Prostitutes gather in Davos for annual meeting of global elite as demand skyrockets
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The global elite tackling the world’s problems at the Davos summit, including gender inequality, is fueling a rise in prostitution at the Swiss resort.
Demand for sex work skyrockets every year as world leaders and business tycoons come together from around the world to rub shoulders.
Escorts are booked into the same hotels as high-powered bosses and their employees for the five-day summit.
A sex worker named Liana said she dresses in business clothes so she doesn’t stand out among executives, even though prostitution is legal in Switzerland.
Salome Balthus (pictured), a sex worker and writer, staying at a hotel near Davos during the summit.
She said picture she regularly sees an American visiting Switzerland several times a year and is among the 2,700 conference attendees.
Liana charges around 700 euros per hour and 2,300 euros for the whole night, plus travel expenses.
The manager of an escort service in Aargau, 100 miles from the summit, says she has already received 11 bookings and 25 inquiries and expects many more to follow this week.
She said 20 minutes: ‘Some also book escorts for themselves and their employees to party in the hotel suite.’
Salome Balthus, a sex worker and writer, posted on Twitter: “A date in Switzerland during #WWF means looking at the gun muzzles of security guards in the hotel corridor at 2am, then sharing with them chocolates from the restaurant and gossip”. about the rich… #Davos #WEF.’
Demand for sex work skyrockets every year at gathering of world leaders and business magnates
The 36-year-old is staying at a hotel near Davos during the summit but declined to reveal who the influential clients are.
She warned: “Trust me, you don’t want to get into litigation with them.”
In 2020, an investigation of The times found that at least 100 prostitutes travel to Davos for the summit, a Swiss police officer said.
An official driver for the forum said he picked up a sex worker who claimed her “boss” had forced her to sleep with an older client at a delegate hotel.
Topics for discussion at this year’s summit include the Ukraine war, global inflation rates, climate change and inequality.
Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska will give an exceptional international address at the annual meeting today.
The Covid-19 pandemic torpedoed the snow-covered event in the past two years, but a spring version was held eight months ago.
Alain Berset, President of Switzerland, Olena Zelenska, First Lady of Ukraine, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission and founder of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, pose together today.
Dozens of sessions on Tuesday will tackle topics as diverse as gender parity, the return of manufacturing, the green transition, efforts to end tuberculosis and the intersection of food, water and energy, which will feature actor Idris Elba.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He are also among the speakers.
Nearly 600 chief executives and more than 50 heads of state or government are expected, but it is never clear how many concrete actions emerge from the elite event.
The elite gathering is regularly criticized by critics who argue attendees are too disconnected or profit-minded or power-minded to address the needs of ordinary people and the planet.
Throughout the week, critics and activists will wait outside the Davos conference center to try to hold decision-makers and business leaders to account.
It began on Sunday, when dozens of climate activists, some in clown makeup, braved the snow to wave banners and chant slogans at the end of Davos Promenade, a thoroughfare now lined with store logos from corporate titans like Accenture, Microsoft, Salesforce, Meta , as well as ‘country houses’ that promote national interests.
Greenpeace International also criticized the use of corporate jets to carry bigwigs, saying such carbon-spewing transport smacks of hypocrisy for an event touting its push for a greener world.
It said more than 1,000 private jet flights arrived and departed from airports serving Davos in May.
The president of the Forum, Borge Brende, acknowledged on Sunday that some government leaders and chief executives fly that way.
“I think what’s more important than that is making sure that we have agreements on how we generally move and push the boundaries when it comes to the green agenda,” he said.