Strasbourg, 08.09.2006 - At a hearing held in Paris on 13 September, Council of Europe parliamentarians and experts discussed a comparative study on the legal situation of prostitutes in the organisation’s 46 member states. Legal in some countries, illegal and outlawed in most of them, prostitution divides Europeans.
According to a motion for a resolution of members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the differing attitudes negatively impact on cooperation in the fight against forced prostitution, the one and only form of prostitution unanimously condemned in Europe.
According to the Chairperson of the PACE Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, Minodora Cliveti (SOC) from Romania, who organised the hearing, there is also an unacceptable tendency to discriminate against women in this field. “Prostitutes – most of whom are women – are usually faced with stricter penalties than the clients in those countries which criminalise prostitution,” she said.
The hearing also dealt with public health issues such as HIV/AIDS prevention and drug use.
Programme
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