Prostitution in the Czech Republic
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Ever since the Czechoslovakian Velvet Revolution (1989) led to the creation of the two independent states Czech Republic and Slovakia, [color="Navy"]prostitution has been on the rise. It is widespread in Prague and areas near the Republic's western borders with Germany and Austria. In 2002, the Czech Statistical Bureau estimated the trade to be worth six billion crowns ($217 million) a year.[1] Current estimates indicate there are 10,000 to 25,000 prostitutes in the country

Current situation
[color="navy"]According to the Czech Ministry of the Interior, there are over 860 brothels in the Czech Republic, of which 200 are in Prague. Most of the country's prostitution centers in the Northern Bohemia and Western Bohemia regions and in the capital city. Brothels line the country's roads to Austria and Germany, the source of many customers. Weekend trips to Prague for some tourists also include visits to erotic clubs.[color="navy"] There are almost 200 websites for prostitution services in the Czech Republic, up from 45 in 1997, which enable sex tourists to book their travel and appointments to buy sex acts before they leave home. [color="navy"]Prague has the world's first online brothel, Big Sister, where customers get free sex with the sex acts being broadcast on the internet.An analysis of hospitalization records reveals that syphilis rates have steadily risen from 1.6 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in 1990 to 13.7 per 100,000 in 2001, an eight-fold increase.[2]

[edit] Child prostitution
Katrin Schauer, the head of a German charity that has been working with prostitutes in the Czech border town of Cheb for nearly eight years, [color="navy"]claims she has seen babies being handed into German cars apparently for customers. She says most children offering sex are young teenagers, but far younger children have been seen standing by the side of the street, accompanied by adults who signal to passing German cars.

In the past, signals would be displayed in houses where children were being offered, such as a child's shoe in the window of an apartment. [color="navy"]With the recent increase in prostitution, established customers seem to know exactly where to go.

A reporter for the BBC Radio 4 programme Today posed as a German tourist in Cheb. Without even having to approach one of the multitude of brothels in town, he was approached on the street by a man with a teenaged girl by his side. He was also offered girls of nine and eleven for 180 euros. [3]

In 2000, the Czech government drew up a plan calling for child prostitution to be addressed in sex education classes in schools. The plan follows criticism by Germany, [color="navy"]which has accused the Czechs of not doing enough to co-operate in the fight against sex tourism. The plan also aims to provide stricter sentences for paedophilia and for possession of child pornography.

German border officials hand out leaflets to motorists crossing the border into the Czech Republic warning of strict penalties for the use of child prostitutes. The leaflets, which feature the face of a crying child covered by a shadow, were a response to the growing trade in child prostitutes around the border regions.

[color="navy"]Germany's Interior Minister Otto Schily said paedophiles were travelling to the area by the coachload, and that the Czech authorities were not doing enough to combat the problem. He called for a series of police raids, but Czech legislation is weak on this point, dealing only with the trade in female prostitutes.[4]

[color="navy"]The legal age of consent in the Czech Repulbic is 15, prostitution is allowed from the age of 18.

[edit] Human trafficking
This article incorporates text from http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2005/, a public domain work of the United States Government. [5]

[color="navy"]The Czech Republic is a source, transit, and destination country for women and children trafficked from Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, China, and Vietnam into and through the Czech Republic mainly for the purpose of sexual exploitation. [color="navy"]Czech victims and those transiting the country are trafficked to Western Europe and the United States, sometimes via third countries. Internal trafficking occurs from low employment areas to Prague and regions bordering Germany and Austria. Ethnic Roma women are at the highest risk for internal trafficking, and almost always are trafficked by a relative or someone known to them previously.

The Government of the Czech Republic fully complies with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. In 2004, the Czech Government strengthened its anti-trafficking legislation and turned its pilot victim assistance program into a nationwide government-funded program. While enforcement statistics improved during the reporting period, sentences imposed on traffickers remained low.

[edit] Prosecution
The Czech police increased its capacity to investigate and convict traffickers over the reporting period, although the overall numbers of cases prosecuted pursuant to anti-trafficking legislation remained low and sentences imposed remained weak. Amendments to the Czech Penal Code went into effect in November 2004 making all forms of trafficking illegal, including labor exploitation and internal traffick-ing. Maximum trafficking penalties were increased from 12 to 15 years, with a minimum penalty of two years. In 2004, Czech authorities investigated 30 individuals and prosecuted 19 under the trafficking statutes. The courts convicted 12 traffickers under those statutes, an increase from five in 2003. Of the 12 convicted, three received unconditional prison sentences of three to five years, and nine received conditional or suspended sentences. Police training curricula included segments on trafficking, and a new internal website for police provided trafficking awareness information. While no government officials were indicted or convicted for complicity in trafficking, allegations continued about the involvement of individual border police officers facilitating illegal border crossings. Czech law enforcement conducted joint anti-trafficking investigations with Germany, Slovakia, Austria, Poland, and Ukraine in 2004.

