Doña Carmen

Doña Carmen e.V. is a registered voluntary association (eingetragener Verein) based in the Bahnhofsviertel district of Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Founded in 1998, it describes itself as a self-help organisation of and for prostitutes and works for the political and social rights of sex workers, in particular for the recognition of prostitution as a profession. Its work centres on migrant sex workers ("Prostitutionsmigrantinnen"), whom it supports with social counselling and practical assistance. The association offers telephone counselling, interpreting services, help with personal problems both at its advice centre and directly inside brothels, information about the legal situation, information events with the women themselves, streetwork, and accompaniment of prostitutes to institutions, doctors, lawyers and other bodies. Because Doña Carmen has access, with the approval of the operators, to all brothels in Frankfurt's red-light district, counselling can take place on site. The organisation has negotiated a "quality standard for brothels" with establishment operators in Frankfurt, covering matters such as a contractually fixed employment relationship, and it calls for a Green Card for foreign prostitutes. It consistently rejects cooperation with the police, as a result of which it receives no financial support from the city and depends on private donations and supporting members. Doña Carmen states that it speaks for sex workers who do not see themselves as victims but who want to decide for themselves about their lives and their work. It advocates the full decriminalisation of sex work and its recognition as a normal trade, with equal rights and obligations, including through legal regulation. The association publishes La Muchacha, which it describes as the only bilingual (German-Spanish) prostitutes' newspaper in Germany, with a print run of between 1,000 and 2,000 copies distributed in Frankfurt brothels and beyond. Doña Carmen stresses that La Muchacha is primarily a political newspaper rather than a glamour scene magazine, and that it does not publish "spectacular cases" such as "international pimp gangs" or "trafficking in women". Beyond counselling and publishing, the association engages in public relations and art projects. Under the title "Kunst über Prostitution – Die Kunst der Prostitution" it worked with the German artist Silke Wagner, placing a camper van at Frankfurt's Konstablerwache to draw attention to mobile workplaces of prostitution. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when prostitution was among the sectors hardest hit by work bans, Doña Carmen and Wagner produced an online interview in which seven women described how the pandemic changed their working situation and pushed some of them to the edge of legality. The association has also been a vocal participant in Germany's prostitution debate, sharply criticising Alice Schwarzer's 2013 anti-prostitution campaign and announcing legal steps against the publisher of the book Prostitution – ein deutscher Skandal over passages it considered untrue and defamatory.

