Dog meat festival at Yulin, Guangxi

 

People of Yulin, Guangxi province, cherish summer solstice tradition but animal rights groups denounce event as inhumane

• Jonathan Kaiman in Beijing
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 18 June 2013 15.36 BST

Chinese volunteers rescue dogs destined for dog-meat restaurants. In China, dog meat is prized as a nutritious wintertime dish. Photograph: Quirky China News/Rex Features

Residents of a small city in southern China plan to hold an annual dog-meat festival on Friday amid intense criticism from animal rights groups, which have denounced the one-day event as unsafe and inhumane.

Residents of Yulin in Guangxi province consider the festival an ancient summer solstice tradition. Many cherish their city's dog-meat culture, which involves the mass consumption of dog-meat hotpot served with lychees and strong grain liquor.

Animal rights groups say 10,000 dogs are slaughtered during the festival each year, and that many are electrocuted, burned and skinned alive. Pictures posted online show flayed dogs, dogs hanging from meat hooks, and piles of dog corpses on the side of the road. In China dog meat is prized as a nutritious wintertime dish that doctors can prescribe to treat maladies such as impotence and poor circulation.

 Dog meat being prepared for sale in Yulin, Guangxi province. Photograph: Quirky China News/Rex Features

Activists have tried to block the event on numerous occasions through open letters and street protests. Some have implored the UK and US governments to interfere with the festival via online petitions. "Please help us stop the Yulin Festival of eating dogs in Guangxi province. It is bloody and disregards life," a petition on the US White House website was titled.

"They use knives to kill the dogs which are alive," it said, according to the South China Morning Post. "Then people would like to burn the dogs, which are conscious, so they can eat them." The petition was recently taken down because it failed to meet the 100,000 signature threshold required to elicit a response from the Obama administration.

 Chinese diners tuck into dog-meat hotpot in a restaurant in Yulin, Guangxi province. Photograph: Imaginechina/Rex Features

According to an open letter by the Hong Kong-based NGO Animals Asia, many of the dogs consumed during the festival are strays and abductees. Some are transported to the city on filthy, overcrowded trucks, significantly increasing the risk that they carry rabies and other contagious diseases. Yulin officials claim that the dogs are raised by local farmers.

"Stolen dogs without quarantine certificates are cruelly slaughtered and sold to restaurants at very low prices," Master Huici, assistant director of the Hebei Buddhism Charity Foundation, told the state-run Global Times newspaper.

Yulin officials did not pick up the phone on Tuesday afternoon, outside of working hours.

Last month Chinese border officials seized 213 bear paws – an expensive ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine – and arrested two Russian citizens for trying to smuggle them into the country in vehicle tyres.

Met Office says wait until 2023 for a hot summer

Britain's spell of awful summers is set to continue

Forecast that UK could be in middle of 10-20 year 'cycle' of wet summers delivered following gathering at Met Office

• 
• • Leo Hickman
  • The Guardian, Tuesday 18 June 2013 20.31 BST

Rain delays the start of the match between England and New Zealand on 16 June. Photograph: Andrew Yates/AFP/Getty Images

Don't worry, summer is on its way – but you might have to wait until 2023.

As the prospect of another gloomy Glastonbury and wet Wimbledon looms, leading climate scientists have warned that the UK could be set for a further five to 10 years of washout summers.

The grim conclusion was delivered after an unprecedented gathering of scientists and meteorologists at the Met Office in Exeter to debate the range of possible causes for Europe's "unusual seasonal weather" over recent years, a sequence that has lasted since 2007.

Many will have hoped for news of sunnier times ahead. But after experts brainstormed through the day they delivered the shock finding that the UK could be in the middle of a 10-20 year "cycle" of wet summers. The last six out of seven summers in the UK have seen below-average temperatures and sunshine, and above-average rainfall.

