“The assumption that liberal prostitution laws lead to an increase in human trafficking is refuted. On the contrary: ever since the liberalisation, there has been more police activity but notwithstanding, there are significantly less suspects, convicts and victims. That’s rather an indicator that the disentanglement of prostitution from criminal environments is increasingly successful.” – Volker Beck, MP

In early February, the German Greens submitted an enquiry to the federal government, concerning the impact of the German prostitution law on the trend of human trafficking. On February 22nd, the government issued a reply. The following are translated quotes. Below, you can download the enquiry and the answer of the federal government as pdf files. All documents are available in German only.

“In the year 2000, the National Situation Report about Trafficking in Human Beings registered altogether 926 victims. In the year 2011, there were 640. This equates to a decrease of…