Welcome to the Armitage Cafe

There is a street on Vienna that is very famous. It goes right to the center of the old historic square and also stretches out to the limits of the city. It is intersected by another road near one of the main train stations, Westbahnhof and though you wouldn’t know it, this intersecting road divides this street into two very similar but tragically different realities.

One the side closest to the city the street is bright, festive and it attracts hundreds and thousands of visitors and tourists. It is lit with every logo, brand name and trade mark of all the major shops and companies from around the world. This is the main shopping street, where you can buy just about anything available on the global market. It is a great place to wander, browse at all the new and exciting products, have a cup of coffee and just enjoy your life in Vienna. Even in the evening, bathed in the glow of the neon lights, you feel safe and secure.

Once you cross the dividing line things change, though the purpose of the street stays the same. For on this street you can buy things from all over the world. Pretty things, that should not be for sale.

As you pass the train station and continue down the street you sense that this is the part of Vienna that only certain tourists come to shop. The streets are dimmer, the stores less inviting, but there is a lot for sale. Along the first couple of blocks you notice a few vendors lurking in the side streets. They are not allowed to come within 50 meters of the main street but they slowly creep closer and closer to the sidewalk, usually in pairs or by themselves. They loiter, clearly waiting for something, customers that they really don’t want.

Further down this dark and ominous street the scene changes from darkness to red. While the street lights are not red themselves, the street is washed in the redness of brake lights from dark cars that slowly slither along the pavement. The vendors are now allowed to be on the street and brazenly they stand, all dressed in a similar uniform, tall boots, short skirts, plunging neck-lines. They look as if they all work for the same sinister corporation but all of them are competing to stay in business and to stay alive.

They advertise themselves, using the most effective forms of marketing they know. A little wave, a little kiss, a little leg; all designed to get the attention of those who are shopping from their cars. We see one dark car from Germany pull over and a vendor goes to present her goods. We don’t see if the transaction is completed as we drive further down this street of fleshly goods.

Like it’s sister street, full of merchandise from around the world, there is a distinctly global feel about the goods sold here. Many are from Eastern Europe, lured or deceived or kidnapped away from the harsh realities of their homes in Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Russia and beyond. There is one African girl we see, most likely under the power of her pimp and superstition. Probably all of them have been abused and threatened. Almost all of them are paying back a debt they were tricked into receiving.

The story is similar, they are promised a new life with new work in the West. With very little promise of meaningful work or even little chance of survival in their home countries, they take the offer, expecting life to be different. What they fail to understand is how different it really will be. Their passports are stolen, their identities stripped, their families threatened and their dignity destroyed. Many of them are told that they owe their traffickers thousands of euros for their new life in the West. Some are even bought and sold along the way, by disgusting creatures who see neither humanity or individuality. They only see profits from their goods.

As we turn around to go back into the heart of Vienna and then to the comfort of our home, we once again see the black German car. He obviously did not buy from the first woman because he has stopped by another, negotiating the price or terms of the sale. This is the reality of the street, the vendors willing to make a deal to stay in business.

Our guide, who has worked for years with these ladies, tells us that these are the lucky ones. They have at least the freedom to move around on the streets and decide who their customers will be. He explains that the women we have seen probably represent only a percentage of the other women who are selling their bodies. The ones we don’t see are either in brothels, clubs or worse, slaves kept in secret locations forced to service clients the whole day. These are the ones who never leave their rooms, who know no life outside of a sexual prison. It is these ones that cannot be helped unless neighbours suspect something and call the police or one of the clients suspects that something is amiss and anonymously calls the police as well.

And so we leave the street and head for home, the juxtaposition of Vienna spinning in our heads. On the one side we have seen life, light and all that freedom has allowed us to have. It is the Vienna that most will know and want to visit, even the women we saw working as prostitutes. On the other side, in the shadows and in the headlights of drifting cars, we saw the darker side of Vienna. One controlled not by these women or their bodies but by invisible and evil shadows. Each of these girls represents a pimp, a boyfriend or a mafia connection that has forced, enslaved or trapped these women into selling themselves for the pleasure of others. These are the ones who profit from the transactions done in cars, alleyways and secret clubs. The women, we realize are only commodities, the real vendors are ones that never have to show their faces.