Stephen Belcher, head of the Met Office Hadley Centre and professor of meteorology at the University of Reading, stressed that the finding was not an official long-term forecast and does not automatically mean the UK will now have a further decade of wet summers. But, he said, the scientists' conclusion was that the chances of this occurring are now higher than they first thought.

"Predicting when this cycle will end is hard," said Belcher, who led the meeting of 25 scientists. "We have seen similar patterns before – in the 1950s and the 1880s – and we have hints that we are coming towards the end of this current cycle. However, it might continue for the next five to 10 years. There is a higher probability of wet summers continuing. But it's very early days in trying to understand why this is happening."

The scientists must now address what "dynamical drivers" are causing this cycle, Belcher said. The meeting debated a range of possible interconnected reasons for the unusual weather of recent years, including this year's cold spring and the freezing winter of 2010/11. The most likely cause for the wet summers, he said, was the Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation, or AMO, a natural pattern of long-term changes to ocean currents.

Other candidate causes that could be "loading the dice", as Belcher described it, include a shift in the jet stream, solar variability and fast-retreating Arctic sea ice. Aggravating all of these factors could be the influence of anthropogenic greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere.

Dr James Screen, who studies how melting sea ice impacts on the jet stream at the University of Exeter, said: "There has been a lot of talk about declining Arctic sea ice playing a role in our weather patterns, but really that's just one aspect of changes in the Arctic climate – which has seen rapid warming compared to other parts of the world. Those changes mean there is less of a difference in temperature between the Arctic and tropics, which could impact the position of the jet stream."

The scientists also debated how melting sea ice should be better incorporated into climate models, as well as how observational data – for example, deep-ocean temperatures – could be improved to help their understanding of the potential relationship between climate change and the recent run of inclement weather and record-breaking extremes.

Len Shaffrey, a climate modeller based at the University of Reading who is also currently investigating possible links between Arctic sea ice retreat and European weather, said: "There are some fascinating science questions emerging about the influences on our weather, for example, from natural variations in ocean temperature. There is also some evidence that the record low amounts of Arctic sea ice have influenced patterns of European and British weather, but this evidence is not yet conclusive either way."

The scientific debate about the role of the jet stream – the fast "river" of meandering, 10km-high air which greatly determines UK weather - is intensifying. This week researchers from the University of Sheffield published a study in the International Journal of Climatology showing how "unusual changes" to the jet stream caused the "exceptional" melting of the Greenland ice sheet during the summer of 2012. Scientists say they must now determine what is causing these "displacements", as they are known, in the jet stream.

Tourist bosses were trying to find silver linings. David Leslie, a spokesman for the tourism agency Visit Britain, said people did not come to the UK for the weather alone. "The weather here is as unpredictable as anywhere else," he added.

"The days of the UK being seen as a foggy, wet destination have passed. Hot, cold or mildly pleasant, the weather is not a deterrent for overseas visitors coming here to enjoy Britain's tourism offering, which remains the best in the world."

Will Corporate Social Responsibility remain another buzzword?

Madhavi Rajadhyaksha in Times of India

Volunteering, philanthropy and adopting causes are passé. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) seems to be the latest buzzword in the development sector, as was evident at the NGO India 2013 conference which brought together social sector professionals, corporate chiefs and social entrepreneurs in Mumbai, last week.

The buzz is not unfounded, given that an upcoming legislation, the Companies Bill, 2012 mandates CSR for companies above a certain threshold. The proposed legislation requires that companies with a net worth of Rs 500 crore or more, a turnover of Rs 1,000 or more or a net profit of five crores or more during a financial year must set up a CSR committee and come up with a CSR policy of their own. The bill which has been passed by the Lok Sabha and awaits the Rajya Sabha nod also mandates that companies spend at least two per cent of their average net profits made during the three preceding years towards CSR.

There is no denying the scope for corporate involvement in India’s social development. But there are many concerns about the government-mandated CSR that may be worth deliberating upon, even if we leave aside the core argument about whether making CSR compulsory for companies is justified or not.

