25th May, 2012
Topless activists have issued a warning to target English footie fans attracted by Ukraine’s sex industry during Euro 2012.
Inna Shevchenko, 21, and her radical feminist comrades in women’s rights group Femen claim lusty lads heading over for the tournament could make “a bordello out of Ukraine.”
They have vowed to head them off by attacking every match.
“English fans need to know that if they try to mess with Ukrainian women then we will try to mess with them,” the Sun quoted Shevchenko as saying.
“The sex industry exploits women who are so poor and often uneducated.
“That is why we are going to try to attack every match,” she said.
The daring group, which has around 300 members, plans demos at England’s clashes with Sweden in capital Kiev on June 15 and Ukraine in Donetsk on June 19 as well as other fixtures.
In another stunt this week, a topless pair posed half naked with the Euro 2012 trophy in a surprise protest in Kiev. Femen pulled a similar stunt earlier in the month.
“We know what men are like – they want a beer, to watch football and then their mind turns to sex,” fellow protester Oleksandra Shevchenko said.
“We want to make sure they get the message Ukrainian women are not their sex objects and Ukraine not their brothel,” she added.
The former Soviet state has seen an explosion in sex tourism in recent years.
Seven new lap dance clubs have opened in Kiev ahead of the tournament.
Around a third of Ukrainian prostitutes are drug addicts and 30 per cent of Kiev’s hookers are thought to be HIV positive.