Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-06-12-Speech-1-081"
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"en.20060612.16.1-081"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that it is necessary today to mention in this House the initiatives that the Commission, and I myself in person, have worked on during the past few months.
The German authorities, in particular the Federal Ministry of the Interior and the ministries of the
have responded to our requests. We have discussed them on two occasions in the Council of Ministers of the Interior and instructions have been given for more thorough border checks. We have been informed that gangs of traffickers have organised a network for trafficking young girls mainly from those countries on the eastern borders of the European Union. In this connection I reaffirm that border checks must be made stricter. In addition, instructions have been issued at our request concerning the need to protect victims of sexual exploitation, with a view to the application of the special assistance programmes. This is a case of treating people not as illegal immigrants, but rather as victims of a modern form of slavery who must therefore be protected.
We have also given our support to setting up two multilingual telephone helplines, already operational, that have been entrusted to two German NGOs that are well-known in Germany. We are aware of the problem caused by the lack of a single Europe-wide telephone number, but such a project would require the agreement of all the telephone companies in all Member States. This is an initiative that we shall be able to implement in the medium term, just as we are implementing a European freephone emergency number for children.
Furthermore, we have also supported, in cooperation with the German authorities, an information campaign sponsored by the German Women’s Council, which you know well. We have decided together to organise a workshop, which will be run by the European Commission and the German authorities immediately after the World Cup; its remit will be to prepare a document covering all the positive and negative experiences of this period and to draw up a sort of manual to be used in all international sporting events.
I should also like to say a few words about the role of Europol and Eurojust. We have encouraged the Member States to cooperate to a greater extent with these two organisations. As you will know, Europol has in recent weeks carried out some outstanding work. It reported to the latest meeting of the Council of Ministers of the Interior, held last week in Luxembourg, and the director of Europol has confirmed that the cooperative network of police forces has derived considerable benefit from the encouragement given by Member States to national police forces.
In conclusion, I should like to report that we have forwarded a request, formulated in accordance with the Plan of Action, to the network of the EU Member States’ consulates in the countries of origin. We have requested that periodic meetings at consulate level should be organised in each country of origin in order to improve the pre-emptive identification of potential victims of trafficking and thus to help them to avoid becoming victims. We shall prepare a report on this request by the end of 2006. That is a summary of the list of initiatives that have so far been adopted.
I should like to thank Mrs Záborská, who has spoken about the existence of a more general problem: namely the need for European action aimed at dismantling the network of trafficking of women and children for the primary purpose of sexual exploitation. In my opinion this is a modern form of slavery that Europe can neither tolerate nor, still less, ignore.
We are facing a medium- and long-term problem. I hope that in the course of 2006 we can draw up a plan aimed, as some European women deputies have requested, at assessing the impact of demand for prostitution on the volume of people-trafficking for sexual purposes.
I am personally convinced that the greater the demand from clients, the more encouragement is indirectly given to people-trafficking for sexual exploitation. We do not have precise data, but we are ready to initiate a plan which we shall naturally refer to this Parliament.
I should like to give you an idea of the list of concrete initiatives in connection with the World Cup championship in Germany. In the first place, I have supported – together with the Commission and Mr Barroso – all the information campaigns aimed at raising awareness of the grave danger of an increase in people-trafficking for sexual purposes in connection with the World Cup. In this connection, I had the pleasure a few days ago in Brussels of meeting a delegation headed by Mrs Gurmai. We received the results of a petition promoted by the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, who were very successful in collecting many thousands of signatures. Subsequently we contacted the German authorities, so as to obtain their support for prevention and information campaigns in Germany.
In particular, I had requested something further: that specific, positive information concerning prevention should be posted on the International Football Federation’s website. I share Mrs Záborská’s displeasure at the Federation’s cool response to this request.
You also know that a few days ago the group of independent experts on people-trafficking deposited the report that we had requested. It is a report published on 2 June 2006 which analyses the risk of increased people-trafficking for sexual purposes, with specific reference to the World Cup. This report is of course available to Parliament.
As you will know, we had also asked Europol to draw up a report on this issue. Europol has produced an analytical document, aimed at police and investigating authorities, with the purpose of strengthening the practical arrangements for coordination between police authorities. I can tell you – without going into details, given the time pressures – that this document confirms the hypothesis that there is an increase in forced prostitution and trafficking in conjunction with the world football championships. As some people feared, the likelihood that a large number of young girls will become victims of trafficking during the World Cup is thus confirmed.
Going back, therefore, to the question tabled before the beginning of this debate, I do not share the conclusion reached by an authoritative German periodical that this sporting event is unconnected with any increase in instances of sexual exploitation. Such an increase may be, and indeed is, expected: thus the matter is certainly not irrelevant."@en1
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