There is concern in many quarters about how the practice of CSR is being conceived in the first place. Why is CSR something that is to be practised by a company after it reaches a certain level of profits rather than something every company incorporates in its practice? Why is it conceptualised as an external activity alone? Prerana Langa, CEO of YES Foundation validly pointed out that you can’t be doing CSR if you aren’t treating your employees’ right. Isn’t ethical procurement, equal opportunity employment, bridging pay gaps or environmental sustainability also part of the CSR agenda? Shouldn’t we be talking about how these practices too be measured, monitored and their impact assessed?

The bill leaves much flexibility as to activities that could be included in CSR. It cites some areas ranging from eradicating hunger and poverty, promotion of education, reducing child mortality and improving maternal health. It requires companies to “give preference to the local area and areas around where it operates” for spending its CSR budgets. Nisha Agrawal, CEO of Oxfam India voiced fear that this could make corporates veer only towards service delivery (usually popular health and education services) which were primarily the government’s responsibility.

There was a striking consensus among the experts gathered that there is a shortage of skilled workers to meet the needs of a sector that would be flush with funds, if the bill were to go through. Nikhil Pant, chief programme officer, National Foundation for CSR, ministry of corporate affairs assured that they were in the process of rolling out nine-month courses to train a cadre of CSR professionals. Praveen Agarwal, chief operating officer of Swades Foundation wondered if the government could encourage people to join the sector by offering some kind of tax incentives. It is worth questioning whether an able cadre would be ready, if the reporting was introduced from next year?

Whether CSR would help leverage true development in the country in the years to come, or merely become another audit book for companies to tick off, only time will tell.

Couples who have premarital sex to be considered ‘married,’ says Chennai High Court

The Hindu 18/06/13

If any unmarried couple of the right legal age “indulge in sexual gratification,” this will be considered a valid marriage and they could be termed “husband and wife,” the Madras High Court has ruled in a judgment that gives a new twist to the concept of premarital sex.

The court said that if a bachelor has completed 21 years of age and an unmarried woman 18 years, they have acquired the freedom of choice guaranteed by the Constitution. “Consequently, if any couple choose to consummate their sexual cravings, then that act becomes a total commitment with adherence to all consequences that may follow, except on certain exceptional considerations.”

The court said marriage formalities as per various religious customs such as the tying of a mangalsutra, the exchange of garlands and rings or the registering of a marriage were only to comply with religious customs for the satisfaction of society.

The court further said if necessary either party to a relationship could approach a Family Court for a declaration of marital status by supplying documentary proof for a sexual relationship. Once such a declaration was obtained, a woman could establish herself as the man’s wife in government records. “Legal rights applicable to normal wedded couples will also be applicable to couples who have had sexual relationships which are established."

The court also said if after having a sexual relationship, the couple decided to separate due to difference of opinion, the ‘husband’ could not marry without getting a decree of divorce from the ‘wife’.

Justice C.S. Karnan passed the order on Monday while modifying an April 2006 judgment of a Coimbatore family court in a maintenance case involving a couple. The lower court had ordered the man to pay monthly maintenance of Rs. 500 to the couple’s two children and Rs. 1000 as litigation expenses. The lower court observed that the woman’s wedding with the man had not been proved by documentary evidence. Hence, she was not entitled to maintenance.

In her appeal to the High Court, the woman’s counsel contended that she was legally married and had two children in wedlock.

Justice Karnan said he was of the view that a valid marriage did not necessarily mean that all the customary rights pertaining to the married couple are to be followed and subsequently solemnised. In the present case, the woman and her husband had no encumbrance or other disqualification for solemnising their wedding as per their customs. For solemnising a wedding, legal aspects should be placed on a higher scale than the customary aspects. In this case, the man had signed in the ‘live birth report’ of his second child and given his consent for a Caesarean section for its birth. As such, he had officially admitted that she was his wife.

