[The German prostitute protection act and its implementation: Stocktaking from the Public Health Office of the city of Dresden]. / Das Prostituiertenschutzgesetz und seine Umsetzung: eine Bestandsaufnahme aus dem Gesundheitsamt Dresden.

On July 1, 2017 the German sex workers protection act came into force. Numerous institutions and groups expressed their disagreement towards this action in preceding discussions. A major criticism was the underlying one-sided understanding of prostitution and on the dilution of protective spaces for sex workers resulting from control by the authorities. Nevertheless, the law was adopted. Legal basis As the act is to be implemented by municipalities, the federal states were obliged to implement the laws. In the federal state of Saxony, the adoption was delayed considerably, since initially it was unclear which department had the responsibility to implement the law. Furthermore, there was a long-lasting political need for clarification regarding the burden of additional finances on municipalities. Only on July 26, 2018 was the sex workers protection act implemented in the federal state of Saxony. Experiences In the city of Dresden, structural conditions were established, allowing a clear separation between the processes of health counselling by the Public Health Office and the registration of the sex workers by the Public Order Office. Also, the different services of the Public Health Office are kept physically separate due to competing federal laws. Simultaneously, a new specialist area was created including both counselling centres, which thus prevents different standards in the services provided for sex workers within the Public Health Office. Whether the sex workers protection act serves the intended purpose may be doubted. The city of Dresden has made an attempt to counteract the negative consequences of the law by implementing clear structures and internal standards.

Cognitive skills of common shrews (Sorex araneus) vary with seasonal changes in skull size and brain mass.

In a rare phenomenon, shrews and a few other species cope with seasonal environments by reducing and regrowing brain size, potentially at the cost of changes in cognitive abilities. Here, we confirm an extensive seasonal shrinkage (21.4%) and regrowth (17.0%) of brain mass in winter and spring, respectively, in the common shrew (Sorex araneus L.) in Southern Germany. In a spatial learning task experiment, individuals with reduced winter brain size covered larger distances to find food, compared with the relatively large-brained summer juveniles and regrown spring adults. By reducing their brain mass, these shrews may reduce their energetic demands, but at the cost of cognitive performance, implying a complex trade-off for coping with seasonally fluctuating resources. These results are relevant for our understanding of evolution and the dynamics of mammalian nervous systems in response to environmental changes.