WUNRN
The 2012
UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 2012,
will be the 14th European Championship for national football
teams organised by UEFA.
The final tournament will be hosted by Ukraine and Poland between 8 June and 1
July 2012.
____________________________________________________________
UKRAINE - HIGH RISKS, EXPECTATIONS
FOR SEX INDUSTRY AT EURO 2012
A mannequin sits in the window
of a sex shop in the pedestrian underpass at Kyiv's
April 19, 2012 - Oksana Grytsenko
Camilla is preparing for Euro 2012 by slimming down and
buying bright summer clothes.
She hopes that the influx of thousands of foreign fans for the tournament will
help her earn enough money to raise her kid, pay for her studies and repair her
flat – by working as a prostitute.
“I want to make money for a car. It’s difficult without car in Kyiv,” Camilla,
24, told the Kyiv Post, giving her working name.
Many are expecting a boom in the sex industry, when thousands of alcohol- and
testosterone-fueled fans hit the country in June.
Camilla has worked in the sex industry for the last three years and said one
hour with her costs Hr 300 (about 30 euros). She started as a street walker,
but then switched to working at a hotel in the suburbs of Kyiv, which is
considered less risky.
Hotels are expected to be the main spot for seekers of sex services during Euro
2012, as there is a greater chance of being caught by the police on the
streets, said Olena Zuckerman, head of Legalife, a sex workers support
organization. “It will also be bars, saunas and other places of entertainment.”
Camilla said she would increase her prices ahead of the tournament in order to
maximize her profits.
Prices are also being driven up, sex workers say, by a tripling in the bribe
demanded by police for “permission to work.”
Experts say this could scare off potential clients.
“Of course I’d like clients – the fans – to be generous,” Camilla said. “But I
know how prices will rise in
The cost of prostitutes varies widely.
While the cheapest streetwalkers ask for no more than Hr 200 per hour, the
prices rise for those who offer services in saunas or flats, which act as
brothels. Higher still are prostitutes working in hotels, who demand hundreds
of dollars for their work. The most expensive are those who provide so-called
“escort” services. They earn thousands of hryvnias or even dollars and often
refuse to recognize they are prostitutes.
Knowledge of English can double the price of services.
“Not only appearance but also knowledge of foreign languages, general cultural
level, physiological skills and dancing play role in escort,” Zuckerman said.
“Those women are modern geishas.”
Nevertheless, Zuckerman said talk of increased demand for prostitutes may be
exaggerated.
“After sitting in the stadiums, drinking beer at pubs or blowing into horns on
the street, few people will have strength to remember about sex,” Zuckerman
said.
Those fans who do consider it may also be put off by the several risks they may
face.
Prostitution is classified as a misdemeanor, which can be punished by a fine of
around Hr 200 for the sex worker. Pimps can face up to five years in prison, or
double that if they work with underage girls.
Volodymyr Polishchuk, a spokesman for the Interior
Ministry, said the police were planning to “activate counter-work against
trading in prostitution and will inspect the ‘nests of vice’” during Euro 2012.
Those police raids can’t harm the clients as there is no punishment for them
under Ukrainian laws, unless the prostitute is under age 18 – as around 20
percent of them are.
Sociologist Olha Balakireva estimates the number of prostitutes in
Balakireva, who has researched the sex business as a social phenomenon, said
women from students to middle-aged ladies work as prostitutes. She said
psychological and physical vulnerability is common for them, as half of them
have experienced sexual assault in childhood or adolescence and the same number
are the bread winners for their families.
About 30 percent of sex workers are addicted to drugs, she said, leading to
another risk for fans planning to use their services – infection with HIV.
The possible spread of this virus during Euro 2012 was noted by experts working
for tournament organizer UEFA in a December 2010 report.
While in Kharkiv and Lviv the number of HIV-positive sex workers is minimal, in
Kyiv and
Sex workers may keep quiet about having the disease, although insist that the
client wears a condom.
“If you warn a client he may even kill you,” Camilla said, adding that she has
a friend who is HIV positive and always uses condoms.
“Clients are safe until they start demanding risky sex,” Zuckerman said. “They
[clients] need to realize that they are responsible for their health just like
the girls.”