGOs identified a combinedtotal of 203 trafficking victims in 2008, up from 170in 2007. In 2007, 30 trafficking offenders for whomtrafficking was the leading charge were convicted, anincrease from 18 such convictions in 2006.

The government improved its funding for victimprotection, and continued to undertake proactiveprevention campaigns in 2008. The government published a brochure on child trafficking in 2008 to raise awareness and provide advice on assisting this population of victims.

References

1. [1]
2. http://www.bmi.gv.at/oeffentlSicherheit/2000/11_12/artikel_12.asp Geschichte der Prostitution. In Öffentliche Sicherheit. Das Magazin des Innenministeriums No 11-12/2000 November-Dezember (June 28, 2007)
3. http://www.sjoe.at/content/frauen/themen/koerper/article/618.html Interview with Eva van Rahden from SILA (June 28, 2007)
4. Anna Ehrlich. Auf den Spuren der Josefine Mutzenbacher. Amalthea Signum Verlag, Wien 2005, p. 205f. ISBN 3-85002-526-8
5. https://www.wien.gv.at/queerwien/recht.htm Wiener Antidiskriminierungsstelle: Die Rechtslage in Österreich (June 28, 2007)
6. http://www.sbg.ac.at/ssk/docs/stgb/bgbl/1989_243.htm BGBl.Nr. 243/1989 (June 28, 2007)
7. http://www.statistik.at/web_de/Redirect/index.htm?dDocName=017760 Statistik Austria: Gerichtliche Kriminalstatistik 2005, ISBN 3-902479-92-2, p. 21: Durch das Bundesgesetz BGBI. Nr. 243/1989 wurde der § 210 StGB, der bislang die gewerbsmäßige gleichgeschlechtliche Unzucht mit einer Person männlichen Geschlechts unter Strafe stellte, aufgehoben. Diese gesetzliche Maßnahme ist das Ergebnis einer ausführlichen Diskussion, in der die Befürworter hauptsächlich dahingehend argumentierten, dass die im Zusammenhang mit der Verbreitung von AIDS getroffenen Gegenmaßnahmen, insbesondere die Durchführung regelmäßiger Untersuchungen sowie die behördliche Registrierung aller Prostituierten, durch die allgemeine Strafbarkeit der männlichen homosexuellen Prostitution in ihrer Effizienz stark beeinträchtigt würden. (June 28, 2007)
8. http://www.sbg.ac.at/ssk/docs/stgb/stgb201_221.htm (June 28, 2007)
9. http://www.sophie.or.at/faqs/recht/2006/03/01/prostitutionsgesetze/?lp_lang_pref=en (June 28, 2007)
10. http://homepage.univie.ac.at/elisabeth.holzleithner/LG_Prostitution.htm (June 28, 2007)
11. http://homepage.univie.ac.at/elisabeth.holzleithner/OGHProstitution.htm (June 28, 2007)
12. http://www.frauenratgeberin.at/cms/frauenratgeberin/stichwort_thema.htm?doc=CMS1174648057771 Frauenratgeberin des Bundesministerium für Gesundheit und Frauen, Themengebiet Frauen und Gewalt, Prostitution (June 28, 2007)
13. http://www.falter.at/print/F2004_23_3.php Julia Ortner: Verunsicherte Voyeure. Falter 23/04, June 2, 2004 (June 28, 2007)
14. http://www.aeiou.at/aeiou.encyclop.p/p897239.htm Prostitution im Österreich-Lexikon AEIOU (June 28, 2007)
15. malmoe - alltag - Rettet unsere Ehemänner!
16. Wiener Zeitung: Prostitution in Wien. Dienstag, 10. Oktober 2006 (June 28, 2007)
17. Roman David-Freihsl: Ohne Schutz als "neuer Kick". Der Standard, 25. Mai 2007, S 10. online version (June 28, 2007)
18. Martina Stemme: Mit neuen Spielregeln gegen den Strich. Der Standard, 4. November 2008. online-Version (14. Jan 2009)
19. http://www.bmi.gv.at/oeffentlSicherheit/2003/01_02/artikel_4.asp Illegale Prostitution. In Öffentliche Sicherheit. Das Magazin des Innenministeriums No 1-2/2003 Jänner-Februar (June 28, 2007)
20. Straßenstrich beim Hessenplatz, Linzer Rundschau, 22. Oktober 2008, S 3
21. Roland Girtler: Der Strich. Soziologie eines Milieus. 5. Auflage, Lit Verlag, Wien, 2004. ISBN 3-8258-7699-3. Zur 5. Auflage: Rückblickendes Vorwort, pp. 9-11.
22. https://www.wien.gv.at/who/gb/98/pdf/epidemi.pdf Gesundheitsbericht Wien 1998. III. Epidemologie, p. 133
23. Das "älteste Gewerbe" ist in Österreich keines. Der Standard, May 25, 2007, p. 10. online version (June 28, 2007)
24. http://www.sophie.or.at/ (June 28, 2007)
25. http://caritas.cyberhouse.at/Handout_LENA.pdf (June 28, 2007)
26. http://www.lefoe.at/ (June 28, 2007)
27. http://www.maiz.at/ (June 28, 2007)
28. ngo-exit.com - EXIT - Organisation to Combat Human Trafficking from Africa
29. [2]
30. [3]
31. [4]
32. [5]