Hamburg is the second largest city in Germany. With its almost two million people, the city is the center of media, finance and gastronomy in Germany.
But this is only one side of Hamburg, the light side. During the night, the center of the city is moved from the blocks around the court house to those around the infamous pleasure street called Reeperbahn. The entertainment is primarily aimed at young men and what draws them there are the strip clubs, brothels and drugs.
At Reeperbahn and the surrounding blocks, the brothels are close to one another. Sex has nothing to do with love or passion here, sex is business and legal. The streets are brothels too. Buying sex on the street is usually even cheaper than inside a brothel. Lucrative business The three biggest illegal trades are drugs, human trading and weapons. These trades are sadly more lucrative than most legal ones. At Reeperbahn, all three work together.
The women are often from the former Eastern bloc, that is Russia, Ukraine, Estonia etc. They come to Germany with hopes of a better future, with promise of jobs like assistant or secretary. It sounds like something which comes up a lot in discussions about sex trafficking and is perhaps hard to believe but the terrible truth is that this is a fact in many cases of human trade in the sex industry.
There is also street prostitution, which can look like an independent woman is selling sex, but this form of sex trade works like a brothel as well. Most of the prostitutes on the streets have an apartment to return to with their customers, though the apartment is usually owned by a third party.
