The 2006 World Cup soccer tournament held in Germany during June and July focused world attention on Germany's flourishing and controversial sex trade. Human rights groups spread the word that 40,000 "temporary prostitutes" were being trafficked from Eastern Europe and Asia to Germany in order to supplement the estimated 400,000 regular prostitutes engaged in Germany's sex trade. In its 2006 Trafficking in Persons Report, the United States identified Germany as "a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purpose of sexual and labor exploitation." Prostitution has long been legal in Germany; however, the German Government decided 4 years ago that an effective strategy for combating sex trafficking was to make the sex industry less attractive to criminal elements by transforming legal prostitution into a government-recognized profession. Under the Prostitution Law that became active in January 2002, registered German prostitutes pay taxes and are eligible to get health and social benefits such as unemployment compensation and social security. The German police, both Federal and local, have enforced the law against trafficking by conducting repeated raids aimed at locating women and girls forced into prostitution, as well as traffickers. Much of the controversy associated with Germany's sex industry focuses on the immorality of prostitution. One prominent U.S. opponent of Germany's legalized prostitution is Christopher Smith, a congressman opposed to any kind of prostitution. Congressman Smith has warned the German Government that if it does not change its policy regarding prostitution, it could find itself classified among nations that are violating trafficking standards set by the United States. 15 notes