“The servant-girl becomes pregnant; no one knows what has become of her child’s father. Driven out of her place, she remembers that she has a married sister, and after long search she finds her in a damp basement dwelling. This dwelling consists of a single room and a dark kitchen; three shivering, dirty children are playing on the floor; the husband is out of employment; but still they can find room for this sister-in-law and her illegitimate child. Then perhaps there are better days for a time. But within the narrow limits of the one-roomed dwelling the association is too intimate, and the sister-in-law again becomes pregnant, and ultimately in the same week both the sisters are delivered as the result of impregnation by the same man. When we think how all this has taken place in the only available room, we can understand that the children must have seen a great deal little suited to childish eyes.”
The housing statistics of Berlin for the year 1900 give horrible reports regarding this, and even much worse conditions—conditions which are sufficiently explained when we consider how often families living in a single room take in a male or a female lodger for the night. One-roomed dwellings in which from four to seven sleep every night are common; those in which eight to ten sleep are by no means rare!
After what has been said above, no elaborate demonstration is needed to show that alcoholism everywhere, in the most diverse conditions, prepares the soil for prostitution. Kräpelin and O. Rosenthal have thoroughly exposed this intimate connexion between prostitution and alcoholism.
An even more important source of prostitution is to be found in procurement and in the traffic in girls—this grave social evil of our time. How often are children initiated into the practice of prostitution, for the sake of pecuniary gain, by their own parents, or by some other individual devoid of all moral feeling, and taught to serve as mere instruments of earning money by lust! Paris offers more examples of this traffic than any other European city, but London is not far behind, as was proved by the Pall Mall Gazette scandals of 1883, to which we shall return in another connexion. In Berlin itself in recent years the number of half-grown, and even childish, prostitutes has enormously increased. Prostitutes from thirteen to fourteen years of age are no longer rare.
An even sadder phenomenon is the modern traffic in girls, a characteristic product of the age of commerce, although earlier times were, indeed, familiar with it, especially France in the eighteenth century,[299] witness more especially the accounts of the celebrated Parc-aux-Cerfs.
The modern traffic in girls[300] is intimately connected with the brothel question. We can, in fact, assert that if there were no brothels there would be no traffic in girls. This is proved also by the growing dislike to brothels felt by prostitutes, who prefer a free life. For this reason, it becomes more and more difficult for the keepers of brothels to obtain inmates, and the international traffic in girls attempts to fill the continually increasing deficiency in the number of girls entering brothels.
The traffic in girls is to-day almost exclusively recruited from Eastern Europe. As regards its original sources, we find that Galicia—i.e., Austrian Poland—supplies 40 %, Russia 15 %, Italy 11 %, Austria-Hungary 10 %, Germany 8 %, of the “White Slave Trade.” Most of the girls are transported to the Argentine, where we find them in the brothels.[301]
The traders in girls, or “kaften” as they are called in Brazil, are, for the most part, Polish Jews. Rosenack shows, in his report on the campaign against the traffic in girls (a campaign actively taken up by the Western European Jewish Unions, and especially by the Jewish Association for the Protection of Girls and Women), that five out of six of the Galician Jews engaged in this traffic are what are called “Luftmenschen” (men of air)—that is, men without any definite or secure means of livelihood—and that only an improvement in their social conditions can put an end to the traffic in girls. As regards that part of the world, he considers that the measures resolved upon by the National and International Conference for the Suppression of the Traffic in Girls (Berlin, 1903; Frankfurt-on-the-Main, 1905) are not adapted to offer any important hindrances to the traffic. More effective has been the work of the Jewish Branch Committee in Germany for the suppression of the Galician traffic in girls. Dr. Rosenack, Berta Pappenheim, and Dr. Sera Rabinowitsch, in furtherance of the work of the committee, studied the local conditions; the population was instructed verbally and by leaflets and pamphlets. Endeavours have been made to improve the economic condition of the workwomen of Galicia. For this purpose, instructed female assistants are sent from Germany to Galicia. It has been possible to awaken in Galicia general interest in the work of the suppression of traffic in girls. In a Conference held at Lemberg, the Galician clubs and Jewish committees made representations to German and other societies, in order to formulate a plan, and to devise measures for the improvement of Galician conditions.
In Buenos Ayres, the principal town of entry for Galician girls, a committee has been formed to oppose the traffic in girls, the members of this committee being of all religions and nationalities. This has had one good effect—that the traders in girls have become alarmed; they no longer practise their profession so openly as before. The Argentine police are also taking an active part in the fight with the traffic. Not more than two of the judges at Buenos Ayres were found to make common cause with the “traders,” and to discharge them on receipt of large bribes. A law has been drafted for the punishment of those engaged in this traffic, by imprisonment for six years and confiscation of their property.
The traders in girls constitute an international ring, and the centre of their organization is in Buenos Ayres.