“Without legal encumbrance or third party interference or without affecting third party rights, both the petitioner and the respondent lived together as spouses and begot two children.” Therefore, the question of an illegitimate relationship did not arise. Wedding solemnisation was only a customary right, but not a mandatory one. Hence, the judge said, he was treating the couple as spouses in normal life.

“It is not disputed that the petitioner has been a spinster before she gave birth and that the respondent was a bachelor before developing sexual relationship with the petitioner. Both of them led their marital life under the same shelter and begot two children. Therefore, the petitioner’s rank has been elevated as the `wife’ of the respondent and likewise, the respondent’s rank has been elevated as the `husband’ of the petitioner. Therefore, the children born to them are legitimate children and the petitioner is the legitimate wife of the respondent.”

The judge directed the woman’s husband to pay her a monthly maintenance of Rs.500 from the date of petition, i.e. from September 2000. The arrears of maintenance up to May this year should be paid within a period of three months.

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Times of India 20 June 2013

CHENNAI: Two days after his sensationaljudgment on sexual relations between adults,Justice C S Karnan has further elaborated on the order which accords the status of marriage to all such relationships, and said his ruling would help maintain the "cultural integrity of India" and "protect the welfare of women".


On Wednesday, issuing an unusual addendum in reaction to the heated debates it has generated in social media and other platforms, he said: "This court's order does not in any way run against any religion and is not intended to wound any Indian. The order had not in any way degraded the system of marriage performed as per the various religious and customs and rites among the various communities." 

Reiterating his conclusion that sexual ties between a man and woman of marriageable age would raise the affair to the status of a marital union, Justice Karnan said: "If a bachelor aged 21 years or above and a spinster aged 18 years or above had premarital sex with intention to marry and subsequent to this the man deserts the woman, the victim woman can approach a civil forum for remedy after producing necessary substantial evidence to grant her social status as wife. This remedy is not only for the purpose of giving relief to the victim woman but also to maintain the cultural integrity of India." 

Cautioning critics of the judgment, Justice Karnan said: "Law permits the affected woman to initiate criminal proceedings against her paramour for cheating her and deserting her after making a promise of marriage, but there is no provision to approach the civil forum for her remedy. The high court is the apex court of this state and constitutional authority. Therefore, this court has given the legal relief to the affected woman. Without fully understanding the court's judgment, adverse comments shall not be passed." 

But legal experts have questioned the judge's decision to further elaborate on the order and go beyond the scope of the subject to address issues relating to culture. While the order has been broadly accepted to be in keeping with Supreme Court judgments on live-in relationships and maintenance, a senior sitting judge of the same high court said Wednesday's addition ought not to have referred to the issue of 'cultural integrity' and the welfare of women. "The issue pertains to maintenance, and to justify the award he had discussed sexual interaction and status of marriage. But linking it to a larger and intangible issue of culture is unwarranted," he said. There is also the view that such a view of the man-woman relation was liable to be misinterpreted in the subordinate courts.

Muslims that 'minority politics' left behind

KHALID ANIS ANSARI

  

 

The pasmanda’s quest for empowerment will help democratise Indian Islam and deepen democracy in the country

‘Pasmanda’, a Persian term meaning “those who have fallen behind,” refers to Muslims belonging to the shudra (backward) and ati-shudra (Dalit) castes. It was adopted as an oppositional identity to that of the dominant ashraf Muslims (forward castes) in 1998 by the Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz, a group which mainly worked in Bihar. Since then, however, the pasmanda discourse has found resonance elsewhere too.

The dominant perception is that Islam is an egalitarian religion and that Indian Muslims on the whole, especially in the post-Sachar scenario, are a marginalised community. The pasmanda counter-discourse takes issue with both these formulations. In terms of religious interpretation, Masood Falahi’s work Hindustan mein Zaat Paat aur Musalman (2006) has convincingly demonstrated how the notion of kufu (rules about possible marriage relations between groups) was read through the lens of caste by the ‘manuwadi’ ulema and how a parallel system of “graded inequality” was put into place in Indian Islam.

