Dozens of brothels thrived on the outskirts of central Warsaw since its establishment as the national capital in the sixteenth century, as in other large Polish cities and towns.
The first recorded brothel (Dom publiczny - literally public house) in Poland is considered to be in Bochnia in the 15th century, which catered to merchants who came to buy salt from the mines there.
[1] A Hungarian explorer to Poland in the early seventeenth century, Márton Szepsi Csombor, wrote that when he passed through Lipnica Murowana they were "surrounded by a swarm of unclean maidens to flatter and compliment us and play and sing".
During the period of Polish Partition (1795–1918) prostitution flourished openly, whereas previously (Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) (1648–1795) it had been confined to brothels and back streets near army garrisons.
[2] Polish garrisons had their own brothels, and as Europe progressively adopted the Napoleonic system of regulation, state-regulated prostitution became established in 1802 (in Prussian and Russian Poland) and in 1859 in Austrian Galicia.
In 1843 the Russian governor introduced a tax on brothels and prostitution, and 30 years later created the committees to oversee regulation.
[3] As police regulated zoning of brothels away from the public eye, professional prostitutes moved toward working as independents.
This increased attention needs[4] to be interpreted in the light of nineteenth-century European attitudes to prostitution, where it was becoming the subject of almost daily discourse.
Household servants, nursemaids, and wet nurses were among those known to rely on commercial sex to supplement their low wages, while middle-class husbands and their adolescent sons became regular clientele.
Physicians sounded the alarm about a rise in syphilis rates, while the Roman Catholic Church, middle-class charities, and Jewish aid agencies set up societies to rescue "fallen women" from the wages of sin.
Public discourse emphasized not only this deviant behaviour but also the victim role, trapped and in the hands of pimps and traffickers.
[5] During the First World War, the establishment of brothels on the Russian Front was considered a major strategic initiative, despite protests from Empress Zyta.
One of the first acts of the newly reconstituted nation was the Basic Sanitation Law of July 1919 (Zasadnicza ustawa sanitarna).
In the initial years (1945–1948) there was a registration scheme, and special sections were set up to deal with "enemies of morality" (wrogami moralności), but this was abolished when other priorities engaged the State.
Despite continued efforts to eradicate prostitution, many elements of centrally-planned socialism actually contributed to it, such as the 'Great Socialist Construction' (wielkie budowy socjalizmu) which saw the migration of large numbers of men.
A memo from the Secretariat of the Party Central Committee (including Bolesław Bierut who was then Secretary-General), dated 23 November 1955, states that in 1949 there were 4,000 sex workers in Poland, in 1954 1,700 and that 6,000 had been arrested.
Sometimes referred to as "Servants of Venus" (Służebnice Wenery), sex workers started to become one of the higher income earning groups.
A single client could net a sex worker the equivalent of an average monthly wage, and some could make the same as corporate executives.
Both workers and clients benefited - for instance, a US10 fee for a "short service" was very affordable for foreign visitors, and only 20% of prices in West Germany.
"[17] The 2009 TAMPEP study found only 33% of prostitutes are migrant workers in Poland, compared to a European average of 47-50%, with only a slight increase since 2006.
Poland ranks 8th amongst countries of origin, constituting 4% of the migrant sex worker population in Europe, a percentage that has been declining.
CATW cites the Polish Deputy Interior Minister in stating a figure of at least 3,500 Bulgarian women working in prostitution in Poland and another 1,000 or more from Ukraine and Belarus.
[19][better source needed] A 2009 TAMPEP report[18] states that 66% of prostitutes in Poland are nationals and the rest are migrants, of which 91% come from Eastern Europe, mainly Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.
[21] According to CATW, an anti-trafficking activist group, human trafficking is a problem in Poland, citing the Polish Deputy Interior Minister.