Euro 2008 hosts accused of censoring prostitution campaign
Euro 2008 hosts accused of censoring prostitution campaign:
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BERNE, Switzerland (Reuters) - Organisers of a campaign to educate Euro 2008 fans about the horrors of human trafficking have accused two of the tournament's host cities of censoring their project.
The campaigners, who have received financial backing from the Swiss government, announced on Friday that their 60-second film would be shown after 11 p.m. only in Basel's public viewing areas and not at all in Geneva.
The deliberately provocative campaign depicts battered women being forced into a dingy auction pit and sold into the sex trade.
"Showing the film after 11 o'clock is the same as censoring it and demonstrates that Basel is not ready to broach the issue of trafficking in women," campaign co-president Ruth Gaby-Vermot said in a statement.
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The last matches at Euro 2008 are due to begin at 2045, meaning that most supporters will have left the fan zones by the time the campaign is aired.
The campaigners said that Switzerland's other host cities Berne and Zurich would show the film as promised.
"The chance to inform many spectators about this terrible violation of human rights seems to be more important to Berne and Zurich than possible concerns that the ad might not fit in with their image," the statement added.
The campaigners said that European football's governing body UEFA had also agreed to show the film to fans in the match stadiums. It will also be aired on Swiss television.
Geneva's Euro 2008 organising committee spokesman Laurent Forestier confirmed that the film would not be shown in the city's fan zones.
"We are not opposed to the campaign, and we have even supported it financially but we do not think it belongs in the fan zone, simply because we do not see any link to football," Forestier said.
Basel's Euro 2008 organisers said the graphic nature of the film had led them to impose the 11 p.m. watershed.
"We took the decision because it is a fairly hard-hitting film and we did not think it was something that should necessarily be seen by children," Basel spokesman Jakob Gubler said.
"It has nothing to do with censorship. We cannot affect the times that the matches finish but we think there will still be a lot of supporters staying in the fan zones even when the games are over."
The human trafficking campaigners told Reuters this week that they were not anticipating a rise in prostitution as a direct result of the football tournament.
Instead they want to use the event to target men from across Europe who might have contact with victims of forced prostitution once they return to their home countries.
The campaigners said it was hard to calculate how many women were forced into prostitution in Switzerland itself since many were reluctant to testify against their abusers while others were swiftly deported without having the chance to tell their story.
Gaby-Vermot said rough estimates had suggested there were up to 3,000 women in Switzerland who had been sold against their will into prostitution.
(Editing by John Mehaffey)
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