WASHINGTON (AP) – The United States accused 12 nations Monday of failing to do enough to stop the modern-day slave trade in prostitutes, child sex workers and forced labourers and warned key ally Germany that it should do more to stop a tide of sex workers arriving for this month’s World Cup.

“The US government opposes prostitution,” a State Department report on global human trafficking said. “These activities are inherently harmful and dehumanising.”

Prostitution is legal in Germany and several other European countries. Similar influxes of prostitutes occur at most major international events on the continent.

A US congressman and other anti-trafficking advocates estimate that thousands of foreign women, many from Eastern Europe, will be forced into sex work during the four-week tournament that begins Friday, June 9.

The United States called Germany a “source, transit and destination country” for sex workers and other victims of exploitation.

The 2006 Trafficking in Persons Report still gave Germany its highest overall rating for compliance with effort to stop trafficking, and noted German efforts to combat exploitation during the World Cup.

“Nonetheless, due to the sheer size of the event, the potential for increased human trafficking during the games remains a concern,” the report said.

As many as 800,000 people are bought and sold across national borders annually or lured to other countries with false promises of work or other benefits, the State Department said in its annual survey of international human trafficking. Most are women and children.

The report lists Iran and Syria among the dozen nations that the United States said do not adequately address trafficking problems. The State Department said those countries could be subject to sanctions.

Apart from key Arab ally Saudi Arabia and the Central American nation of Belize, the rest of the list of violators reads like a catalogue of nations at perpetual odds with the Bush administration: Myanmar, Cuba, Iran, Laos, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.

Countries that fail to crack down can be subject to a variety of sanctions, including the withholding of some kinds of US foreign aid.

The United States will not cut off trade and humanitarian aid, the report said.

Countries that receive no such assistance can be declared ineligible to take part in cultural and educational exchange programmes.

Two countries have been sanctioned since the reports began – Equatorial Guinea and Venezuela.

The German government, while defending its policy of legalised prostitution, emphatically denies that it condones human trafficking and says it has intensified efforts to combat it.

Germany’s sex-industry entrepreneurs have made no secret of their expectation of a boom as hundreds of thousands of visitors arrive for the World Cup.

At the four-story, 40-bedroom Atriums brothel which opened in Berlin last fall, manager Egret Krumeich predicted business – normally 130 clients a day – could double or triple during the 32-nation tournament.

Prostitution is legal in Germany, with about 400,000 registered sex workers who pay taxes and receive social benefits.

However, the government says forced prostitution is not tolerated and it denies Smith’s claim that it is helping build brothels.