Doña Carmen e.V. was founded in 1998 as a registered voluntary association and established its seat in the Bahnhofsviertel, the red-light district of Frankfurt am Main. It defines itself as a self-help organisation of prostitutes and works for the political and social rights of sex workers, campaigning for the "recognition of prostitution as a profession". Its co-founder, Juanita Rosina Hennig, has worked as a social worker for prostitutes in Frankfurt am Main since 1991. From its base in the Bahnhofsviertel, the association built a model of outreach that depends on access to the workplaces themselves. With the approval of establishment operators, Doña Carmen can enter all brothels in Frankfurt's red-light district, allowing counselling to take place directly on site. It offers telephone counselling, interpreting, help with personal problems at its advice centre or in the brothels, information about the legal situation, information events with the women, streetwork, and accompaniment to institutions, doctors and lawyers. It has negotiated a "quality standard for brothels" with Frankfurt operators, covering matters such as a contractually fixed employment relationship, and it advocates a Green Card for foreign prostitutes. Because the organisation consistently rejects cooperation with the police, it receives no financial support from the city and relies on private donations and supporting members. The association publishes the magazine La Muchacha, which it describes as the only bilingual (German-Spanish) prostitutes' newspaper in Germany, with a print run of between 1,000 and 2,000 copies distributed in Frankfurt brothels and beyond. Doña Carmen emphasises that La Muchacha is primarily a political newspaper rather than a glamour scene publication, that it advocates above all for the rights of foreign women working illegally, and that a central concern is social dialogue between Germans and migrants and the wider population. It deliberately does not publish "spectacular cases" such as "international pimp gangs" or "trafficking in women". In public relations and art, Doña Carmen collaborated with the German artist Silke Wagner under the title "Kunst über Prostitution – Die Kunst der Prostitution". They placed a camper van at Frankfurt's Konstablerwache, since camper vans are often workplaces for prostitutes and the action was intended to bring them out of concealment. During the COVID-19 pandemic, prostitution was among the sectors hardest hit by work bans; in cooperation with Silke Wagner, the association highlighted the difficult material situation of women working in different areas of sex work who received no or insufficient state support. In an online interview, seven women described how the pandemic changed their working situation and pushed some of them to the edge of legality. Doña Carmen has been a prominent voice in Germany's prostitution debate. It sharply criticised the campaign against prostitution launched by Alice Schwarzer in October 2013, calling her appeal "unmistakably marked by the ponderous, schoolmasterly, altogether bilious undertone of the bitterness and joylessness of a generation 70 plus", describing the absence of any mention of sex in an appeal about prostitution as "a grandiose feat of repression", and calling the appeal "a case for the waste-paper basket" in which every second sentence was "a lie". Shortly after the publication of Prostitution – ein deutscher Skandal, Doña Carmen announced legal steps against the publisher and publishing house. In three passages of the section "Von Hydra bis Doña Carmen: Die Pro-Prostitutionsfront", the association said it was exposed to "untruths about the work of Doña Carmen as well as defamatory statements about the association's spokesperson amounting to character assassination". The Landgericht Frankfurt assessed one of the contested passages as a "permissible expression of opinion"; the untruthfulness of the two other passages, which Schwarzer's lawyer had also conceded, infringed the applicants' right of personality not insignificantly, but since this concerned only two and a half pages, the court found no "particularly serious violation of the right of personality", and the application for an interim injunction was accordingly not granted. In its public commentary the association continues to address current developments, including the Prostitutes Protection Act, the licensing requirement for prostitution businesses, and the treatment of prostitution in the BKA's organised crime reporting. In September 2026 it noted that organised crime attributed to the prostitution trade had been recorded at zero for the first time since the OK statistics began, and it has expressed solidarity with the sex-work activist Ruby Rebelde in her legal dispute with Sisters e.V.

• 2026

  Doña Carmen comments on the 2025 Federal Situation Report on Organised Crime and opens its advice centre for the "Open Viertel" event.

• 2020

  During the COVID-19 pandemic, Doña Carmen and artist Silke Wagner publish an online interview with seven sex workers about the impact of the pandemic.

• 2013

  Doña Carmen sharply criticises Alice Schwarzer's anti-prostitution campaign and announces legal steps over the book Prostitution – ein deutscher Skandal.

• 2012

  La Muchacha is described as the only bilingual (German-Spanish) prostitutes' newspaper in Germany, with a print run of 1,000–2,000 copies.

• 1998

  Doña Carmen e.V. is founded as a registered voluntary association with its seat in Frankfurt's Bahnhofsviertel.

• 1991

  Juanita Rosina Hennig begins working as a social worker for prostitutes in Frankfurt am Main.

A sex-worker self-help and advocacy association that rejects discrimination against prostitutes, opposes cooperation with police, and campaigns for the full decriminalisation and professional recognition of sex work.

• La Muchacha

  Bilingual (German-Spanish) prostitutes' newspaper published by Doña Carmen, print run 1,000–2,000 copies, distributed in Frankfurt brothels and beyond.

• Social counselling and outreach

  Telephone counselling, interpreting, on-site counselling in brothels, streetwork, and accompaniment to institutions, doctors and lawyers.

• Information materials on the Prostitutes Protection Act

  Information materials and public statements on the Prostitutes Protection Act and the licensing requirement for prostitution businesses.

1. 1Doña Carmen e.V. – Verein für soziale und politische Rechte von Prostituiertendonacarmen.de
2. 2Doña Carmen – Wikidatawikidata.org
3. 3Doña Carmen – Wikipedia (German)de.wikipedia.org