Sex work in Czechia: how women are forced to hand over half their earnings to clubs

Czechia's shadow sex industry, built on the vulnerability of women, continues to grow — that's the conclusion of the National Organized Crime Agency in its annual report. Last year alone, police uncovered several organized groups that earned tens of millions of crowns from prostitution by exploiting the powerlessness of the women involved.

Women who spoke to journalists tell strikingly similar stories: it wasn't choice that led them into sex work, but fear of unpaid bills. One young woman ended up at the labour office right after finishing school, just as her mother was diagnosed with cancer, and agreed to a "bar job" that turned out to be a brothel. Another, who became a single mother at 20 and never received the state support she'd been promised, faced a stark choice: the street with her child, or earning money with her own body.

How clubs get around the law

Czech law explicitly bans profiting from someone else's voluntary prostitution — the so-called pandering clause. But club owners have learned to sidestep it: officially, they rent rooms to the women or hire them as bartenders and cleaners. Contracts may even state outright that sex with clients is forbidden — while whatever happens in the rooms is "a matter between the woman and the client," as one Prague cabaret manager put it.

Clubs typically take half of what the women earn — sometimes up to 60%. In the morning after a shift, envelopes with names and already-divided cash are laid out on the bar. Everything else — condoms, lubricants — the women buy themselves. According to the women interviewed, turning down an unpleasant or aggressive client isn't an option: doing so means losing an entire day's earnings.

Police are powerless, women stay silent

During surprise inspections, clubs and workers stick to an unspoken rule: tell the authorities they're simply renting rooms, and never mention the cut taken by the venue. According to Alena Holoušová, head of the counselling centre Rozkoš bez Rizika, police have almost no tools to detect pressure being put on the women — and the women themselves, under stress, tend to say nothing.

Working independently, without a club, isn't an option many are willing to risk either — rented flats offer no security, cameras or alarms, and if a client refuses to pay, there's no way to recover the money since illegal activity isn't protected by law. As a result, payment up front remains the only real safeguard.

Legalisation without registries

Belgium is often cited as a model: in 2022 it fully decriminalised prostitution and recognised it as a profession, granting workers the right to maternity leave, sick pay and social insurance. New Zealand follows a similar approach. Experts and the women themselves, however, warn against mandatory public registries like the one in Germany — the fear of losing anonymity outweighs any desire for social guarantees.

Instead of registering individual workers, experts propose licensing the clubs themselves, requiring them to meet safety and hygiene standards. This could create competition over better working conditions without exposing the women's personal data.

Billions in the shadows, taxes lost

Estimates suggest Czechia's sex industry generates billions of crowns a year, with the state losing roughly a billion crowns in unpaid taxes. The Finance Ministry considers that figure inflated, noting that some workers provide services under the guise of other kinds of work. Still, the women interviewed admit that no one pays taxes — and in November the Supreme Administrative Court confirmed that, despite the ban on clubs taking a commission from prostitution, the women themselves are legally required to pay tax on their income.

The last serious attempt to regulate prostitution through legislation came from the Czech Pirate Party in 2019 — a move that would have required Czechia to withdraw from the 1951 UN Convention, which prohibits regulating the sector. Experts say the main obstacle remains public morality: the issue is still viewed through a lens of moral panic rather than as a matter of genuinely protecting people who continue to work outside the system — without rights, contracts or state protection.

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Around Prague, based on reporting by seznamzpravy.cz