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![]() Sunday, October 10, 1999 Published at 21:55 GMT 22:55 UK ![]() ![]() World: Europe ![]() First lady: End prostitution trade ![]() Hillary Clinton at the women's conference in Iceland ![]() America's First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, has closed her European tour with a clarion call for an end to the international trade in prostitution. Speaking to a conference of women activists in Reykjavik, Iceland, Mrs Clinton denounced a system that allows girls to be lured from home and "trafficked like drugs across state lines and sold into prostitution". "We are working to stop trafficking of women and girls in this region and around the world," she said.
Mrs Clinton was addressing around 400 women delegates from the United States, Russia, the Baltic states and the Nordic region at the end of a week-long European tour. The First Lady also praised the progress former communist states had made towards democracy over the past 10 years. But she recognised that this had brought its own ills and said former Eastern-bloc countries would need more help to face hardships stemming from the transition.
Although she is almost certain to stand for the United States Senate in next year's elections, the White House said her trip was not linked to domestic US politics. Mrs Clinton held up Iceland and the other Nordic states as models for women's equality. But she also acknowledged the pressures felt by women living in modern, developed democracies. Problems with democracy "Too many women are asking what good is democracy when we don't have affordable child care or health care. Too many workers are asking what good is a free market when we are the first to be fired and the last to be hired," she said. But she made clear her view that the US government believed the causes of women and democracy were inseparable. "Women's rights are human rights. The same rights which men have are rights which women must have, and deserve," she said. Mrs Clinton received a standing ovation at the end of her speech - a key moment in what has been Iceland's biggest international event since the 1986 summit between former US President Ronald Reagan and then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. ![]() |
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