World Cup - a Magnet for Forced Prostitution?

BERLIN, Jan 4 (IPS) - Football players, fans and journalists from all over the world are getting ready to head to the World Cup in Germany. And among those packing their bags are about 40,000 sex workers who will be there to satisfy the high demand for their services.

Some German cities are planning mobile brothels and condom distribution for the booming business expected in June, when FIFA (International Football Federation) holds its world championship.

Initial estimates have mentioned 40,000 prostitutes from other countries, although there is no named source for this figure. Women's organisations and trade unions fear that many may be tricked into coming with deceptive job offers and then find themselves defenceless and vulnerable in a country they do not know.

"Experience shows that at every big sporting event where a large number of men gather, there is a spectacular rise in the demand for sexual services," Ulrike Helwerth, spokesperson for the non-governmental German Women's Council, explained to IPS. She recalled a similar thing happening at the Olympic Games in Athens, in 2004.

The Council has no quarrel with this, given that prostitution is legal in Germany and treated on a par with other professions. People engaged in it are, in theory at least, entitled to social security and to sue clients for non-payment. Big expectations have helped the business to flourish. The country's largest and most luxurious brothel opened a few months ago in Berlin. Its facilities occupy 400 square metres and its 70 rooms can cater to some 600 clients a day.

In the German capital, sponsors are being sought to distribute 100,000 condoms in the vicinity of the Olympic stadium, and the town halls of the 12 cities that will host the football championship plan to provide special licences so that sex workers can offer their services on the street.

In Dortmund and Cologne, in western Germany, provisional brothels are being made ready or are already installed. They are individual garages, equipped with condom expending machines, toilets, alarms and emergency exits. This may appear scandalous to some, but to the city authorities it is merely a pragmatic response to demand.

There is no doubt that a sizeable portion of the three million fans coming to Germany for the championship will want to see football, drink plenty of alcohol, and pay to satisfy their sexual appetites........more here