''You may wonder why an anti-racism through sport organisation like SARI endorses the ''Turn off the Red Light Campaign'' but if you examine the junction between racism, sexism and exploitation it will be clear that the struggle for equality and human rights in society using the powerful medium of sport is a key to shifting the issues of prostitution and trafficking across a wider popular front in Irish civil society.

Since we engaged with our colleagues in Football against Racism Europe in the anti-trafficking campaign leading up to the 2006 football World Cup in Germany where young men and women were imported like commodities from Eastern Europe we have been raising cases of exploitation.  In our input to the EU White Paper on Sport, we emphasised the importance of including Human exploitation in all its forms like child labour in the manufacture of sports goods, the trafficking and discarding of young footballers from the African Continent and the connection between major sports events and the procurement of women for the ''so called'' sex trade.

While we were successful in transposing these issues in EU policy of sport, we have much work to do in order to make sure that the Olympic family is vigilant around the 2012 Olympic Games in London and beyond. We will be calling for direct action if athletes violate the rights of other Humans by using ''Human Respect'' contracts similar to those issued by FC Barcelona. Further we will be lobbying for severe sanctions to prosecute transgressors following the example set by the FA of Mexico who suspended eight players for six months with a collective fine of $32,000 in the lead up to the  recent Copa America for breaking an exploitation rule. At home we will be promoting the campaign across all sporting codes from Archery to Wrestling.

Our partners in Insaka AFC (the football team of the Youth of the African Diaspora) will wear shirt badges promoting the campaign in the forthcoming SARI Soccerfest this September and into their league and cup campaigns.

Sports stars are icons for youngsters and they must be a force against exploitation in all its forms. We will kick-off the campaign by requesting that the FAI and IABA join the IRFU in declaring that they will not use degrading images of women in their promotional material''.
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