World Cup Punters Fail to Materialise
by Lynne Miles // 27 June 2006, 23:46
The Washington Post reports - with perhaps a touch of diappointment - that the predicted spike in demand for prostitutes has failed to materialise due to the World Cup in Germany.
The Parliamentary Association of the Council of Europe and Amnesty International had voiced concerns that more than 40,000 women could be trafficked into Germany in advance of the tournament.
But small local brothels are complaining that the punters are failing to show up - preferring instead to stick to the more traditional football-related sources of entertainment of pubs and beer. Bigger businesses such as Pascha maintain that trade has been brisk. The concern is that women will have been trafficked before the tournament and the unexpected lack of demand will not really help them much - the article quotes police sources in host city Frankfurt as saying the number of sex workers had hardly changed, and in Munich saying it had increased by 60%. There was no indication in the report as to whether or not this related to registered (therefore, presumably, non-trafficked) sex workers.
The Washington Post, of course, totally misses the point with regards to the servicing of the missing 'demand', stating mildly that it was expected that many women were expected to "travel" into Germany to pick up the extra trade, totally neglecting to mention the widespread concern about trafficking - depite having carried this feature a couple of weeks ago commenting on the problem.
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