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Also read Sreesanth - A modern day Valmiki

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Caste-based disenfranchisement

As far as the social sphere is concerned, Ali Anwar’s Masawat ki Jung (2000) has documented caste-based disenfranchisement of Dalit and backward caste Muslims at the hands of self-styled ashraf leaders in community organisations like madrasas and personal law boards, representative institutions (Parliament and State Assemblies) and departments, ministries and institutions that claim to work for Muslims (minority affairs, Waqf boards, Urdu academies, AMU, Jamia Millia Islamia, etc). The book also underlines stories of humiliation, disrespect and violence on caste grounds that various pasmanda communities have to undergo on a daily basis, at least in northern parts of India.

Thus, pasmanda commentators contest the two key elements of mainstream ‘Muslim’ or ‘minority’ discourse —Islam as an egalitarian religion and Indian Muslims on the whole as an oppressed community. Islam may be normatively egalitarian but actual-existing Islam in Indian conditions is deeply hierarchical. Similarly, all Muslims are not oppressed, or not to the same degree, at any rate: Muslims are a differentiated community in terms of power, with dominant (ashraf) and subordinated (pasmanda) sections. Consequently, the so-called ‘minority politics’, which has been quite content in raising symbolic and emotional issues so far, is really the politics of dominant caste Muslims that secures their interests at the expense of pasmanda Muslims. Not surprisingly, a recurrent theme in pasmanda narratives is that minority politics has singularly failed to address the bread-and-butter concerns of the pasmanda Muslims, who constitute about 85 per cent of the Indian Muslim population and come primarily from occupational and service biradaris.

The notion of ‘minority’ and ‘majority’ communities in India — read primarily in terms of religious identity — is of modern origin and linked with the emergence and consolidation of a hegemonic secular nation-state project. In this sense, while ‘secular’ nationalism becomes the locus of legitimate power and violence, Hindu and Islamic nationalisms become the sites of illegitimate power. The seemingly epic battles that are constantly fought within this conceptual framework — around communal riots or ‘Hindu’/‘Islamic’ terror more recently in the post-9/11 world — have been instrumental in denying a voice to subordinated caste communities across religions and in securing the interests of ‘secular,’ Hindu or Muslim elites respectively. In this sense, the pasmanda articulation has highlighted the symbiotic nature of majoritarian and minoritarian fundamentalism and has sought to contest the latter from within in order to wage a decisive battle against the former. As Waqar Hawari, a pasmanda activist, says: “While Muslim politicians like Imam Bukhari and Syed Shahabuddin add the jodan [starter yoghurt], it is left to the Hindu fundamentalists to prepare the yoghurt of communalism. Both of them are responsible. We oppose the politics of both Hindu and Muslim fanaticism.”

Faith and ethnicity

The structures of social solidarity that pasmanda activists work with are deeply influenced by the entangled relation between faith and ethnicity. The domains of Hinduism and Islam are quite complex, with multiple resources and potentialities possible: in various ways they exceed the ‘Brahminism’ and ‘Ashrafism’ that have come to over-determine them over time. On the one hand, the pasmanda Muslims share a widespread feeling of ‘Muslimness’ with the upper-caste Muslims, a solidarity which is often parochialised by internal caste and maslak-based (sectarian) contradictions. On the other hand, pasmanda Muslims share an experience of caste-based humiliation and disrespect with subordinated caste Hindus, a solidarity which is equally interrupted by the discourse around religious difference incessantly reproduced by upper caste institutions. Since the express object of the pasmanda movement has been to raise the issue of caste-based exclusion of subordinate caste Muslims, it has stressed on caste-based solidarity across religions. As Ali Anwar, the founder of Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz, says: “There is a bond of pain between pasmanda Muslims and the pasmanda sections of other religions. This bond of pain is the supreme bond … That is why we have to shake hands with the pasmanda sections of other religions.”

