Prostitution is a social issue where countries, even within Europe, have implemented extremely diverse legal arsenals. Moreover, in recent years, several European countries have significantly changed their approach toward prostitution. Germany, for instance, has chosen to legalize prostitution in January , while France has passed a law that decriminalize persons in prostitution and criminalize buyers of sex in April A few years after these new legislation frameworks have been implemented, what lessons can be drawn in France and in Germany?
How could this comparative analysis contribute to feed the debate in Croatia? The aim of this event is to emphasize the reality of position of women in prostitution, by highlighting the relationship between prostitution and trafficking of women but also the consequences on the physical and psychological health of women in prostitution.
For this purpose, a documentary film by Christian P. Panelists are: Dr. Melissa Farley founder and director of Β« Prostitution Research and Education Β». Women in prostitution experience the use of their bodies by unknown men between once and 20 to 30 times a day. Together with Sweden we view this reality as violence against women.
An event offering information and raising awareness as regards the concrete situation of these women and the physical, psychological and mental consequences for them is absolutely necessary. Women who have succeeded in exiting prostitution are increasingly voicing their experiences. They report having to dissociate their feelings and reactions, having to function like a machine in order to go through the degradation and pains that they are subjected to by constant vaginal, anal and oral penetration.
They report having learned this technique of dissociation through childhood violence. They hoped to finally gain control of the situation and thus power by repeating the trauma as an independent decision. The opposite then happens: the trauma is perpetuated by recurrent repetition. Moderation: Dr. Ingeborg Kraus, Germany. Ingeborg Kraus , psychologist, Karlsruhe; Tanja Rahm , survivor and therapist, danmark. You can read the whole program here: conception for a congress against prostitution.
