The transnational trade in women is based on supply and demand from sending and receiving countries. Countries with developed sex industries create demand and are called receiving countries, while countries where traffickers recruit women are the sending countries.
In fact, Germany is both a receiving and a transit country for trafficking in women.
It means that foreign women are trafficked to, from and through Germany using methods that have become new forms of slavery. Recruiters, traffickers and pimps who are involved in trafficking in women for the purpose of sexual exploitation have developed common methods of operation.

One method of recruitment is advertisements in the newspapers offering lucrative job opportunities in foreign countries for low skilled jobs, such as waitresses, cleaners, maids, nurses or dancers. A trip to Germany “is organised” for the women, including supply of visa and passport. The woman have to get into serious debt for the trip. This debt rises within a short period of time and is impossible to pay back.

Another method of recruitment is through “marriage agencies”. Many of these agencies operate via the Internet. This way of getting caught up in sex industry has different forms. The recruiters are either traffickers themselves or work directly with traffickers. The woman meets with a man who promises marriage at a later point of time. The man himself takes advantage of the woman over a short period of time, then coerces her into prostitution or directly delivers her to a brothel. In fact, the present legal situation does not allow migration of persons other than EU Members. In an effort to live and work legally in Germany, women use marriage as a last resort. In the area of prostitution, marriage reduces the risk of being discovered during raids or controls, because the police are usually looking for women without a residence permit or for women with expired three month visas (especially concerning citizens of Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia).

Another common way the women are recruited is through a friend or acquaintance, who gains the woman’s trust. Another phenomenon must be mentioned – the so called “second wave“: The trafficked women return home to recruit other women, as a possibility to escape the brutality themselves. By moving from victim to perpetrator they can avoid unwanted sex with multiple men each day. According to one report 70 % of pimps are women.
Traffickers use violence, threats and other forms of coercion to force the women to work against their will. They limit their victims freedom of movement, force them to work long hours in dangerous conditions. Even when women know they will end up in prostitution, their expectations are usually far from reality.
It must also be pointed out that many women have serious health problems. Many of them suffer from infectious diseases, sexually transmitted diseases, injuries from violence, drug and alcohol addiction, depression and other mental health problems as a result of trauma.

Germany is one of several countries in Western Europe which collects data on victims of trade in persons. 99.7 % of all victims of human trafficking registered with the German Federal Criminal Investigation Office (BKA) are women. In 2001, the BKA (Bundeskriminalamt) registered 987 victims of trafficking, who were involved in police investigations of suspected trafficking cases defined under German Law. But actually, many more women are trafficked into Germany than the above given official data reveals.
For decades, the primary sending countries were Asian countries, such as Thailand and the Philippines. The radical political and economical changes in many Middle and Eastern European countries opened up a pool of millions of women from which traffickers can recruit.
Significant numbers of trafficked women coming to Germany are predominantly from the Ukraine, Bulgaria, Russia, Belarus, Lithuania and Romania. Many women are single mothers wanting to secure the economical survival of their families. Some women have worked as prostitutes in their country of origin. After long conversations with the women, it could be stated, that more and more women were aware that their future jobs would be in sex industry before they left their country of origin.

Here are some statistic data of the BKA annual report 2001:

• the age of most trafficked women was mainly between 15 and 30;
• the women from Lithuania and Latvia were generally younger than 21;
• the women from the Ukraine were usually older than 21;
• 47.7 % of trafficked women entered Germany legally;
• 52 % of trafficked women crossed the border illegally;
• 24.4 % of migrants came by bus or train;
• 26.4 %  of women arrived in the country by car;
• 45.2 % of 414 inquired women were forced into prostitution through violence, torture, rape and intimidation;
• 54.9 % of 288 trafficked women were disappointed and disagreed with the job in sex industry;
• 31.8 % of 288 trafficked women agreed with the job in prostitution.

A large number of women is uninformed about the legal consequences of violating Alien Law as well as the difficult living and working conditions. Some traffickers use the women’s legal documents and tourist visas to legally enter Germany. In other cases, the women are given false documents. In this case, the women are even more vulnerable after they arrive in Germany, because they are illegal. Trafficked women are doubly victimized, first by being victims of trafficking, and second, for being foreign citizens with false documents. Their lawless status, combined with the lack of information and the language barrier puts the women under enormous psychological pressure. When the police discovers them, they are arrested and deported, unless they testify against their traffickers.