The American Spectator

Prague Post reported: br> /p>

The normalization of prostitution as work has not occurred in Germany, the Netherlands, or Australia. Legalization was supposed to provide women with benefits and the right to join unions, but few women have signed up [for] either. The reason has to do with the basic nature of prostitution. It is not work, a job like any other. It is abuse and exploitation that women only engage in if forced to or when they have no other options. Women and children controlled by mafias and criminals cannot register with an authority or join a union. Unionization of “sex workers” [an idea promoted by world feminists] is a fantasy, because it is incompatible with the coercive and abusive nature of prostitution.

br> In opposition, Swedish official Claes Borgstrom urged his country’s soccer players to boycott the games. He said, “This event will be followed attentively by the whole world. Many people just don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. This is our chance to show we don’t accept prostitution and the human trafficking associated with it….Sex is one thing, prostitution another. The link between human trafficking and prostitution is obvious.”

Another strong opponent is Rep. Christopher Smith of New Jersey, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Human Rights. He spoke of “the thousands of women and children trafficked and exploited in Germany’s legal sex industry to accommodate the huge influx of…male fans.” Not just women, but children as well. The thought is unthinkable to us and doubly unthinkable when we read that UNICEF (the United Nations Children’s Fund) and SOS Children’s Village are listed as official sponsors of the games. SOS Children’s Village is the “official charity campaign of the FIFA World Cup 2006” and calls itself an international child welfare organization. Under Germany’s “pragmatic approach,” it appears that the charity will be benefiting from events surrounded by the exploitation of children. Go figure.

On the eve of the games, others are speaking out as well. The European Parliament has warned of the dangers of trafficking and stressed the need for an integrated Europe-wide campaign to combat the scourge. The National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI) has launched a nationwide public awareness campaign with the slogan “Buying Sex is not a Sport.” Other women’s groups across Europe joined in and there were protests at Nordic Council meetings in Stockholm.

Will all of this have done any good by the time the games are over? Or have the follies of our times — moral relativism, sex revolutions, nonjudgmentalism, and all the others — simply come home to roost?