Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-06-12-Speech-1-086"
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"en.20060612.16.1-086"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, as a result of the hearing that was arranged by the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality and that took place on 8 March, representatives of the Commission made a number of promises in relation to measures to prevent the detestable trade in sex slaves. Today, we are forced to observe that not many of these promises have actually been fulfilled.
At a time when the players are in the thick of the action at the football World Cup, business is also booming for brothels. Women and children are being brought into the EU from other parts of the world in order to be exploited sexually. The UN estimates that four million people are transported within or between countries every year in order to be exploited sexually. They are shipped around, and bought and sold for consumption by people traffickers, sex tourists, porn producers and what are called ordinary men. Young women from poor backgrounds are ensnared by promises of work, material support and a better life. They then have their ID papers taken, are kept locked up, rarely know where in the world they are, hear only foreign tongues, are beaten, threatened and, above all, made to make their bodies available in whatever ways their customers may conceivably desire.
Together with the trafficking of weapons and drugs, prostitution is one of the most profitable activities in the EU. There is only one way of putting a stop to this trade, and that is by reducing the demand for sexual services. Reducing this demand means drawing attention to, and criminalising, the buyer, that is to say the customer. No customers means no demand. If we can achieve that, then we will have taken the decisive steps towards putting an end to this horrific trade. The links between the legalisation of prostitution and the increase in the number of victims of trafficking must be properly investigated. It makes no difference to someone buying sex where a prostitute comes from or under what conditions she carries out her work. Instead, in his mind, she is reduced to a body that can be bought.
Women in the sex trade are victims of men’s violence against women. I am not making any ethical judgments about prostitution. These are entirely political issues. No one should have to prostitute themselves.
A 1999 study showed, for example, that 80% of women in Dutch brothels were victims of the sex slave trade. In the German brothel industry, nine out of ten prostitutes are from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Since prostitution was legalised in the Netherlands there has been explosive growth in the child sex trade. In 1999 there were 4 000 child prostitutes. By 2001 this number had risen to 15 000. I quote both of these figures from the organisation Children’s Rights (
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Let the football World Cup in Germany be historic, not just for what happens on the pitch, but above all for the fact that we finally get to grips with these issues. Let this World Cup be remembered as a sporting event that took the decisive steps towards putting an end to the sex slave trade."@en1
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"Barnens rätt"1
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