While the winner of the World Cup remains unknown, the clear losers will be the thousands of women and children trafficked and exploited in Germany’s legal sex industry to accommodate the huge influx of demand experts anticipate will be generated by male fans attending the games. 

    An estimated 3 million fans from around the world will attend the games, and vast numbers of them are expected to buy sex as a form of entertainment. As many as 40,000 additional women are expected to be added to the approximately 400,000 women in Germany’s sex industry. Germans are accommodating the trade in women by facilitating the construction of mega-brothels and “sex huts,” and cities hosting the games will issue special permits for street prostitution, creating a virtual partnership with brothel owners, pimps and traffickers. 

    Legalized prostitution is not a policy that the German government has to embrace. There must be zero tolerance for trafficking, including zero tolerance for policies and activities that fuel the demand for it. Further, experience has shown that major international sporting events such the Olympics have led to an increase in the exploitation of women through prostitution. 

    All efforts should be made to prevent new exploitation of women by exposing the demand. 

    Thursday’s hearing will identify what governments have done or can do to curb the exploitation and likely trafficking that will occur, not just for the World Cup in Germany, but also looking ahead to other events such as the Olympics in Beijing.

HEARING: Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations

U.S. Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-NJ), Chairman

Germany’s World Cup Brothels: 40,000 Women and Children at Risk of
Exploitation Through Trafficking

WHEN: Thursday, May 4, 2006, 2:00 PM

WHERE: 2172 Rayburn House Office Building

WITNESSES:

Mr. Michael Horowitz, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute

Ms. Ashley Garrett, Project Manager for Trafficking in Persons in North America and the
Caribbean, International Organization for Migration

Ms. Jennifer Roemhildt, Executive Director, Lost Coin

Ms. Katherine Chon, Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director, Polaris
Project

Ms. Maureen Greenwood, Advocacy Director for Europe and Eurasia,
Amnesty International

Juliette Engel, Ph.D., Director, Mira Med Institute (Moscow, Russia)