On 3 June 2025, Christine Nagl took a divers group of interested people on a journey through the history of sex work in Salzburg. Under bright sunshine, the pragmatic marriage policy of the Habsburgs was examined, as were the consequences of celibacy, which was already on the verge of being abolished at the end of the 16th century but is still in force today and meant that Prince-Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau was never allowed to marry his beloved Salome Alt, the mother of his children. Today, her monument stands hidden in a corner of the Mirabell Gardens, just as she was denied the privileges of her bourgeois status throughout her life because she suffered from the stigma of being a mistress. The marginalisation of sex workers is closely linked to a patriarchal image of women that differentiates between whores and saints and devalues sexually liberated women. Today, the continuity of exclusion is evident in the responsibility of sex workers for contraception and sexual health, in fact for “Volksgesundheit”/public health, as it has been stated in law since National Socialism, through compulsory examinations, which are now only mandatory in Austria. Abortion is a private service that falls under the responsibility of women who are faced with the problem of an unwanted pregnancy, after they have already been given primary responsibility for successful contraception.
Click here to access the 2024 contraception report.
We say: we will not allow ourselves to be divided and we stand for free healthcare for all and an end to the legal discrimination of sex workers! Because human rights are indivisible and contraception concerns us all!
@ Photo Lina Čenić