|
svenskspråkiga
webbsidor...
1st
UNI-Europa Commerce Conference
Speech sparks row on ILO’s
work on sex industry -
16.05.2003
Kary Tapiola, ILO
|
Margareta Winberg Deputy
Prime Minister
|
A sad story about a young Russian woman - lured to Sweden to start a new
life but who ended up being forced into prostitution and then killed herself
- led to an unusual conference row over the work of the International Labour
Organisation.
The poignant story of Dangoule was told by Sweden’s Deputy Prime Minister
Margareta Winberg during her address to delegates at the opening session of
UNI-Europa Commerce’s first conference.
Dangoule was vulnerable and used by people in their own interests.
"If we do not speak of those who are at the extreme bottom - how they
are treated and valued - not one single society can claim to be equal,"
she said, adding that each year half a million sisters are sold to Europe
from Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe for prostitution.
Men she said accepted it as norm al to buy women, but it is not normal and a
society cannot be equal in those circumstances.
However she then attacked the ILO over a study on the economic and social
bases of prostitution in South East Asia in 1998.
"Can it really be that the ILO considers that the income from
prostitution ought to be included in the GNP as it is suggested in the
report about four countries (Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the
Philippines)? It is shocking that the ILO in this way supports the forces
that are endeavouring to normalise prostitution."
Scheduled to speak in the afternoon debate on labour rights ILO Executive
Director Kari Tapiola was forced to hastily re-write his speech and respond
to the Deputy Prime Minister.
He defended the ILO’s researches into the problem - which stems from their
work into child labour (many of those forced into prostitution are very
young) and forced labour.
:"There is a difference between understanding the extent of a problem
and the political acceptance of that problem," he told delegates.
"If we don’t know the extent of a problem we can’t deal with
it."
Their studies had shown that 10%-15% of the GDP of some Asian countries
comes from the sex sector - a figure that rose after the Asian financial
crisis.
"We are dealing with a problem that is a big economic problem."
He also told delegates that prostitution involving young people under the
age of 18 is expressly outlawed in the ILO’s Convention on tackling the
worst forms of child labour.
On European Union enlargement Ms Winberg said that it is important to
include the new member states from the very start.
"If not there is risk that the divide between us and them becomes
deeper and we create different classes of European citizens. If that happens
I am convinced that women will be the losers."
|