This counter-hegemonic solidarity on caste lines is effectively encapsulated in the pasmanda slogan ‘Dalit-Pichda ek saman, Hindu ho ya Musalman’ (All Dalit-backward castes are alike, whether they be Hindu or Muslim). At the same time, birth-based caste distinctions are sought to be transcended from the vantage point of an egalitarian faith: “We are not setting the Dalit/Backward Caste Muslims against the so-called ashraf Muslims. Our movement is not directed against them. Rather, we seek to strengthen and empower our own people, to enable them to speak for themselves and to secure their rights and justice … We welcome well-meaning people of the so-called ashraf background … who are concerned about the plight of our people to join us in our struggle.” It is in the midst of such complex negotiations, the punctuated nature of faith and caste-based solidarities, that the pasmanda emerges as a political factor.

Overall, pasmanda politics has relied on transformative constitutionalism and democratic symbolism to attain its social justice goals — the deepening of existing affirmative action policies, adequate representation of pasmanda Muslims in political parties, state support for cottage and small-scale industries, democratisation of religious institutions and interpretative traditions, etc. Obviously, it confronts all the challenges that any counter-hegemonic identity movement faces in its formative phases: lack of resources and appropriate institutions, cooption of its leaders by state and other dominant ideological apparatuses, lack of relevant movement literature, internal power conflicts, and so on. Also, as Rammanohar Lohia said: “The policy of uplift of downgraded castes and groups is capable of yielding much poison. A first poison may come out of its immediate effects on men’s minds; it may speedily antagonise the Dvija without as speedily influencing the Sudras. With his undoubted alertness to developments and his capacity to mislead, the Dvija may succeed in heaping direct and indirect discredit on the practitioners of this policy long before the Sudra wakes up to it.” These are the challenges that the pasmanda activists face while confronting the ashrafiya-dominated minority politics. However, their struggle for a post-minority politics is on and one hopes it will democratise Indian Islam in the long run by triggering a process of internal reform. The pasmanda critique of the majority-minority or the secular-communal dyad will also contribute to a democratic deepening that will benefit all of India’s subaltern communities in the long run.

(Khalid Anis Ansari is a PhD candidate at the University of Humanistic Studies, Utrecht, The Netherlands. He also works with The Patna Collective, New Delhi, and engages with the pasmanda movement as an interlocutor and knowledge-activist. Email: khalidanisansari@gmail.com)

Bob Willis accuses England of ball-tampering in Champions Trophy

AFP 15 Jun 2013 in TOI

CARDIFF (United Kingdom): England have found themselves at the centre of a tampering row after former captain Bob Willis accused them of scratching the ball.

The alleged incident took place during England's seven-wicket Champions Trophyone-day international defeat by Sri Lanka at The Oval on Thursday when Pakistani umpire Aleem Dar and his New Zealand on-field colleague Billy Bowden ordered one of the balls in use to be changed while the Lankans were batting.

"Let's not beat about the bush -- Aleem Dar is on England's case," Willis told Saturday's edition of the Sun tabloid.

"He knows that one individual is scratching the ball for England -- who I am not going to name -- and that's why the ball was changed," insisted Willis, one of England's greatest fast bowlers.

"Have you ever heard about the batting side or the umpire complaining about the shape of the ball?" added Willis, on of only four England bowlers to have taken 300 Test wickets.

Under current rules for one-day internationals, two white balls are in use for each innings.

Balls can be changed for legitimate reasons, such as being knocked out of shape as a result of forceful hits by batsmen, and are often done so at the request of the fielding side.

However, on Thursday it appeared that it was Sri Lanka's Kumar Sangakkara who complained about the condition of the ball when his side was 119 for two at the halfway stage of their reply to England's seemingly imposing 293 for seven.

England were unhappy as their attack was starting to gain reverse swing, which was key to their opening victory over Australia and is aided by natural wear and tear of the ball, with captain Alastair Cook leading the protests.

