Increase in number of illegal apartments in Vienna and Graz

The Corona Virus has been a huge nuisance for every aspect of our lives; and the prostitution scene is no exception. Since November, 2020, prostitution as we know it in Austria and other German speaking countries has seized to exist. Although escort services have been recently allowed again, brothels, Laufhauses, FKKs and other similar adult entertainment businesses are still not allowed to open. As a result of this, many women try their luck making money through illegal means. In addition to seeing a large number of illegal apartments in Vienna, this has now spread to Graz as well. For further information read this article thoroughly!

Women operate illegally through private apartments

According to reports, there are around 200 women offering their services illegally just in Graz alone. The women and their backers look for apartments that they turn into illegal brothels for a couple of weeks, before moving to another apartment. Since there is not much tourism going on in Graz right now, the apartments for rent are mostly vacant, so there are many options to choose from for the girls and their pimps.

Since there is a big demand for prostitution services, and no legal method to get it, illegal prostitution is booming right now. However, police forces are trying everything in their power to put a stop to this. We’ve already seen many police raids being done on similar illegal apartments in Vienna and the surrounding cities. To learn more about one of these police raids in Vienna, check out the following article from the Sex in Vienna blog now!

Increased number of police raids in Vienna because of the brothel lockdown

The clients are checked before they get the address

Although the women are not protected when they work illegally, they figured out a way to check their potential customers before the session. The clients are required to do a quick video chat before they get the address of the apartment. This isn’t much of a protective measure, but it is still better than nothing for the women who choose to work illegally. Unfortunately, since they need to keep their occupation a secret, they do not get any protection from the government or someone like a legal brothel owner.

Illegally operating women do not have their green health cards

Since the women who work from such apartments do this completely illegally, they are not required to be checked by a doctor for STDs on a regular basis. This means that any of the illegally operating women could be spreading sexually transmittable diseases to their clients. Additionally, nobody is checking on the women and their clients if they follow the current COVID-19 hygiene laws, which further increases the chance of the virus spreading. On top of this, the women are also not paying any tax for the services that they are offering, which makes the government even more eager to stop them.

The women who are caught are getting fined

In case the police do find one of these apartments, the women are fined anywhere between 400 and 1000 euros. The clients are not fined unless they have ignored the COVID-19 laws that are currently in effect. Additionally, the landlords who rent out the apartments to the ladies for illegal prostitution are also getting fined by the police.

If you wish to read more about the situation in Graz, go ahead and check out the German article we used as the source for this post on the Kronen Zeitung website.

Police raid on illegal apartments in Vienna

The Viennese Police Department has launched a raid on illegal prostitution at the start of March. According to our sources, the raids took place between March 1 and 7 and there were 171 reports, including the women and the landlords of the apartments. 39 women were fined, most of which have been Romanian girls whose age ranged from 19 to 38. In total, around 30,000 euros worth of fines were handed out to the women and the landlords.

To read more about the recent police raid in Vienna, take a look at this article over on the Kleine Zeitung site.

Summary

As you can see illegal prostitution is on the rise not only in Vienna, but also in other cities in Austria. Unfortunately, since the women are not allowed to operate through legal means, they need to do this if they want to keep making money. The police are working hard to end these types of operations, but with so many new illegal apartments appearing constantly they are having a hard time.

Hopefully brothels and other similar adult entertainment business will be allowed to open again soon. This would mean that the women do not have to work secretly from private apartments and that they could get the protection and benefits that come with working in a real and legal brothel.

For more interesting articles, go ahead and read any of the following posts from the Sex Vienna blog now!