by Julie Bindel Germany is known as the brothel of Europe. It is a hard-won title. With more than 3,000 brothels across the country, and 500 in Berlin alone, its sex trade is worth more than £11 billion a year. Prostitution, in all its forms, has been legal in Germany since the end of World War II. Recently, however, attitudes are changing. People and politicians are asking the government to take notice of the so-called 'pimp state' and [...]

We know Roberto Saviano as a defender of freedom of opinion and of the press. This is how he has always presented himself. Not only because of the risks he has taken personally, but also because he has on several occasions defended freedom of thought by taking public positions, explaining that a journalist must 'be able to do his job without being attacked on a personal level, without a climate of threat' and complaining that 'any critical voice knows he can expect retaliation'. In recent days Monica Ricci Sargentini, a journalist [...]

I was once in a recording studio for a debate on prostitution. Of course it was called -not me- sex work, which made everything more acceptable and modern. There was a well-known, beautiful prostitute from Bologna, a woman who prostituted herself online, and they were talking about 'sexual assistance for invalids'. They were so free and up-to-date, I had been given the task of representing the sad counterbalance to bigoted moralism. It didn't come out well at all, I managed and [...]

The Court of Cassation's judgement 676/2022 recognised the refugee status of a woman who was a victim of trafficking (and a prostitute). In the third level of judgement, the system of the previous judgements was overturned, which had attributed to the woman a tacit consent to the exercise of prostitution, therefore the inexistence of the state of necessity that preludes the granting of refugee status (temporary, it should be noted). In fact, it is said that consent cannot be considered as such in a condition of physical and psychological violence inherent in [...].

A few days ago, five girls on the train returning from Gardaland were sexually and verbally assaulted by a pack of at least thirty young men of North African origin (the story here). A dynamic very similar to the events of New Year's Eve 2021 in Milan (and New Year's Eve 2016 in Cologne). The things to be said are always the same, and we repeat them for you. It is no longer possible, out of correctness, to pretend that the problem does not exist. Women are not [...]

On 3 December, the Council of Ministers gave the green light to the draft law 'for the prevention and combat of violence against women and domestic violence'. We can only welcome this new legislation with interest, albeit with some possible critical reservations - for example, the important discussion of years ago on ex officio prosecution should be recalled. So we welcome this step forward in the law, with the bitterness of knowing that it will be neither the tightening of penalties [...].

On Saturday 27th at the Milan protest against violence against women - see opening image - among many other things we said: it is really difficult to understand how a feminism can exist that fights for the dismantling of the Merlin law and for the decriminalisation of exploitation, as well as for the regulation of so-called 'sex work'. Why does it do this? And for whom? And they know it, the thousands of girls participating in the marches of Non Una di Meno, who are also demonstrating [...]

To women "???????? ????????????????????????????????" vote for the first time in Italy ???????? ???????????????????? ???????????? ????????????????, and not on 2 June as many people think, for local elections, the first ballot boxes in Italy ???? after the ???????????????? of ???????????????????????????? ???????????????????????? ???????????????????????????????? in the country liberated from fascism and ???????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????. Only ???????? ???????????????? ???????? the Italians could ???????????????????????? and ???????????????????????? ????????????????????????. The first call for women's suffrage was from the Women's Vote Commission of ????????????, the Italian Women's Union, which was set up to [...].

Prostitution, a system of reducing women to merchandise, affects all parts of society, including religious bodies. It is with this in mind that the FDEI (Federation of Evangelical Women) and the Interreligious Observatory against Violence against Women, made up of Catholics, Evangelicals, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus, have organised meetings on the subject with a decidedly abolitionist slant. Here is a report. At the first meeting, 18 March, introduced by the presidents of OVID Paola Cavallari and Gabriela Lio of FDEI entitled: "Prostitution and [...]

"We women of the FDEI (Federation of Italian Evangelical Women) committee feel the need and urgency to question ourselves, because faith communities tend not to express themselves on the roots of the prostitution phenomenon within our faiths. Or, if they do, they sometimes follow an interpretative line that denounces the sin, but without making sexuality and male privilege responsible for the sexual slavery of women involved in prostitution and not only in trafficking". Thus the letter sent to the churches of the Federation [...]