Prague, April 26 (CTK) – Sexual services in Prague are mainly offered by childless women in big clubs, while in other Czech towns in private and small clubs, mostly as the women’s way out of financial troubles, according to a survey released by the Bliss without Risk (R-R) organisation.
R-R surveyed a total of 162 sexual workers.
Most women who work in sex business took up the profession between 20 and 30 years of age, and 10 percent before turning 18.
Women work seven years in sex business on average.
Most of them experience violence while providing sex, the survey showed.
“For most of the women, this career was a rational choice,” Hana Malinova, from R-R, said.
She said 71 percent of the women chose the job themselves and 20 percent were brought to it by their girlfriend.
The share of prostitutes of Czech ethnicity has been rising in the country at the cost of foreigners since 2009, R-R said.
Almost 20 percent of the polled prostitutes were women with only elementary education.
In Prague, almost 10 percent were university graduates and 25 percent women with elementary education.
Over one third of the prostitutes in Prague worked in big clubs and two thirds of them were childless.
Unlike them, more than 60 percent of sexual workers in the countryside are mothers of children, and more than a half of them work in private, the survey showed.
The research showed that after seven years in sex business, a moment comes when the women want to give up the profession due to job burnout and psychical problems, Malinova said.
Sexual workers often experience verbal attacks, humiliation and threats, are forced into unprotected sex, and also physically attacked and raped, with clients being most often the perpetrators.
However, only 7 percent of the women said they turned to the police. They said they had bad experience with the police’s approach and they would not address the police any more.
Many prostitutes try to conceal their identity. Over 60 percent of them use nicknames.
“Women spend more efforts on protecting their identity rather than their safety. They feel endangered by a social stigma more than a slap,” Malinova said.
R-R believes that prostitution should be recognised as a way of earning of living and conditions should be set to make the work safe.
It is also necessary to prosecute and convict the perpetrators of violence and to protect the victims, said Pavla Kutalkova, from R-R.
The Czech Republic has no law regulating prostitution.
