Economic System
WOLFSBURG/LEIPZIG/BANGKOK (Own report) - Confessions made in the state controlled Volkswagen Corp. (VW) corruption scandal, expose similarities to the most recent political scandal in Saxony. At the Volkswagen Corp., criminal activities were linked to pleasure trips. To further production management of high-ranking company representatives and make the representatives of the employees more conciliatory to international expansion of the company, prostitutes were provided at company costs. The scheming in Wolfsburg, the seat of VW, was not only at the expense of the Czech subsidiary, Skoda and its staff, it was also linked to world-wide sexploitation structures, that have led numerous women in poverty stricken areas around the globe to secure their living through the low-paying sexual services to men from the western centers of prosperity. So-called pleasure trips, often also known as sex tourism, are sharply criticized by women's and human rights organizations, for the fact that during its course there is recurrence of sexual brutality and abuse of children. The functioning of this business and the interests behind it are demonstrated through revelations in Leipzig. Germany is among the most important point of departure for sex-tourism.
Bribed
Already in July 2005 the first information concerning the current corruption scandal at Volkswagen, in which the German federal state of Lower Saxony is a principal shareholder, began to reach the public. The trigger was the summary dismissal of the German human resources management at the Skoda works. The states attorney was investigating charges of breach of confidence and fraud brought against him. This member of the board was under suspicion of having filled his pockets from the Czech VW subsidiary, which he had siphoned off through bogus companies. Several members on the shop stewards committee had been bribed with benefits from the company coffers: cash, luxury trips and the services of prostitutes, free of charge.
Commissioning
Details have now been brought to light through the confessions of the former personnel officer at VW, Klaus-Joachim Gebauer. As Gebauer admitted last week, the so-called pleasure trips were "highlights" of the company's internal system of bribery. Members of the shop stewards committee (among them state and federal level parliamentarians of the social democratic SPD, as well as trade unionists) were given paid trips - inclusive sexual services - to Asia and Latin America. Gebauer reported that an SPD parliamentarian organized contacts within the red light district of Hanover. He also described that at venues abroad, "probings" were made. Conflicts arose at times because German shop stewards were demanding sexual services that were not or not sufficiently covered by the company funds.[1] Referring to the climate of systematic commission of sexual desires in the service of company expansion, a convicted accomplice summarized that an "atmosphere in which I lost my grip" reigned at Volkswagen.
Exploitation
This is where the VW corruption scandal shows structural similarities to the Saxonian political and judicial scandal. In Saxony it also appears as if visits to bordels promoted business proliferation. Lucrative real estate, derived from the social assets of the now defunct German Democratic Republic (GDR) was the focus of the lust. To acquire these assets at the lowest possible price, decision makers had to be bribed. Whereas at the VW Corp., the dubious and illegal practices in the production and management process were to be covered up, in the case of the Saxonian real estate, it was the illegal dispossession of public property. In both cases third parties were submitted to coercion, to fraudulently obtain asset advantages. Foreign prostitutes and children were the victims. The Saxonian state "Verfassungsschutz" ("Defense of the Constitution," the domestic secret police) says it has learned that women from the Czech Republic were brought to Leipzig, to provide services for the upper echelon political personnel of city hall. The lord mayor of Leipzig, at the time, was Wolfgang Tiefensee (SPD), who is today in Chancellor Merkel's cabinet.[2] Tiefensee denies having been party to the coerced sexual events. Just as in Leipzig, also in Wolfsburg's Volkswagen Corporation, foreign women - from Asia and Latin America - were exploited.
Infrastructure
Wars, another form of illegal appropriation, accounts for the fact that several Asian coastal nations have become part of the eldorado of the system of bribery and exploitation. The mass prostitution in Asia, that Volkswagen relies upon, began during the war against Vietnam. At the time, the Pentagon sent its soldiers to Thailand on furlough from the frontline for "R and R" (Rest and Relaxation). Soon "the level of prostitution rapidly rose to new heights" reports the NGO, Terre des Hommes. "A growing number of particularly young girls were lured from their villages to Bangkok, with the promise of a good education or a job, where, because of their debts, and with threats and violence, they were forced into prostitution."[3] Already by 1974 the Thai police estimated at 400,000, the number of women and girls offering their sexual services to US soldiers in bordels of the capital. According to Terre des Hommes "after the US troops left, western tourists took over the 'sexual infrastructure' of the country" - sex tourists of every kind, in high social positions, entire management groups of international firms.
Prosperity Gap
They benefit from the prosperity gap between the Southeast Asian, the Latin American and African poverty stricken regions and the western centers of prosperity. Dr. Franck Michel, a tourism researcher, reported: "a Kampuchean waitress, I met 3 months ago, works 14 hours per day and earns 15 Euros per month. Her friends, selling themselves to tourists, earn more than that in 2 hours."[4] The prospective salaries - which for the incoming sex tourists is a give-away price - is attracting not only numerous women but also numerous slave traders, who expose children from rural areas and urban slums to sexual abuse. In Thailand alone "realistic estimates part from 100,000 - 150,000 children" that have to submit to western men.[5]
Fear and Devotion
Germany is among the most important countries from whence sex tourism comes. According to "Das Parlament", the unofficial journal of the German parliament "experts estimate (...) that alone 50,000 German men per year sexually abuse minors" [6] Many of the victims are between 7 and 11 years old. Even though the sexual abuse of children - even outside the borders of Germany - is punishable by law, the perpetrators are but seldom prosecuted. It is more than questionable, whether this will be the case with the coerced events that have come to light in Leipzig, where "fresh meat" [7] from the Czech Republic was on the menu. Even though the names of several German politicians, appearing in the Saxonian Verfassungsschutz report, are known, their identities have been kept secret by the German media - out of fear, but also out of devotion to an economic system that has transformed sexual exploitation into a variation of state and private power.
[1] Selbstoperation ohne Blutvergießen; Handelsblatt 15.06.2007
[2] Auf Fallhöhe; Berliner Zeitung 15.06.2007
[3] Kommerzielle sexuelle Ausbeutung von Kindern im Tourismus; www.child-hood.com/index.php?id=449
[4] "Westliche Männer und Frauen suchen Macht"; Kulturaustausch online 2/2007
[5] Kommerzielle sexuelle Ausbeutung von Kindern im Tourismus; www.child-hood.com/index.php?id=449
[6] Jeannette Goddar: Die Ausbeuter; Das Parlament 11.06.2007
[7] see also The Profiteers and Godfathers, Kein Bedarf and Frauenhandel in Sachsen