[edit] Protection
The Czech Government continued to improve trafficking protection and assistance over the last year. In November 2004, the Model of Support and Protection of Victims of Trafficking in Persons was expanded to a permanent, government-funded program that is open to all foreign and Czech victims. This program involves close cooperation between the government and NGOs, and allows the victims a 30day reflection period to receive assistance and consider whether to assist in prosecuting their traffickers. From January 2004 to January 2005, 14 trafficking victims — including one forced labor victim — took part in the program. Many victims chose to apply for asylum, which allows them legal status in the Czech Republic until their cases are decided — a process involving months to years. The government houses victims and potential victims applying for asylum with other at-risk groups in guarded asylum centers to prevent unwanted contact with traffickers. The government funded several NGOs and international organizations for sheltering and care of victims; two of the Czech Republic’s principal organizations provided shelter to 68 trafficking victims in 2004.

[edit] Prevention
The Ministry of Interior is currently collaborating with IOM to produce a demand-reduction campaign targeting clients of commercial sex outlets along the Czech-German border area. A government-fund-ed NGO conducted awareness campaigns among potential trafficking victims at schools and asylum centers. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs continued to provide trafficking information to applicants for Czech visas from identified trafficking source countries. The Crime Prevention Department continued awareness programs at schools. In addition to the Czech National Action Plan on trafficking adopted in 2003, the government in July 2004 adopted a plan to combat commercial sexual abuse of children.

[edit] Legalization efforts
Prostitutes in the Czech Republic work in a legal gray area, neither explicitly legal nor illegal, which makes it tough for the state to control disease, the sex-slave trade and underage prostitution.

In 2005, the Czech government approved a law to license prostitutes and confine the trade to certain areas as part of an effort to curb prostitution and reduce organised crime.[6][7]

"The assumption is that it is unrealistic to effectively ban prostitution," the ministry proposal said. "It is only possible ... to set rules so the public does not perceive prostitution as a serious public order problem or health risk."[8]

The plan called for prostitutes to buy licenses, undergo monthly health checks, pay taxes and have health insurance. Licenses would only issued to Czechs and other European Union nationals who are over 18 and have no criminal record., and would have to be renewed annually. It would be illegal to operate without a license, and those who refused to register would be prosecuted and face fines. Soliciting sex would also banned near schools, playgrounds, churches and cemeteries.

The law currently awaits approval by parliament, although no timeframe had been set. The general opinion is that while prostitution should be legal and sex workers registered, politicians seem unwilling to take a stand and many doubt that workers would register in the first place. [9] UK police superintendent John Mottram, working as an advisor to the Czech government on organised crime, said that the interior ministry in Prague does not see prostitution as a priority. "Unfortunately, they are not devoting the kind of attention to it which I think they should."[10]

[edit] Criticism
Opposition to the Czech government's plan to legalize prostitution came from a group of international human-rights activists representing diverse political and philosophical positions. 110 signatories for organizations representing millions of members sent a letter to Czech President Václav Klaus and other government officials, urging them to reconsider.

We are writing to express our profound concern over the prospect that the Czech Republic may be planning to legalize prostitution ... We believe that such action would be a terrible mistake for the country as a whole and, in particular, for the women and children of the Eastern Europe region who will be victims of the Czech Republic sex trade ... We are certain that legalizing prostitution within the Czech Republic will not curb abuses such as child prostitution and enslaving sex trafficking. Organized crime controls the "industry" and, in a legalized regime, it will have an enhanced capacity to do so ... Brothels are sexual gulags for women and girls ... A decision to accommodate traffickers, pimps, and organized crime's slave trade in girls and women [is] an act unworthy of Czechs' traditions of fighting for their own freedom. It is an act we will resist with every democratic means available to us, and will fight in Congress and our legislatures, through our organized women's movements and from tens of thousands of church and synagogue pulpits. At a minimum, we are determined that our efforts will in financial terms alone, be more costly to the Republic — and not in terms of tourism alone — than any hypothetical financial gains claimed. We close by urging you to reject the calls for legalization that sully the reputation of the Czech Republic and dishonor its history. Please take a leadership role in resisting the trade in women and children and please, in a manner consistent with your traditions, maintain the Republic as a model for human rights and democracy.[11

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_the_Czech_Republic
SEX SLAVES FOR SALE AT £3,000 EACH
We expose evil trade in kidnapped girls
By Graham Johnson Investigations Editor And Dominic Hipkins
TEENAGE girls are being kidnapped and smuggled into Britain to be sold as sex slaves for £3,000 each.

