The “Report on the repercussions of the sex industry in Europe” is due to be submitted to the vote of the Commission of women’s rights and equal opportunities of the European Parliament in mid-February. The final vote on the report is scheduled to take place in Strasbourg in March. The overriding concern is to adopt at the European level a common legislation that would put an end to wide legislative and interpretative divergences encountered in the various EU countries. The Report defines the sex industry as “a business that, legally or illegally, places sexual services and/or products on the market, exploiting the human body, especially that of women and children, for lucre”. The Report aims to “criminalize” the customers of such services, considering prostitution on a par with sexual violence and an expression of the inequality between men and women (in spite of the exponential growth of male prostitution). The aim, therefore, is to “curb the demand and stigmatise the exploitation”. The document also devotes ample attention to the campaign against pornography on the Internet. For further information, www.europarl.eu.int/meetdocs/committees/femm/
