Parking for Prostitutes

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Bonn institutes new tax for prostitutes

In Bonn, Germany, prostitutes may work legally—as long as they pay the meter.

In Bonn, officials introduced the automated payment system for prostitutes. A city spokeswoman, Isabelle Klotz, said to the Agence France-Presse We expect to get some €200,000 ($288,000) per year from the meter . When the meter was first emptied On Monday, August 30, the payout was €264 according to Klotz.

Bonn Germany

Prostitutes wait for customers on a stretch of the Immenburgstrasse, a largely industrial area in Bonn. The Siemens-built meter machine cost $11,575 including installation. The city even built special wooden garages nearby where customers can park their cars and have sex. Bonn also hired a private security company for $116,000 per year to guard the area and provide security for the sex workers.

The meter looks similar to those used by drivers. Prostitutes must pay €6 ($8.60) per night worked; not per customer. Statistics indicate that approximately 200 women work the streets occasionally, but the average overnight tally is 20.

If prostitutes do not buy a ticket, valid from 8:00 p.m. to 6 a.m., they first receive a warning and then fined. Authorities delivered leaflets in German and other languages to inform prostitutes of the new law. The ticket machine prints receipts.

Under the new meter system, street prostitutes must purchase the tickets to work between the hours of 8:15 p.m. and 6 a.m. Leaflets explaining the system, translated into several languages, and are handed out to the prostitutes. After one warning, a sex worker caught working without a ticket would be fined up to $145.

Klotz said, Other towns also tax prostitutes but we are the first to have a meter. Women who work in brothels also pay the tax. But until now it had been difficult to get women on the street to pay. Thanks to this new method we will be able to tax them in all fairness with the others .

Juanita Rosina Henning of the German Dona Carmen prostitute-support group, said prostitutes already pay income tax, so the meter should be removed. This has nothing to do with fiscal equality. We call on the city to remove the meter . She noted only sex workers paid an additional tax.

Germany is one of 50% of countries around the world that has legalized prostitution. In Hamburg’s Reeperbahn, one of the largest red-light districts in Europe, authorities often try to regulate the industry, unionize the workers, and tax earnings. They are not always effective, given the inherent discretion and the unpredictability of the business.

Another Bonn spokeswoman, Monika Frömbgen, said the meters are called, in fairest and finest administrative High German, ‘performance areas,’ but I believe the Italian prime minister would say ‘bunga bunga,’ Still, the serious issue that the meter was intended to address boils down to tax fairness. The women in the bordellos and the sauna clubs also pay the tax, and so should those working on the streets.

The phrase “bunga bunga” is inextricably linked with the private life of Italy’s Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi. [Prostitution is also legal in Italy, but only with people over the age of 18]. On September 1, at approximately 9:45 a.m. EDT, the BBC reported:

An Italian businessman and his wife have been arrested on charges of blackmailing PM Silvio Berlusconi over his alleged use of prostitutes. Giampaolo Tarantini has admitted he paid for escorts to attend the PM’s so-called bunga bunga parties.
The police say he extorted more than half a million euros in exchange for telling investigators the PM was not aware the women were prostitutes. Mr. Berlusconi admits the payments but says he was helping a family in need.

Mr. Berlusconi is not under investigation in this case, but he is on trial separately in Milan for allegedly paying a 17-year-old for sex at some of his parties. He and the woman deny the allegations. This trial—known as the Ruby case after the stage name of the alleged. The other three are related to corruption allegations.]

When questioned, prostitute’s opinions were divided along Bonn’s block-long strip where prostitutes wait for customers. A young woman, “Monica,” from Hungary said, The other night I worked all night but didn’t get any work, but I still had to pay it . She thinks the new system stinks . Vero, a middle-aged woman, who spoke Italian but no German, said the tax was proper .
Another woman, who declined to give her name, stated, It’s like rent, food or all the other things everybody has to pay for, said the woman, who declined to give her last name.

Spokesman for the German Association of Cities and Municipalities, Franz-Reinhard Habbel, said he expects other German cities to follow Bonn’s example . The country’s 11,000 municipalities have a combined $11 billion in debt and are seeking new, relatively simple sources of income.


Mad Mike’s America thanks The New York Times, AFP, BBC, and the Getty Center.


We invite comments about Bonn’s installation of automated payment meters. If America taxed prostitutes, what benefits or problems could the U.S. expect?

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Dorothy Anderson

I want to know what you think and why, especially if we disagree. Civil discourse is free speech: practice daily. Always question your perspective.
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lazersedge
12 years ago

Folks in this country are too busy touting their morality to acknowledge the fact that things like prostitution, gambling, and drug have been here since the dawn of time and will be here til the end of time. Why we don’t make use of the revenue from it is simply stupid politics.

Reply to  lazersedge
12 years ago

Yes, lazersedge. The hypocrisy outrages me. I wonder how quickly America would be out of debt if we legalized all drugs, prostitution, and gambling? Add that to putting all DEA agents who lose their jobs into security jobs to help prostitutes and open their own government-sanctioned drug dispensaries.

Think of all the crime families that would be out of business. What would drug cartels have to protect? Well, human trafficking: but then we’d have the money and resources to pursue real criminals, not a 19-year-old in jail for 10 years for selling $31 worth of pot in front of her four kids.

Oh, and, Casey Anthony is innocent…

12 years ago

I’ve been to Hamburg and Amsterdam where prostitution is legal and monitored, if legal prostitution can be proven (and I’m sure it can) to reduce sex crimes against women, then legalize it.

Reply to  Holte Ender
12 years ago

It’s the only sensible thing to do. But there is always that vocal group here in the U.S. that abhors the “sins” of others even if it is of no consequence to them or anyone else.

Admin
12 years ago

Very interesting read and yet another example of how European countries are way ahead of America in many respects.

Reply to  Professor Mike
12 years ago

One of my favorite parts of the story was that Bonn spent $116,000 to protect the sex workers. Of course, Germany has socialized medicine, so that’s another worry prostitutes don’t have there.

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