The terrified youngsters are held prisoner in brothels where they are forced into prostitution by their masters.

Sunday Mirror investigators were offered the chance to buy 100 of the girls - three of them aged just 15.

The sordid trade centres on the historic Czech capital of Prague - [color="navy"]a thriving destination for Brit tourists on sex holidays.

[color="navy"]It is rapidly becoming the sex tourist capital of Europe, fuelled by the increase in cheap direct flights.

Our investigation follows the sentencing this week of the Albanian Mr Big behind the Eastern European sex trafficking trade in the UK.

Illegal immigrant Luan Plakici, 26, was jailed for 10 years at Wood Green Crown Court in London for smuggling up to 60 women into Britain and forcing them into prostitution.

Evil Plakici beat his victims, allowed them to be raped and even caged his 16-year-old wife in a brothel.

But we can reveal that rival gangs are already vying to fill the vacuum left by Plakici's capture.

Our investigators infiltrated a Russian Mafia gang that offered to supply 100 girls - kidnapped from the former Soviet Union - to massage parlours in Britain every month.

A Russian godfather called Ima told our undercover reporters: "We can send girls to Britain. You like Russian girls? We send each one for six months and you pay 5,000 euros (£3,000) each."

Like Plakici, the Russian mafia uses Prague as a staging post on the smuggling route between East and West.

Our investigators were shown around one of their brothels in Prague and a safe house where girls are held against their will before being sent to brothels in Europe.

The Russians told us that any of the miserable-looking girls we were shown were available to be smuggled into Britain for the right price.

In the first brothel - a dimly lit loft conversion called Dessert in the tourist quarter - there were 12 semi-naked girls sitting on wooden chairs.

The guide told us that three of the prostitutes were just 15.

The safehouse - a three-storey villa on the outskirts of Prague - was prison to a further 20 prostitutes.

Our investigators were taken there in a blacked-out Russian mafia Mercedes driven by an armed bodyguard.

After running a background check on our men, a mafia boss called Andrei agreed to talk to us.

He said: "They (the girls) can't escape. If they cause problems, we will hurt their families in Russia.

"Russian girls are the most obedient. We can smuggle people into the EU as dancers or waitresses. That's how we get work permits."

Another boss called Yusef added: "These girls have been in Prague for six months and I don't have problem. I have 50 girls in Prague now. We control the business here."

Yusef, who wore expensive designer clothes and a ski hat with a Union Jack, flashed a wad of 14,000 euros (£9,500).

Smiling he said: "That's the money I make in one night in Prague. But I have escort businesses in Germany and Israel.

"London is what we want - there's a lot of money there." In a sinister reference to the Albanian mafia who control up to 70 per cent of the vice trade in London's Soho, Yusef grinned: "The Albanians? They are not a problem.

"[color="navy"]We remember the Albanians who have done business here. We control Prague now.

"Each girl is 5,000 euros. Once you have paid, she is yours for as long as you want.

"After six months, if you want to get new ones, you'll have to pay 5,000 euros again."

In the safehouse, Yusef violently grabbed a beautiful dark-haired girl and groped her breast. The frightened girl smiled uncomfortably. Yusef said: "See how they respect me. They will do anything I say. We can provide girls cheaper than anyone else."

[color="navy"]He then introduced us to three Russian girls - Viktoria, Palina and Daniela - who, they said, were their biggest earners and could be ours to own for the right price.

At a meeting at the five-star Intercontinental Hotel in Prague, Andrei explained the gang travelled freely to London, using Israeli passports.

[color="navy"]He claimed he was a Russian Jew who had got the passport legally. Andrei added: "I don't need a visa to go to London with an Israeli passport. I have another three passports from different countries."

Andrei boasted how the gang has very strong links with the Russian mafia in London.

He said: "[color="navy"]Nothing will stop us. We're not afraid of anyone."

The following day, the Russian mafia emailed our investigators details of their website containing explicit pictures of 15 prostitutes available for trafficking to the UK.

[color="navy"]The website listed details of their brothels in Prague, rates and a menu of sexual services. One hour of "usual sex, oral without a condom and a striptease" cost £30.
The United Nations recently [color="Navy"]named Prague as the hub of the sex slave industry in Europe, where prostitutes are held captive before being shipped into Western Europe.

http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/content_objectid=13763172_method=full_siteid=106694_headline=-SEX-SLAVES-FOR-SALE-AT--3-000-EACH-name_page.html

Prague become a porn and sex slave ,sex tourist capital in europe