Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People

People on the Move

N° 101, August 2006

Interview by Vatican Radio

with H. E. Archbishop Agostino Marchetto

on World Football Championship in Germany

In a few days, the football World Cup Championship in Germany will start. It is a sports event. However one shadow is covering it, the linkage to prostitution. The sex industry in Germany prepared for this event by setting up special brothels and offering publicity.

1) Excellency, what is your view on this?

Answering in football terms, I would like to hand out a few red cards. To the customers, to the industry and to the public Authorities. Why? Prostitution violates the dignity of the human person. It reduces the person to an object, an instrument of sexual pleasure. Women have become market commodities which can be bought. And they cost less than a ticket for a football match. Of course, I know that prostitution in certain zones in Germany is allowed. However, it is estimated that an additional forty thousand women will be in prostitution during the World Cup. Many of them are forced into this activity, they are doing it against their will, they are trafficked. This is a fundamental human rights violation.

Many organisations have been speaking out. I just recall the statement of the International Organisation for Migration, Amnesty International, but also religious associations, like most recently the European Conferences of Major Religious Superiors. In the political field the European Parliament and the Council of Europe expressed their concern. There exists, therefore, a responsibility for the German authorities. The ball is in their court. 

2) Are there specific activities which the Church would like to promote?

One year ago our Dicastery held a conference on prostitution linked also with the trafficking of persons. The final declaration states that the Church must take up the defence of the legitimate rights of these women by advocating their liberation and also supporting them economically, in education and in formation. Only in Italy there are more than 200 sisters involved in this pastoral care. Many religious congregations are already involved by assisting these women, seeking new ways to promote their dignity. In Germany, the Church Organisation Solwodi (Solidarity with women in distress - a coordinated approach of twenty religious congregations) is already active. They do this with outreach units, drop-in centres, shelters, safe houses, training and educational programmes. But more needs to be done. This new challenge should be integrated into pastoral strategies. It also requires education and awareness. Not only for those who are victims, but also for the so-called clients.

After all, the main step in “interpreting” the sex industry is to “interpret” the “customers”. Prostitution could not exist without “customers”. To address them, the deep motives of the young men, husbands and fathers need to be known. The education of boys and young men to give shape to a healthy human sexuality should be taken up. 

3) Is the Church the only one to intervene?

This is of course not only a responsibility for the Church. Society as such should be involved. 

As for human trafficking, a human rights approach requires that the victims are protected, that their well-being and interest should be put in the first place. They also should have the possibility for reintegration with a temporary or permanent residence permit and a possibility to have access to work, and schemes for compensation. These are elements which will contribute to the restoration of their dignity.

This brings us to law enforcement and the punishment of profiteers in the sex industry and traffickers. They should be prosecuted and severe financial penalties should be imposed on them. 

The Secretary of State Cardinal Sodano expressed, at the World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen in 1995, the following: “Protecting women and children against exploitation, trafficking and harmful and cruel practices and seeking societal and economic recognition of women’s unremunerated work are some of the initiatives proposed and strongly supported by the Holy See.”

Together we are standing for an enormous challenge. And, as Pope John Paul II stated, solidarity “is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say, to the good of all and of each individual because we are all really responsible for everyone else” (Encyclical Letter Sollicitudo rei socialis, n. 38, published on the 20^th anniversary of Populorum progressio). 

4) You have just returned from two Latin American continental meetings held in Bogotá, one on the pastoral care of migrants and the other on the pastoral care tourism. Is there a connection between what you experienced there and this interview?

Yes, definitely, because discussion also took place in Bogotá, Colombia, amongst other things, on how to prevent and remedy the shocking tragedy of people trafficking, which is increasing around the world, and on the pastoral care of the liberation of prostitutes and abused children, who have been swept away by the muddy tide of being forced into selling their own bodies. In Latin America, too, there are people who are corrupt and trade in sex, both in the field of tourism and with regard to migrants. A spurt of energy is needed everywhere, amongst public opinion and the conscience of humanity, to get over the crossbar, which is placed ever higher, of this new slavery of human trafficking.