"What a pity! A mountain peak as tiny as one square inch has been the source of great inspiration and misery for millennia"
-Anonymous Taoist remark
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/europe/article4624755.ece
It used to be that central and eastern European women dominated Greece’s prostitution industry, but six years of crippling financial austerity have forced local women back into a trade where they now offer some of the lowest prices on the Continent.
The grim competition for business has led to cash-strapped young girls and students slashing prices, and even offering sexual encounters in exchange for something to eat.
Paid big money for a drink of Cold Duck or Night Train in a sleazy Plaka or Syngrou Avenue strip-joint bar?
Ok you got suckered by the old guy cajoling you into his bar to "talk" and then had to buy a drink for his clientele/work force? Bouncers big as a barn too! The police may be (definitely are) on the take so don't go in the bar in the first place! Ignore ALL touts! Never give your credit card in a situation like that!
BORDELLOS: Look for the little red light if you want a state licensed bordello! Officially there are 230 licensed houses in the city of Athens employing some 600 prostitutes. Unofficially there are thousands of hookers, full time and part time.
The area near Viktorias Square and the street called Filis which is parallel to major Street Pattision is the major red light district of Athens. Oddly enough a "kiss" in Greek is a fili. Coincidence? Its not Amsterdam however and more low key.
Bordellos exist in other areas too: Sophokleous St. in the center, Platia Vathis, Monastiraki, Plaka, Psyrri Metaxourghio, Aghios Georgos.
Prostitution is legal in Greece. Licenced prostitutes see a doctor every second week. But many women being sold in Greece are victims of Trafficking, a modern form of slavery which human rights groups and sensitive people around the world condemn.
Participating in sex with a victim of Trafficking is rape.
There are escorts available: just read the in English
Athens News Ads section or buy the Greek paper called
Golden Opportunity weekly (chri-see ef-kare-ia) and look in the in back of the papers. The ads are all in Greek in this one but have more to choose from. You never know what is going to show up at your door anyway do you?
ATHENS, Greece - More than 150 prostitutes staged a vigil Monday to protest laws they claim will cripple Greece's legal brothels and feed the illegal sex trade before next year's Olympic Games.
The Greek prostitutes - mostly linked to state-sanctioned brothels - gathered outside the Interior Ministry to demand authorities back off enforcement of a 1999 law that sets strict rules on the location of bordellos.
Athens' municipal council has revived the once widely ignored rules in an effort to bolster the city's image before the Olympics. Under the law, brothels must be inspected regularly and are banned from operating within 660 feet of churches, schools and youth centers and other civic institutions.
Critics, led by some advocates for the legal prostitutes, claim the rules will drive prostitution onto the streets and help feed the massive illegal sex trade in Greece dominated by Eastern European immigrants.
Prostitution is legal in Greece only in brothels with state permits.