Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-05-18-Speech-4-063"
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"en.20000518.3.4-063"2
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"Mr President, trafficking in women is not just a women’s issue. It also falls within the wider global context of international crime and trafficking in human beings. Raising such an issue today might seem anachronistic but slavery will indeed be a part of the 21st century. It is a potent force which takes advantage of the misery of the displaced who travel the world against their will, who are sold, bought and then brought to Europe. Nothing is preventing these global pimps from pressurising families to sell their children and luring girls to Europe to make them work and become prostitutes.
During a conference organised jointly by the United States of America and the Philippines in March, the very lucrative aspect of this new market was also raised. Trafficking in human beings is, after drugs and weapons, the third largest source of income for organised crime.
Yet trafficking in human beings is, above all, a violation of human dignity and human rights. Our societies are demanding the right to happiness, pleasure and freedom, and the removal of taboos. It seems not to matter if people, women and children in particular, are paying the price by being dragged down into the underworld. Prostitution is a form of slavery which we like to make out to be exotic and romantic in order to hide its tragedy and sordidness. Yet it is actually a denial of freedom. These crimes are committed solely for the sake of pleasure and are treated with widespread indifference by a society which accepts prostitution as the oldest profession in the world. This is also true of pornography which is found in the daily papers, on television and on the Internet, where everything can be bought, even girls. Prostitution, trafficking in human beings, sex tourism and paedophilia are all issues highlighted by the media which are gradually becoming less taboo. So much the better, for the resignation shown towards what society has deemed to be irreversible is intolerable.
We must now help these people whose bodies are being exploited for commercial purposes, both in our countries and in their countries of origin, by increasing aid for development, education and cooperation between countries. The European Union must wake up to this situation and, rather than giving lessons to the women of the world, five years after the Beijing Conference, it would do better to clean up its own backyard. Trafficking in human beings is incredibly widespread in our countries because the demand exists and because the European Union is adept at showing itself to be a greedy customer, disdainful of the distress caused to these adults and children who have been denied any choice.
To conclude, I will refer to the slogan of the seminar organised in Paris on 15 May under the patronage of the European Parliament which says that the humiliation of human beings through prostitution represents an intolerable attack on human rights."@en1
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