From June 9 - July 9, 2006, 12 German cities will host the World Cup Games. Approximately 3 millions football fans - mostly men - will attend. It is estimated that 40,000 women will be "imported" from Central and Eastern Europe into Germany to "sexually service" the men.
Germany legalized pimping and the sex industry in 2002. However, it is predicted that the legal red light districts will be too small for the thousands of sport/sex tourists in attendance. In preparation for this influx, the German sex industry has erected a massive prostitution complex for the "booming business" expected during the games.
"Football and sex belong together," claimed the lawyer of the newly opened 3,000 meter mega brothel in Berlin, built next to the main World Cup venue to accommodate 650 male clients. Wooden "sex huts" called "performance boxes" that look like toilets have been built in fenced-in areas the size of a football field, with condoms, showers and parking for the buyers and a special focus on protecting their "anonymity."
We, Concerned Individuals and Organizations, state :
Buying sex is not a sport. It is sexual exploitation in which women are physically and psychologically harmed, and women’s bodies are treated as commodities to be bought and sold.
Treating women’s bodies as sexual commodities violates international standards of sport that promote equality, mutual respect and non-discrimination. FIFA President J.F. Blatter, "acknowledges the prominent role of sport, and especially football, as a vehicle for delivering clear and firm messages to eradicate the huge blights undermining society around the world." How will the World Cup Games help eradicate the blight of trafficking and sexual exploitation ?
Honorable men do not buy sex because they respect the dignity and integrity of all human beings.
No to the organization of prostitution for the World Cup Games.
We, Signers of this Statement, call upon :
* The 32 countries participating in the World Cup Games who have ratified UN Conventions and/or Protocols against prostitution and trafficking to oppose Germany’s promotion of prostitution, and publicly dissociate their teams from the prostitution industry.
* Football team members to make public their opposition to this sexual exploitation of women.
* The FIFA Committee and its president to fulfill its social responsibility by opposing the link between football and the sex trade. We call upon them to protest this sexual exploitation of women to the German government and its chancellor Angela Merkel, the German football federation, and its president, Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder.
* The German government and its chancellor Angela Merkel, the German football federation and its president, Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder, to stop this traffic in women for prostitution and to discourage the male demand that fosters prostitution.
* All concerned individuals and organizations to join in signing this statement in protest of this public display of prostitution and trafficking in women.
– To sign on this petition on-line and/or download the petition text to challenge men in your environment, please go to : catwepetition.ouvaton.org
Reference : catwinternational.org
On Sisyphe, 27 January 2006