It looks like Markian Lubkivsky, Ukraine's Euro 2012 director, was right when he said that visiting fans “will have no time for sex.”
Kyiv prostitutes
and experts of nongovernmental organizations say they haven’t seen any increase
in demand for sex services since Euro 2012 kicked off.
“After the
championship started I spoke to girls in Kyiv and other host cities, and none
of them said about crowds of clients,” said Olena Zuckerman, head of Legalife,
a sex workers protection group. “So, people, who invested in the sex business
[for Euro 2012] will be disappointed.”
Some had
predicted that prostitution would boom during Euro 2012, as Ukraine has been
flooded by tens of thousands of foreign fans.
But Zuckerman
said the same thing happened in other countries that hosted football events, for
example in South Africa at the World Cup in 2010.
A
23-year-old prostitute who goes by the name Milena said she expects no spike in
earnings from the tournament. Another prostitute, who is 44-year-old and spoke
on condition of anonymity, said she hadn’t had any foreign clients and that
this was a “dead season.”
The girls
say some sex workers paid to appear on special lists compiled by taxi drivers
and owners of apartments that are rented out for the tournament. Many also took
jobs at Kyiv’s numerous strip bars.
Meanwhile,
Milena, who has an additional official job, says she has two or three clients per
week, as usual. “I don’t expect any crowds of sex tourists,” she said.
Despite all
the expectations there was no growth in either demand or supply of sex services, said Yevhenia
Kuvshynova, coordinator of the Convictus-Ukraine charity project, which supports
people affected by HIV/AIDS.
“Men have
no interest in anything apart from beer and football during Euro 2012,” she
added.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Grytsenko can be reached at
