toolbar builder Bazo's Jist: Topless Feminists Protest Sex Tourism in Kiev.

Tuesday 4 October 2011

Topless Feminists Protest Sex Tourism in Kiev.


Police arrested four women for staging a topless protest outside a stadium in Kiev, during a visit by UEFA chief Michel Platini.

The demonstration, titled "Euro without Prostitution", was held as Ukraine alongside Poland get ready for the 2012 European Football Championship.

While UEFA chief Platini carried out a two-day inspection of Kiev's Olympic Stadium, a group of topless feminists outside the structure, one of the venues across Ukraine that will host the Euro 2012 European Football Championship, raised their voices in protest of sex tourism in Ukraine.

Chanting 'No to Prostitution' and 'Euro without Prostitution', the bare breasted activists from Ukraine's feminist group FEMEN. The group said it is high time foreigners realise "Ukraine is not a brothel."

"Femen demands that UEFA initiate an explanatory campaign for football fans about the impermissibility of sex tourism and funding the sex industry, and the Ukrainian authorities criminalise the visiting of prostitutes," the group said in a statement.

Topless protests have been organised on many occasions by Femen activists, most of whom are university students, to attract public attention to various domestic and international problems.

Prostitution in Ukraine is illegal but reports say the country remains one of the main suppliers of prostitutes to Western Europe. In 2005, Ukraine toughened penalties for human trafficking and forced prostitution.

Police arrived at the Olympiisky National Sports Complex and detained the activists, who are members of the Femen group; however, that didn't keep members of the group from speaking out.

"We are protesting against the mafia behind Euro 2012. We are against the men who want to come to support their team and want to have a Ukrainian woman cheap. When a foreigner comes to Ukraine they will say to him - 'Ukraine is a brothel. When you come to Ukraine, you can not only watch football, support your team and drink beer, but you also can have a Ukrainian girl for a hundred bucks and then go back home to your family," said Femen activist Diana.

Before being arrested by the police, the feminist declared "Ukraine is not a brothel!"

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