BERLIN, Germany - Streams of cars flash through the busy Nollendorf intersection as young prostitutes dressed in skin-tight hotpants and stilettos flag down drivers, dragging deeply on cigarettes or chatting on mobile phones.
Hailing from Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria, few speak English. But they know why they're in Germany.
"Street prostitution is legal here," says a tall, spindly woman from Hungary. "I'm doing this because I have to send money home to my family."
A decade after Germany legalized big-money brothels and recognized prostitutes' rights as workers in some of the world's most liberal prostitution laws, business is booming. Organized sex workers say the trade is safer and healthier than ever.
But now a surprise campaign by the country's most prominent feminist is invigorating longtime enemies of the oldest profession who argue that the changes have turned Berlin and other towns into city-sized discount stores for sex.
"Prostitution isn't limited to the evening anymore, it's an around-the-clock service," says Monika Thamm, a member of the city legislature from the Tempelhof-Schöneberg district, where Nollendorfplatz is located.
"There are playgrounds and kindergartens in the area, and in the summer, the prostitutes will take their customers to the playgrounds to, well... fulfill their contracts," the legislator, from Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said in an interview.
A longtime anti-prostitution crusader whose fight against Schoneberg's streetwalkers had recently all but dropped off the radar, Thamm says she's now receiving interview requests from Berlin newspapers on a daily basis.
That's thanks to a new media campaign by Alice Schwarzer, founder-editor of the women's magazine Emma and arguably the country's most prominent feminist.
