The event "Bahnhofsviertelnacht" is an annual event in the area around the main train station in Frankfurt. This is also a famous red light district with lots of brothels, bars and a lot of social problems drug addiction, homelessness About 97 per cent of the prostituted women here are non-German and come from poor countries.
The price for "standard service" oral and vaginal is 25 Euro. The women pay a daily rent of Euro and 25 Euro a day tax. That means seven sex buyers a day, just to break even. The "Bahnhofsviertelnacht" is not about a close look at any of that. It is a party organized and significantly funded by the City of Frankfurt and the city's own marketing agency Tourismus-Congress GmbH. The mayor, Peter Feldmann, holds the opening speech. Feldmann likes to emphasize the "positive development" of a run-down area into an "in" and "hipster neighbourhood".
Obviously he therefore tends to soft-pedal the criminality and problems of the quarter. On this night, around Tours in which you are told what a great business this is and how happy the prostituted women are to "work" in prostitution. To make it short: We were there and it was disgusting and worse than expected. Although the claim was that everything was cleaned and glossed up for the occasion: You can't "clean" utterly foul shabby buildings, used to terribly exploit women, into something cosy and wonderful.
It was heartbreaking to see the almost naked and very confused women, who, as we found out later, had not even been informed in advance that thousands of people would invade their privacy - while "normal" "business" was still running.
We saw a sleazy poorly kept older man come out of one of the rooms into the crowded corridor, glaring at us and zipping up his pants in front of us before walking away. Some women were so frightened that they closed their doors or even pushed the "alarm button" as I was told.
