More from the Prague Monitor
Prague - The north Bohemian town of Dubí, which aptly illustrates Czech problems with prostitution, has given up a plan to place videos of clients of local brothels on the internet.
Dubí mayor Petr Pípal named two reasons: The Office for Personal Data Protection has raised objections, and brothel owners have started to issue threats.
"They told us they already had people willing to sue us, both here and in Germany," Pípal told Aktuálně.cz. The videos will be available to municipal police officers but not to the public.
Married men are typical clients
Dubí officials came up with the idea of filming prostitutes with clients to discourage unfaithful husbands. Married men account for 80% of clients, polls have shown.
Dubí has already managed to run prostitutes off the streets, but there are still brothels on the main street.
Municipalities have no efficient tools to deal with the owners of "love shops", as the Dubí mayor calls brothels. Prague has drafted a bill that would enable municipalities to ban brothels or, for instance, place them all on a single street on the outskirts. The bill sees prostitution as a business. Prostitutes would need to have registration cards proving they are healthy and have no criminal record.
The Government Council for Equal Opportunities says almost 90% of municipalities support the bill. The mayor of Dubí also agrees.
"Now it's a strange game of sorts. The owner says prostitutes are guests and he pays the tourist fee for them. When we ask why they are standing in the windows half-naked, he says they feel like it, and that he cannot prevent his guests from having fun," says Pípal.
But he adds that the heyday of prostitution in Dubí is over. "In the 1990s, there were 40 brothels and a thousand or two thousand street prostitutes. That was quite a lot for a town with a population of 8,000," the mayor notes.
