Police in Lower Austria have exposed a horrifying case of human trafficking where a Chinese gang lured women to Austria with false promises of jobs and forced them to work as prostitutes.
Police in Vienna say they have noticed a rise in the number of illegal brothels masquerading as massage parlours, according to a report in the Kurier newspaper.
A 19-year-old woman from Kosovo who was forced into prostitution and kept as a sex slave in a cellar in Switzerland for almost three years has sought asylum in Austria.
According to a report Monday in the news daily Heute, the provincial government of Salzburg is being forced to hand back illegally-imposed fees for medical checks on several hundred sex workers.
Vienna council is considering introducing drive-in brothels for street sex workers, as a way of dealing with problematic prostitution in certain areas of the city.
A row over street prostitution in Vienna’s 21st district, Floridsdorf, looks like being partially resolved after the district council voted in favour of enforcing a time limit on street walkers.
Conditions for prostitutes working on Vienna’s streets have shown little improvement, despite the introduction of the Prostitution Act in November 2011.
Police have discovered a brothel in the Salzburg district of Schallmoos where 15 women were being made to live in a cramped cellar, deprived of sunlight and fresh air.
Austrian law enforcement authorities, with the support of Europol, have identified 11 potential victims of human trafficking and reported ten people for illegal prostitution in Carinthia.
The Austrian justice system fails victims of trafficking by being too lenient with sentencing for traffickers, according to victim organizations. Victims of trafficking are rarely granted residence permits, and some are trafficked multiple times.
