London 2012 Olympics: vice girls hope to strike gold - Telegraph

By Jacquelin Magnay, Olympics Editor
Published: 8:00AM GMT 27 Mar 2010

Vision of the future: an artist's impression of the completed London 2012 stadium Photo: GETTY IMAGES

The number of prostitutes working near the main Olympic site in Stratford, east London, has reportedly doubled already since work began on the stadium, with an accompanying rise in cases of sexually transmitted diseases.


Tessa Jowell, the Olympics minister, has held meetings with officials from the Vancouver Winter Olympics, where the number of sex workers increased fivefold to around 1,000 during the Games, and is working with police on preventing a similar influx here.

“Trafficking women for prostitution is a vile trade and we need to treat very seriously any suggestion the Olympics might encourage it,” she said.

“The evidence from previous Games is mixed and we mustn’t create a problem where there isn’t one. While the scale of the risk is debatable, the nature of it isn’t. Even one woman trafficked because of the Olympics is one too many. That’s why we are acting now with the ambition that we can be the first ever Games without the scar of the prospect of trafficking and exploitation of women.”

Police and council staff in the five London boroughs surrounding the main Olympic site, where 10,000 construction workers are based, have reported a sharp rise in the number of prostitutes on the streets, from around 125 to more than 250.

The experience of previous Olympics and other international sporting events is that the level of prostitution more than doubles during the Games, but human trafficking data has been mixed.

Figures from the time of the 2004 Athens Olympics show an increase of 95 per cent in prostitution, with the number of trafficked women increasing from 93 to 181.

After the Games the figures in relation to both prostitutes and trafficking remained higher than before.


London 2012 Olympics: vice girls hope to strike gold - Telegraph