Prostitution is a taboo fringe area of society, about which there is hardly any well-founded information and scientific knowledge. Women who work in prostitution have to struggle with social prejudices, social discrimination and legal disadvantages and therefore need specific counseling and low-threshold services. Social work has a long tradition of helping this target group on a case-by-case basis and advocates for the rights and dignity of women. From the perspective of professional social work, this volume provides an overview of the complexity of the field of prostitution and presents theoretical and methodological approaches.

This book is a translation of the original German 1st edition Soziale Arbeit und Prostitutionby Martin Albert and Julia Wege, published by Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature in 2015. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation. Springer Nature works continuously to further the development of tools for the production of books and on the related technologies to support the authors.

Prof. Dr. Martin Albert is professor for theory and methods of social work at the SRH University of Applied Sciences Heidelberg.

Prof. Dr. Julia Wege is professor for individual case assistance and community work at the RWU University Ravensburg-Weingarten.

Social work in the context of the lifeworld "prostitution".- Drug use and prostitution.- Prostitution in the public sphere.- Career entry in the field of action of female prostitution.- (Forced) prostitution.- Coaching, supervision and process support of counseling centers.- Needs analysis and concept development of a counseling center using the example of the city of Mannheim.