ROME – Sordid details of the grasping ambition of parents of young girls caught up in Italy’s latest sex scandal emerged on Thursday as excerpts from wire-taps were splashed over the country’s papers.
As part of evidence from Milan magistrates alleging Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi hooked up with prostitutes and held debauched parties, parents were caught on tape encouraging their daughters to compete for the 74-year old. “The sad army of aspiring parents-in-law” is “a symbol of a moral epidemic,” said La Stampa newspaper, quoting a father who told his girl “you’ve had one girl then another get ahead of you… wake up!”
The Corriere della Sera, Italy’s most widely-read newspaper, revealed words of advice from ambitious parents “not acting in the least to protect the virtue and good name of the girl of the house.” The brother of one of the girls investigated for attending a party in the prime minister’s Arcore house near Milan is quoted as saying that Berlusconi “could solve a lot of our problems, for mum, you and me.” Allegations that the prime minister hand-picked prostitutes and other women for wild parties and paid to have sex with an underage girl, known as Ruby, sparked a series of denials Wednesday from party girls who said Berlusconi was a man of charity.
While paying for sex with prostitutes is not a crime in Italy, having sex with one under the age of 18 has been punishable with a prison sentence since Berlusconi’s right-wing government voted in a law against it in 2006. Berlusconi denies he has ever paid for sex, not least with disco-dancer Ruby, and accused the Milan magistrates Wednesday of launching their probe for politically motivated ends.
