Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-01-16-Speech-1-104"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20060116.16.1-104"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, Mr Frattini, it is gratifying that Parliament is today debating the trafficking of women and children. When the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, for which I was draftsman, decided on the opinion I was to draft, there was not only a very large majority in favour of strongly condemning the odious trafficking of persons but also a desire to see human trafficking as an aspect of prostitution in the EU.
What was important to the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs was to set the target of halving the trade within ten years and to see considerable efforts made to ensure that we MEPs obtain a better basis for decision-making, better statistics and, of course, better cooperation between police, prosecutors and judges. We believe – and I emphasise ‘believe’ – that up to one half of the victims of human trafficking may be children and minors. It was therefore important for the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs to emphasise that a minimum, inviolable age limit of 18 years must be set. For me, it is also only natural that women and children who have been victims of human trafficking be given the right to stay or else help in returning to their own countries. I also hope that, in the future, there will be cooperation with the tourist industry. Administrative districts and municipalities that receive large groups of tourists must make it clear that they view the trafficking of women and children as unacceptable.
A concomitant of the decision about the tourist industry that we are to take here in Strasbourg are the rumours that thousands upon thousands of women are to be imported as prostitutes in advance of this summer’s football World Cup – a matter for protest on the part of the EU’s women Social Democrats. I am pleased to be able to say that, in Sweden, both our EU minister and the minister responsible for gender equality have condemned any such development, as has the chairman of the Swedish Football Association. I hope that all the speakers in this Chamber today are able to give their support to this protest against the trafficking of women. Sport, prostitution and the trafficking of women do not go together. In its ambition to draw attention to prostitution in the EU, the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs wished to go further than the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality is doing. I intend to return to this issue on a later occasion, for example in connection with our debate on Mr Frattini’s communication. We cannot, as Mrs Prets believes, bring the trafficking of persons to an end by providing information about it. What is required is for courageous politicians, including EU politicians, to take responsibility for doing so."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples