It is a well-known fact that large-scale events, such as major football championships, draw in criminal gangs involved in these degrading practices, and it is for this reason that the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality launched a campaign on International Women’s Day, 8 March 2006, to draw the public’s attention to the need to prevent and combat trafficking in women and forced prostitution during the 2006 football World Cup. This ‘Red Card to Forced Prostitution’ campaign was a huge success in raising awareness not only among audiences, supporters, but also in society that trafficking in women and forced prostitution must be actively combated. Nevertheless, the results of the approach of the European Commission and the majority of Member States are unfortunately still disappointing. We should therefore like to raise this issue once again, and make it clear to audiences and to society during Euro 2008 this month that this type of violence against women and
   Finally, to Question No 5. The campaign ‘Red Card to Forced Prostitution’, launched for the 2006 Football World Cup, was a good step towards raising awareness about trafficking in human beings for sexual exploitation. Although the assessment carried out by Germany shows that the fear of an increase in forced prostitution and trafficking did not materialise in 2006, we welcome all initiatives aimed at informing public opinion, raising public awareness, preventing such heinous criminal phenomena and helping victims.
     Manolis Mavrommatis, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group. – (EL) Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this coming Saturday the European Football Championship starts in Austria and Switzerland. This is the second-largest sporting event after the World Cup. It has been found that some 2.5 million sports fans from across Europe will attend the matches. It has also been reported, however, that as happens at such major events, a large number of women, estimated at 25 000, will travel from around the world to the cities where the matches are to be played, unfortunately not merely to support their teams, but because they are being forced into prostitution. I am sure that the international community, and particularly the EU and the European Parliament, cannot be unmoved by this.
   Madam President, Commissioner, as we have heard, the intervention by the European Parliament in 2006 in the similar case of the World Cup in Germany produced positive results. At the time, the number of women reported to have been forced into prostitution was between 40 000 and 60 000. It would therefore be worthwhile for us to take action again, as we did back in 2006 as a result of the oral question by Mrs Wortmann-Kool. I propose that the President of the European Parliament and the relevant Commissioner should send a letter, like the letter Mr Frattini sent to Angela Merkel in 2006. It should be addressed both to the organising committee and to UEFA, spelling out our concern over the danger threatening to transform a sporting event into uncontrolled entertainment with women as its victims.
   Two years ago at the football World Cup in Germany, we initiated a wide-ranging debate here in Parliament and launched a campaign to ensure that the huge wave of forced prostitution the experts initially feared and the corresponding negative spin-offs were able to be prevented thanks to the support of the fans through the opinioned public. However, the subject then disappeared from sight again.
   In principle it is a positive sign that this topic has been on the agenda for around 10 years, but the focus lies too one-sidedly on border controls; prevention and victim protection are unfortunately neglected too much. Nor is any all-clear being given. More and more people – girls and women – are becoming victims of sexual exploitation although, as Mrs Gröner has already mentioned, there was no sign of the feared increase at the 2006 World Cup. We do know, however, that the estimated number of unreported cases is high. There are too few crackdowns against human traffickers and too few proceedings against unscrupulous criminals. The European Commission has also confirmed this in response to a question I raised in Parliament.
   excellently during the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Around 1 000 local and regional action groups and associations were involved in this prevention campaign, and that had a clear deterrent effect upon traffickers in human beings and other criminal networks. The result – and the Commissioner has already referred to this – was that forced prostitution during the 2006 World Cup in Germany was limited to just a few tens of cases, and these were generally not directly related to the World Cup.
   We are dealing today with trafficking in women and forced prostitution following the campaign we conducted at the 2006 World Cup in Germany. There was also a report here in Parliament, which I was able to draw up, which dealt with forced prostitution and in which we requested various measures from the Commission. The response was the action plan. The question on implementation has already been asked repeatedly today and I should like to emphasise that it concerns residence permits for victims and training offensives at police training colleges, institutes for social studies and the like. It also concerns education in the countries of origin and educational and training opportunities for women locally as well as for young men. They, too, are increasingly affected.
   Obviously 18 October is EU Anti-Trafficking Day, which we were able to hold for the first time last year. In other respects I still cannot see much sign of the campaign. Regard for this subject has also declined since the Red Card campaign and the World Cup. We therefore want to give it another boost. This is not about the ban on prostitution or discrimination against sex workers. On the contrary! It is about raising awareness and also seeking here to reject stigmatisation and building up a social network in order to protect sex workers in their trade as well.
     Emine Bozkurt (PSE ). – (NL) Madam President, during the 2006 World Cup, attention was also drawn to a helpline for victims of trafficking in women and forced prostitution. In Turkey, for example, a helpline has already been active for some years now, which women can call to report cases of trafficking in women. Back in 2006, the European Parliament called for such a helpline to be set up that could speak to victims of human trafficking in several languages and offer assistance. Even now, two years later, such a helpline has not been set up.
     László Kovács, Member of the Commission . − Madam President, as many speakers have said – and as I also mentioned – similar initiatives and proposals were tabled and actions were adopted by Parliament and the Commission before the 2006 World Cup organised in Germany. Fortunately, the concerns and fears of the German authorities and the European institutions did not materialise.
     Katalin Lévai (PSE ), in writing. – (HU) The Union is responsible for preventing by all possible means the sexual exploitation and people trafficking that emerge at sporting events organised on its territory. The 2008 European football championship is a sporting event that brings together a significant number of people, during which there is a temporary rise in demand for sexual services. It is therefore of fundamental importance that we protect ourselves using temporary campaigns such as those initiated by Mrs Záborská during the 2006 football World Cup, which also deserve to be continued this time. However, in order for the initiative to reach as many people as possible, I feel that there needs to be more widespread publicity in the media (including on the official website for the European Championship), with the participation of politicians, sports directors, sportsmen and supporters (modelled on the ‘Youth Voices Against Racism’ programme).