1 June 2006

World Cup shame

Dear Friends,

You may have noticed that the sports pages of our daily papers have been full of the latest reports on World Cup soccer – due to begin in Germany on 9 June, lasting a month.

What you probably haven’t been told is news I have just received from Austin Ruse, who heads the US Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute in New York. Here is a brief version of his email:

From June 9 – July 9, 2006, 12 German cities will host the world soccer championship World Cup Games.

About 3 million soccer fans – mostly men – will attend. With official support from the German government, up to 40,000 young women will be “imported” from Central and Eastern Europe into Germany to “service” the men.

These women come from desperately poor circumstances. According to reports, most will not speak German. Most are being “sex trafficked” against their wills. They are told that they are going to be models, waitresses, or some other harmless occupation. Many will be brutally assaulted by intoxicated fans.

Whatever their circumstances, each and every one of these young women is someone’s daughter, a child of God, and deserves our protection. None deserves to be exploited to satisfy the sexual appetites of soccer fans.

Prostitution is legal in Germany. But the legal German red light districts have been considered too small for the thousands of sport/sex tourists attending the World Cup games.

The Germans have already built a mega brothel in Berlin, right 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”.

It is estimated that as many as 30% of the soccer fans will visit prostitutes at least once. Sexual activity on such a massive scale is highly likely to spread STDs, since condoms only provide partial protection. Some of the infected fans, including Australians, will bring their diseases back home. ………………..

Austin Ruse is leading a campaign to contact the German government and World Cup soccer officials to protest this horrific exploitation of 40,000 women.

We can help by emailing, phoning or faxing Martin Lutz, the German ambassador in Canberra.

Please send a polite message to Mr Lutz – email: info1 [at] germanembassy.org.au;

Include your name and street address. You could say, in your own words:

Prostitution is not a “victimless crime”. Prostitution damages women physically and mentally. Prostitution also damages customers and their families, through adultery and disease.

Ask Mr Lutz to pass on your concerns to German Chancellor Angela Merkel –

* Australians are deeply dismayed by the German government’s official support for trafficking in women at the World Cup;

* Please dismantle the huge World Cup brothel in Berlin and arrest all those involved in procuring women for this horrific trade in human bodies.

If you have any contacts in Australian soccer, please ask them to make a formal protest to World Cup officials about this injustice.

God bless!

ROS

Mrs Roslyn Phillips, B Sc Dip Ed

Research Officer, Festival of Light Australia

Website http://www.fol.org.au