Why is getting out so difficult?
Despite all of the violence and precarity, prostitution is offering a certain kind of security for women. They got to know the environment and learned to survive in it. Even external determination and the violence that they face by their pimps is familiar to them. Free social services (like for example: language courses) are not attended because they don't know about it, or because pimps and other forces have not allowed them to attend. Ideas about further life planning outside of prostitution often fail because of their environment, legal framework or lack of language skills and difficult access to education. In addition to that, resorting to alcohol and drug use to help endure prostitution make the process of getting out more complicated. On the other side, aspects like social stigmatization, financial and health-related problems or poor working conditions create pressure to get out of prostitution. SOLWODIs most important concern is the supply of opportunities to get out of prostitution for girls and women. To reorientate in life, develop life goals, change life routines and simultaneously process the impairing life experiences from prostitution while creating a new social environment at the same time requires ongoing and professional support. The support system must be a long-term and comprehensive matter. Setbacks or relapses are happening over and over again.
Without these support systems women hardly succeed in getting out of prostitution by themselves. To fill out forms, call authorities and provide papers and receipts represents tasks that often cannot be mastered alone due to a lack of German language skills and other problems. Almost none of these women have viable contacts outside of prostitution. In addition to that is the necessity for a withdrawal from alcohol or drugs. Women who are willing to get out face existential concerns because they usually do not have their own living space since they live in their work environment. This is also coherent with a lack of alternatives of professions. Working night shifts for years affects the entire daily rhythm and routine of these women, who need to adapt to a new work cycle again. To get out of prostitution “easily” is therefore not possible, but rather a long-lasting process with external support is.
SOLWODI developed specialized systems in different locations in order to be able to offer the necessary intensive and sustainable support. The main goal of our work is to support those willing to get out of prostitution with assistance in processing what they have experienced and asserting their legal rights to quit, as well as to accompany them in the process of stabilizing their life and encouraging them to develop a new perspective on life. This includes the following aspects: consultations about the stabilization process, conversation for mental relief, accompaniment while visiting authorities, arrangement of medical, therapeutic and legal support and offers for work, as well as language and educational courses. If available, affected women are also able to live in “exit apartments”, where they can rest while planning their new life. This way the vicious circle of not being able to rent an apartment without a job and not being able to have a job without an apartment ends.
SOLWODI demands local politics to provide more exit aids for women in prostitution, especially in the form of better financial support for the time-consuming and social-educational work that is already offered by these exit aids.
