NGOs claim French police cracking down
on sex workers ahead of 2024 Olympics
But apparently not concerned for child prostitutes
A group of charities claimed Wednesday that French police were cracking down on Paris sex workers ahead of the Olympics.
Issued on: Modified:
NEWS WIRES
A report issued by 17 non-government organisations who work with prostitutes said that they "shared the same conclusion" as to the increased repression and sometimes changes in police practices.
"The approach that we characterise as 'repression first' has obvious consequences on the security and health of sex workers," it added.
Charities working in two hotspots — the Boulogne and Vincennes woods to the west and east of Paris — had noted "increased police patrols ahead of the Games with heavy-handed identity controls on women working in the sex industry".
They urged authorities to focus their energies instead on the "criminal organisations which rob, rape and assault them".
A change in the law in France in 2016 criminalised the act of paying for sex acts, rather than offering or performing them.
So, if you beat up the girl instead of paying her, you can't be charged with paying for sex acts. Sheesh.
French authorities fear an increase in prostitution during the Olympic and Paralympic Games which begin on July 26 — something contested by the charities.
"Contrary to some presumptions, sex workers are not in the process of arriving in large numbers in Paris where the cost of accommodation is constantly increasing ahead of the Olympics and Paralympics: they are being pushed to go to work in other towns," the charities said.
Brazil's experience with the World Cup and the Olympics saw an estimated doubling of child prostitutes, from about 250,000 to 500,000. This article makes no mention of child prostitutes, but I guarantee there will be thousands of them, perhaps tens of thousands. It's greatly disappointing that no-one is concerned about this.
Other charities have denounced efforts by the French authorities to move migrants and the homeless out of the capital ahead of the Games, which are expected to draw millions of overseas visitors.
(AFP)
Legal prostitution in Germany: A failure?
More than two decades after prostitution was legalised in Germany, the issue is once again sparking debate. The conservative opposition in parliament is campaigning to reform the 2002 law that made sex work legal. Former chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU party claims that the goal of improving the situation of sex workers and curbing human trafficking has not been achieved – rather the reverse. According to several studies, the overwhelming majority of women working in prostitution in Germany are in fact under the control of a pimp. Our correspondent Anne Mailliet reports.
In just over 20 years, Germany has become an El Dorado for sex tourism. People come from all over the world to visit Hamburg's brothels and take advantage of perfectly legal "services".
The law on the legalisation of prostitution, passed in 2002 by the Social Democrats and the Greens, aimed to provide security, protection and autonomy for sex workers by giving them a professional status. But this law also decriminalised pimping by creating the status of "sex entrepreneur". As a result, this lucrative business is still largely dominated by organised crime.
Officially, the country counts 2,310 establishments offering sexual services, while some 28,280 prostitutes are registered, according to the federal statistics office Destatis. But the number of unregistered sex workers is believed to be much higher. Various organisations estimate that between 200,000 and 400,000 people work in this lucrative sector. According to several studies, 90 percent of them are victims of human trafficking.
Again, there is no mention of child prostitutes. It's a good bet that a large percentage of those unregistered and trafficked girls are underage. It seems, like in France, that neither the media nor the government is very concerned about this issue. Here again, I guarantee that the number of child prostitutes is in the tens of thousands.
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