Nun Puts the 'Red Card' on Forced Prostitution at World Cup

May 3, 2006 — -- With the start of the World Cup soccer championship in Germany a little more than a month away, many people are gearing up to participate in the event one way or another.

On June 9, about 3 million visitors from all over the world are expected to converge on the 12 German cities hosting matches. The German sex industry is ready to meet the challenge of increased demand during the four-week tournament, and so are anti-sex industry activists concerned with human trafficking and forced prostitution.

Officials say there may be about 40,000 additional prostitutes in Germany, many of which are going to be smuggled into Germany by profiteers in time for the World Cup.

"Those women come mainly from Bulgaria, but also from other Eastern European countries, such as Romania, Ukraine and the former Yugoslavia," said Sister Lea Ackermann, a German Roman Catholic nun and the founder of SOLWODI -- SOLIDARITY with Women in Distress.

"Those countries where poor women, while looking for a job abroad, are often lured into prostitution by false promises," she said.

When Ackermann first founded SOLWODI in Kenya in 1985, it was simply an aid project for women living in the slums of Mombasa.

"Seeing the violence, exploitation and misery of these women, who were forced to work as prostitutes because they were poor, convinced me I had to help change their situation," she said.

"Upon my return to Germany in 1987, I realized that even in civilized Europe, migrant women and girls are being exploited and mistreated in very similar ways. I founded SOLWODI in Germany to support some of the weakest members of our society: women, foreign to our country and way of life, with no command of the language, little or no knowledge of their rights, completely dependent on their exploiters."

Ackermann said SOLWODI decided to focus on victims of prostitution as the World Cup games approached because sports events tended to increase demand in the sex trafficking industry.