15,000 euros per month and free accommodation - with similar promises "intermediary agencies" are recruiting women from Russia and Ukraine to work in Germany in the field of sex services. A DV team studied the scheme.
Long hair, short black skirt, manicure: a young girl holds a thick wad of euro banknotes in front of the camera. Her face is covered. In pure Russian, it assures that it has earned 18,000 euros in recent months. The text of the video reads: "Testimony from our girl in Germany. You can start tomorrow."
Free accommodation and 15,000 euros per month?
This is just one of the videos that recruit young Russian-speaking women into the field of providing sexual services. The video in question can still be seen on Instagram. It was released at the end of February 2024 as an advertisement, the target audience of which is Russian-speaking girls aged 18 to 32 living in Germany. In addition to Instagram, similar ads can be found on Telegram channels or on job search sites. German phone numbers are usually listed for contact, but there are also UK, Latvian and Ukrainian phone numbers.
To understand how the scheme works, DV contacted over 20 intermediaries representing young women from Russia who wish to work in Germany. It is clear from the ads that they are looking for girls between the ages of 18 and 35, but one of the "agencies" is ready to hire women up to 45 years old.
An important condition for female candidates is to have an "attractive" and "well maintained" appearance. The main service offered by the "agencies" is sex with men. The girls are promised from 6 to 10 customers per day and pay per hour - from 120 to 250 euros. Some of the middlemen convince us that they only take half of what they earn, and the girls could earn up to 15,000 euros per month, which is given "handover". They are also promised free accommodation in Germany.
To make these offers seem more convincing, the websites often publish testimonials from women in the industry. Often they praise their activity and take pictures with tutus. For example, one girl brags about how she earned 15,000 euros a month, which for a student like her was "crazy money". Another assures that she liked it so much that she returned for the sixth time. However, our investigation found that footage from photography agencies was used for the purpose, and the names were made up.
The majority of prostitutes in Germany work illegally
In recent years, prostitution services have moved online, and with it the recruitment of sex workers in Germany, an investigation by the German publications NDR, WDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung has shown
. The journalists analyzed 45,000 online advertisements, whose target audience are women from Romania, Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary who want to work in Germany. The promised earnings range from hundreds to thousands of euros per day. Some ads even promise several million euros per month and free accommodation.
However, all this is far from reality, the investigation says: in most cases, women do not receive the entire amount earned, and it is almost always not about work, but actually sexual exploitation, the journalists point out.
At the end of 2022, a total of 28,280 prostitutes were officially registered in Germany, with only 20% of them having German citizenship, according to the Federal Statistical Office. Women with Romanian, Bulgarian and Spanish passports are the most common foreign women in the meat business in Germany.
Since 2021, the number of registered prostitutes with Ukrainian citizenship has also increased - from 180 to 470. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the number of online requests for sexual services and pornographic photos, which allegedly involve Ukrainian women and children, has increased by 600%, announced the Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Helga Maria Schmidt.
As for the number of Russian women engaged in prostitution in Germany - there are no exact data. One thing is certain: that in reality they are much more than those officially registered for this activity. According to some estimates, it is about several hundred thousand women. Even more specific is the MP from the CDU/CSU faction in the Bundestag, Dorothea Behr, who names the figure 250,000.
Female applicants need visas
For many foreign women who wish to work in Germany, the main challenge is obtaining a visa. In full force, this applies, for example, to Russian women. Some intermediary "agencies" contacted by DV advise female candidates to obtain a tourist visa for a third country, for example Poland. Others express their willingness to help apply for a Schengen visa, for example from Spain or France, with which they can then start working in Germany. This service can cost up to 75,000 rubles.
A tourist visa in Germany or other countries of the Schengen area prohibits employment. Prostitution is not officially banned in Germany, but the law requires prostitutes to have a work permit, be officially registered and pay taxes. For those practicing this activity illegally, this means that they have neither health insurance nor the ability to protect themselves.
Russian women are becoming less and less in this profession
After the coronavirus pandemic and especially after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, fewer and fewer Russian women decide to look for work in Europe. It just became more difficult to get a visa or pay with Russian bank cards abroad. Irina Maslova from the "Silver Rose" movement, which has been helping prostituted women for 20 years, told DV about this.
Most of the women who go to work in Europe know where they are going and why they are doing it. Some of them have higher education, speak foreign languages. The problem is when they work illegally and when the promises they make are completely different from reality. And this happens often. "People face enormous difficulties, they also face physical violence," says Maslova. She adds: "Those who want to come to Europe can get the addresses of aid organizations from us - that's all we can do for them.