Blowing the whistle on sport prostitution

TRAFFICKING in women and children for sexual exploitation is one of the most serious human rights violations in today’s world. This commerce in people is on the increase across Europe as organised crime expands and becomes more profitable.

The National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI) has launched a nationwide public awareness campaign, entitled ‘Buying Sex is not a Sport’, to highlight how world sporting events result in dramatic increases in the demand for sexual services.

The NWCI is joining with women’s organisations across Europe in this campaign, to protest against pimps and owners of small and mega-brothels and ‘performance boxes’ (toilet-like stalls in large drive-in areas), who are about to make maximum profit during the World Cup period with the massive influx of male supporters into 12 German World Cup cities.

Most trafficked women are victims of organised crime, as acknowledged by the European Parliament Resolution, having been recruited with the help of false documents, lured by job offers and often deceived by false promises of legitimate employment, before being forced to work as prostitutes.

Last week the European Parliament welcomed the campaign of the German National Council of Women and stressed the need for an integrated Europe-wide campaign. The parliament called on international committees and sports associations, including FIFA,UEFA, the German Football Association and others, as well as sportsmen and women themselves, to support this campaign and condemn the trafficking of human beings for prostitution.

The NWCI has called on the FAI to condemn trafficking and prostitution at sporting events; the NWCI has further called on Justice Minister Michael McDowell and the Irish government to put the issue of trafficking in women for prostitution and the associated human rights abuses and violence, on the agenda of the next EU Council of Ministers’ (justice and home affairs) meeting in Luxembourg in April.

We ask readers to support this campaign, by signing the petition at www.nwci.ie to condemn trafficking in women for prostitution at major sporting events as an unacceptable violation of human rights.

Dr Joanna McMinn

Director

National Women’s Council of Ireland

9 Marlborough Court

Marlborough Street

Dublin 1