Monday, May 17, 2010

Romanian prostitute burned alive in Vienna

Disturbing news coming out of Vienna: A Romanian prostitute had a fight with her pimp and his "associate" and in turn they poured a flammable liquid on her and set her ablaze.

Here’s the story according to Austrian Times:

woman performs self-immolation in Luxembourg A Romanian prostitute is in critical condition after a punter tried to burn her alive outside a night spot on Laxenburger Straße in Vienna-Favoriten.

Police spokeswoman Manuela Vockner said today (Mon) that the assailant had been into a row with 35-year-old Florentina M. inside the locale in the early hours of yesterday morning.

When she left it he was outside waiting for her and doused her with a flammable liquid before setting her on fire.

Vockner said police had only a vague description of the assailant and media reports that he had fled in a silver BMW might be inaccurate.

She added that police had not obtained any leads about the man’s identity from people who had been in the night spot at the time of the assault.

Vockner said the woman, who had burns on her face and upper body, was in critical condition in a Vienna hospital.

Hotnews.ro adds that the incident took place at the Romanians’ disco, around 3 am, and the woman had said before losing consciousness: It was Cretu. I trust she is not referring to Michael Cretu, a reputable music producer who married his star, Sandra.

What is interesting about prostitution in Austria is that under Maria Theresa, they were sent to Banat, a Romania province. Today Romania is the largest provider of prostitutes to Western Europe. In 1873 the law was reformed and prostitutes were obligated to register with the police and receive medical exams twice a week.

A newspaper article of October 27, 1874 reported that 6,424 prostitutes had received health certificates and were under observation by police and health authorities. According to police estimates, at least 12,000 more women lived on the proceeds of "free love" without being registered. Most of these were factory workers who received so little pay that they needed the additional income. Of the registered prostitutes, 5,312 were unmarried, 902 widows, and 210 married. The youngest was 15 and the oldest 47 years old.

In April 2007 1,352 female and 21 male prostitutes where officially registered in Vienna. In 2003, the oldest prostitute was a 71 year old Austrian woman, who offered her service in the second district of Vienna, the so called Leopoldstadt. The number of women working legally and illegally at least from time to time as prostitutes is estimated between 3,500 and 6,000; it is estimated that they totally serve 15,000 clients per day. A similar relation of prostitutes to population number can also be found in other Austrian cities. For example, in 2008 there were 120 registered prostitutes in Linz, which has approximately 10% of the size of Vienna.

What about Brüno Gehard?

Homosexual male prostitution (§ 210 Strafgesetzbuch) was legalized in 1989. A major reason for legalization was to reduce the spread of HIV through regular medical examinations.

Currently, there are no red light districts – prostitution is spread out and practiced mostly by Easterners.

Nowadays 60 to 90 percent are migrants, mainly from the former east bloc countries, among them many commuters from the close Slovakia. For example, the police detained several nurses from Bratislava who earned more money in one night on the streets of Vienna than in a whole month in the hospital in Bratislava.

A quarter of the arrested unregistered prostitutes had multiple infections with sexually transmitted diseases. On the other hand, according to the health authorities of Vienna, registered prostitutes are the most healthy group of persons.

Austria is a both a transit and a destination country for women and children trafficked from Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine, Slovakia, Nigeria, and sub-Saharan Africa for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation.

Most trafficked women are brought to Austria with promises of unskilled jobs, such as nannies or waitresses. Upon arrival they are often coerced into prostitution.

The moral of the story? It’s good to have at least two professions, in case one of them doesn't pan out..

I am now waiting for RNS’s cybergraffiti to explain in Romanian that prostitutes are not Romanian on some Austrian website..

Sources / More info: hn-prosti, at-man, wiki-prosti-at, yt-prostitute

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