However, the replacement ball moved little and Sangakkara went on to complete a superbunbeaten hundred to guide Sri Lanka to victory.

After the match, Cook said: "The ball was changed because it was out of shape. The umpires make these decisions and you have to accept them. Sometimes you don't think they are the right decisions."

But Willis, an England captain in the early 1980s, told the Sun: "How naive does Alastair Cook think we are? He didn't want the ball changed. So why was it changed?

"It is OK for the ball to scuff through natural wear and tear -- but against cricket's laws to use fingernails or other means to alter its condition."

Australian umpire Darrell Hair, together with West Indies' Billy Doctrove, docked Pakistan five runs for ball-tampering during a controversial Test against England in 2006.

Pakistan subsequently forfeited the match in protest -- the first time this had happened in Test history.

They were subsequently exonerated by an International Cricket Council (ICC) investigation and the ensuing row ultimately cost Hair his career as a senior international umpire.

However, the match officials in the England-Sri Lanka match took no similar action and the ICC explained that as the umpires haven't reported anything and no team has complained, they were not planning to take any action.

England must beat New Zealand in Cardiff on Sunday to seal a semi-final spot. If they lose they are out and either Australia or Sri Lanka will go through after their match on Monday.

If the England-New Zealand match is a washout they will need a low scoring Australia victory to go through. If both matches are washed out, England will qualify behind New Zealand.

Why Germany is now 'Europe's biggest brothel'

Legalised prostitution, cut-price offers and a boom in sex tourism mean Germany's red light districts are thriving. But not everyone is happy with the country's liberal legislation

A Ukrainian prostitute in a brothel in Berlin: two-thirds of Germay's sex workers are thought to come from overseas. Photograph: Axel Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images

With skin-tight clothes and bum bags strapped around their waists, sex workers wait by the roadside close to Hackescher Markt, one of Berlin's busiest shopping and entertainment districts. This is a familiar sight just before dark in the capital of a country that has been dubbed "Europe's biggest brothel".

The sex trade in Germany has increased dramatically since prostitution was liberalised in 2002, with more than one million men paying for sex every day here, according to a documentary, Sex – Made in Germany, aired this week on Germany's public broadcaster, ARD.

Based on two years of research using hidden cameras, the film by Sonia Kennebeck and Tina Soliman exposes the "flat-rate" brothels where men pay €49 (£42) for as much sex as they want, as well as a rise in sex tourism, with men from Asia, the Middle East and North America coming to Germany for sex.

Germany's law governing the sex trade is considered one of the most liberal in the world. It was passed by the former coalition government, made up of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Greens, in a bid to strengthen the rights of sex workers and give them access to health insurance and benefits.

Since then, red light districts have become even more prominent in many major German cities including Berlin, Frankfurt and Hamburg, where the Reeperbahn is, notoriously, the focus for the sex trade. During the 2006 World Cup in Germany, brothels appeared close to football stadiums across the country to cater for fans before and after games.

But more than 10 years after the law was passed, critics are becoming increasingly vocal. They argue that although it may benefit those sex workers who choose to work in the trade, it also makes it easier for women from eastern Europe and countries outside the EU to be forced into prostitution by traffickers. Two-thirds of Germany's estimated 400,000 sex workers come from overseas.

"Migrant women who don't know the language are highly dependent on people to bring them here and to show them around," says Roshan Heiler, head of counselling at the Aachen branch of Solwodi, a women's rights organisation that helps women forced into prostitution.

She is not surprised at the number of men now paying for sex in Germany. "I think it's just a result of the legalisation," she says. "The men are not prosecuted and prices are low."

Meanwhile, Monika Lazar, spokeswoman on women's issues for the Alliance 90/Greens party, has defended the law, saying that making prostitution illegal again is not the way to improve working conditions. "Prostitution is still socially stigmatised, and that has not changed in the few years in which the law has been in effect," she says. "But the law is helping to strengthen the position of prostitutes and ensuring women, and men, are much better protected."