Austria: Discriminations against Sex Workers

Definition and Stratification of Sex Work

The report focuses on the human rights situation of sex workers. The term sex work has a broad meaning. For this submission, it refers to sexual behavior of consenting adults, which involves physical contacts in exchange for monetary gains. Thereby, this term refers strictly to voluntary sex work, to distinguish it from criminal exploitation. The term prostitution is avoided for its negative connotation and used only in the legal context. The author strictly distinguishes between migration and trafficking: Many sex workers are immigrant women, for whom the decisions to migrate and to enter sex work have been the last resorts in their struggle for subsistence. Their underlying reasons for migration or entering sex work are not topic of this report, as these are outside the control of Austria. Nor does the author consider the discussion in feminist academic circles, ^{NOTEREF _Ref341178537 \h \* MERGEFORMAT} whether sex work is a human rights violation per se of the “prostituted women”. Instead, this report takes a grassroots’ perspective and describes the situation in Austria, as perceived by the sex workers themselves.
Sex work has many facets, which reflect the diversity of cultures, ranging from cybersex to traditional indigenous styles; some authors distinguish up to 45 different forms. ^{NOTEREF _Ref341178537 \h \* MERGEFORMAT} By far the most sex workers are women, but there are also male and transgender sex workers. Academic studies estimate that in Europe about 1.4 percent of the adult female population, who are in the reproductive age, is engaged in some form of voluntary sex work. ^{NOTEREF _Ref341178537 \h \* MERGEFORMAT} For Austria with a population of 8.4 million in 2012 this would result in the estimate of about 30,000 women in sex work (1.4% of women 18 to 60, i.e. 50% of female population, who in turn is 50% of the population).
In Austria, commercial sex work is regulated by prostitution laws (see section 1.3 below). Using definitions from UNDP, ^{NOTEREF _Ref341178537 \h \* MERGEFORMAT} this differentiates sex work by the legal status in the following four groups:

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  Legal sex work means commercial sex work, mostly of women, who registered as prostitutes and obey the regulations of prostitution. Examples are street prostitution or sex work in brothels. About 5,000 women are registered as prostitutes. ^{NOTEREF _Ref341178537 \h \* MERGEFORMAT}
  
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  Illegal prostitution means voluntary commercial sex work, mostly of women earning their living by providing direct, formal and open sexual services to their clients, but who did not register as prostitutes, or who registered, but violated other regulations (sex work not in tolerance zones of Eastern provinces, sex work not under the control of brothels in Western provinces). About 5,000 women are in commercial sex work, but not registered. ^{NOTEREF _Ref341178537 \h \* MERGEFORMAT}
  
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  Indirect sex work refers to a grey area, where often sex work is not the primary source of income. Thus, women in massage parlors may offer sexual services in the clandestine. Escorts pretend that they offer social company, only, as otherwise escort agencies would face criminal prosecution for procurement into prostitution. Sexual assistants for the handicapped would not perceive their sexual services as prostitution, either. However, from one moment to the next, indirect sex workers may end up in illegality, if authorities reject the legal fiction upon which their activities were based. About 5,000 to 10,000 women are in this grey area. ^{NOTEREF _Ref341178537 \h \* MERGEFORMAT}
  
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  Other (private) sex work means certain forms of private sexual life, which may have a commercial appearance, but no commercial substance. It includes women, who are supported by regular friends in exchange for sexual favors (“femmes libre”), or women in the swingers’ lifestyle, who occasionally accept money for their presence at parties (e.g. bridging a shortage of female guests at swingers’ clubs). De iure sex life with merely occasional provision of sex for money qualifies as private life. ^{NOTEREF _Ref341178537 \h \* MERGEFORMAT} However, de facto Austrian authorities treat women with unconventional private sex life as illegal prostitutes. This group is comprised of the remaining 10,000 to 15,000 women of the estimated 30,000 women, who offer sex for money.
  

3. Legal Regulations of Commercial Sex Work

In Austria, commercial sex work is legal, but regulated at three administrative levels: national, provincial (“Länder”), and communal. These regulations put sex workers under strict police control, subject to manifold obligations (e.g. Administrative Penal Act, AIDS Law, Alien Police Law, Civil Code, Immigration Police Law, Income Tax Law, National Insurance Act, Penal Code, or Venereal Diseases Act), but without effective protection of their rights.

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  Commercial sex workers are required to be self-employed. They have to pay income tax and sales tax one year in advance. Due to lacking education and language skills, many sex workers lose track of the necessary documentations and their income tax is prescribed on the basis of excessive ex officio tax assessments, ignoring their actual poverty.
  
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  Sex workers are required to pay social insurance, but they do not enjoy protection of labor law and only partially of social law.
  
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  Sex workers are required to register as prostitutes with the local authorities (police department or municipal authority, depending on the province). Registration is based on the Health Checks Directive under the Venereal Diseases Act, together with provincial regulations.
  
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  As part of the registration, sex workers are obliged to attended weekly mandatory inspections for STIs, quarterly mandatory tests for HIV (prescribed by AIDS Law), and to carry a special document (control card) with them that confirms these checks. Sex workers are required to always carry it and show it to police. In the case of an infection, authorities confiscate it until about three weeks after the completion of treatment. Failure to register, to carry the registration card, to attend the mandatory vaginal inspections and HIV tests, or to obey the additional provincial regulations, is a misdemeanor that is penalized under the Administrative Penal Act with fines of 20,000 €, prison terms, and for migrant sex workers in addition expulsion and deportation. Women may be forced to attend vaginal inspections against their will. ^{NOTEREF _Ref341178537 \h \* MERGEFORMAT}
  

Laws of the nine Austrian provinces address the provision of sexual services.

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  In Vorarlberg, sex work is de facto prohibited: The province restricted sex work to licensed brothels and municipalities prevented the issue of licenses. As all prostitution is illegal, it still exists, but is under the control of pimps.
  
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  Five provinces confine sex work to licensed brothels only and issue licenses (Carinthia, Salzburg, Styria, Tyrol, and Upper Austria). Of these provinces, Tyrol restricts sex work most, pressuring sex workers into illegality and therefore into the hands of pimps. ^{NOTEREF _Ref341178537 \h \* MERGEFORMAT}
  
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  Three provinces prohibit sex work outside of designated tolerance zones (Burgenland, Lower Austria, and Vienna).
  
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  Further, nowhere in Austria may women offer sex work in their own premises (resulting in police intrusions into private homes of women suspected of sex work, see section 5.6 below).
  

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