SHARE
COPY LINK

CRIME

Security guards in Berlin are pushing refugees into prostitution: media report

Employees at security companies in Berlin are believed to have persuaded refugees into prostitution in refugee homes, according to a media report broadcast on Tuesday.

Security guards in Berlin are pushing refugees into prostitution: media report
An employee on duty in front of LaGeSo in Berlin in 2015. Photo: DPA.

In the report, aired by broadcaster ZDF’s investigative programme called “Frontal 21,” social workers, insiders at security companies and refugees attest to the prostitution, adding that minors are also involved.

One security officer who is responsible for several shelters said that a network of pimps exists in Berlin's refugee homes and often security guards are the ones who establish initial contact with refugees.

Sex with male refugees is particularly in demand, according to the employee. “From upwards of 16 years of age, the younger the more expensive,” he said.

A security guard at one refugee centre admitted to ZDF that he earns €20 for every connection he sets up.

One 20-year-old asylum seeker from Afghanistan, whose application had been rejected, said in the programme that after a male security guard asked him whether he wanted to do business, he said: “for sex with a woman you get €30, maybe even €40”.

The Afghan told ZDF he had to earn money to survive. “I'm ashamed of what I do,” he said.

German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said the “very, very serious” accusations of procurement needed to be investigated.

“We have to take this very seriously because it is totally unacceptable to exploit the material hardships that many refugees and migrants are in,” he told reporters at a regular press briefing.

“It would be morally reprehensible if they were forced into prostitution.”

But Berlin authorities have not yet received any indications of organized prostitution in the capital’s refugee shelters.

Elke Breitenbach, a senator for social affairs and integration in the capital city, said that despite “no concrete indications” of cases of organized prostitution in refugee shelters, she demanded that the police and public prosecutor's office follow up on the claims.

A spokeswoman from the senate department for integration, labour and social affairs added that due to these suspicions, the institution's responsible body, refugee home managements, security services, volunteers and representatives of the State Office for Refugee Affairs (LaGeSo) sought a joint discussion.

But social workers in one of the shelters where prostitution is suspected, in the former Wilmersdorf town hall, are trained to detect signs of abuse or prostitution, she said.

Nevertheless, flyers by Berlin aid associations will be distributed and training courses are planned for employees in order to be able to detect such dangers more effectively, the spokeswoman added.

FAR-RIGHT

Germany issues entry ban to Austrian far-right activist Sellner

Radical Austrian nationalist Martin Sellner has been banned from entering Germany, it emerged on Tuesday, days after he was deported from Switzerland.

Germany issues entry ban to Austrian far-right activist Sellner

Sellner, a leader of Austria’s white pride Identitarian Movement, posted a video of himself on X, formerly Twitter, reading out a letter he said was from the city of Potsdam.

A spokeswoman for the city authorities confirmed to AFP that an EU citizen had been served with a “ban on their freedom of movement in Germany”.

The person can no longer enter or stay in Germany “with immediate effect” and could be stopped by police or deported if they try to enter the country, the spokeswoman said, declining to name the individual for privacy reasons.

READ ALSO: Who is Austria’s far-right figurehead banned across Europe?

“We have to show that the state is not powerless and will use its legitimate means,” Mike Schubert, the mayor of Potsdam, said in a statement.

Sellner caused an uproar in Germany after allegedly discussing the Identitarian concept of “remigration” with members of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) at a meeting in Potsdam in November.

Reports of the meeting sparked a huge wave of protests against the AfD, with tens of thousands of Germans attending demonstrations across the country.

READ ALSO:

Swiss police said Sunday they had prevented a hundred-strong far-right gathering due to be addressed by Sellner, adding that he had been arrested and deported.

The Saturday meeting had been organised by the far-right Junge Tat group, known for its anti-immigration and anti-Islamic views.

The group is also a proponent of the far-right white nationalist Great Replacement conspiracy theory espoused by Sellner’s Identitarian Movement.

SHOW COMMENTS