In early July the Cabinet of Ministers submitted a bill to parliament, which, if enacted, would eliminate criminal penalties for prostitution while imposing stricter punishments for bringing women into the sex trade, i.e. procuring women and engaging in other soliciting activities. This initiative has won approval from both human rights experts and the police, and even attracted proponents of legalized prostitution. After all, eliminating criminal responsibility for prostitution is the first step toward building a sex industry haven, like in Sweden.
The bill proposes amending Articles 149 and 303 of the Criminal Code: “Trade in Humans or Other Illegal Agreements to Traffic Humans” and “Prostitution or Coercion into Prostitution,” respectively. Under the proposed amendments, Article 149 envisions criminal prosecution of individuals for procuring, trafficking, or hiding other persons to further sell or otherwise illegally exploit them; and for buying or taking possession of persons with the use of violence or threats of violence, deception, or abuse of trust, to further exploit them.
The Cabinet of Ministers also proposes renaming Article 303 of the Criminal Code to “Procuring for Prostitution” and removing from this article clauses envisioning criminal responsibility for systematic prostitution. Today this is punishable by a fine. Women caught red-handed may be required to pay between 50 and 500 times the size of the minimum tax-exempt income or ordered to perform 120 hours of community work. “As long as I have been a policeman, and it’s my twentieth year on the police force, prostitution had never been subject to criminal prosecution until September 1, 2001, when the new Criminal Code came into effect,” says Mykhailo Andriyenko, chief of the Internal Affairs Ministry department to combat human trafficking. “Yet criminal sanctions envision fines and community work. These same sanctions are provided for in the Administrative Code. Then why open a criminal case and begin this lengthy and complex process, when the same fine can be imposed under a different code? Therefore, the government’s initiative makes sense to some extent.”
It also makes sense to impose stricter punishments for pandering. Under the bill, procuring for the purpose of prostitution would be punishable by custodial restraint or imprisonment for up to 5 years. Procuring a minor would entail prison terms of 5 to 7 years.
Forming, managing, or taking part in organized groups to sell sexual services by persons procured for prostitution would entail prison terms of 5 to 10 years with or without confiscation of property. These sanctions are much stricter than the current ones. To illustrate, procuring for or coercion into prostitution is now punishable by fines 500 to 1,000 times the size of the minimum tax-exempt income, a six-month arrest, or a prison term of 1 to 3 years. Procuring a minor entails a prison term of 3 to 5 years, while pandering entails a prison terms of 5 to 7 years. “These criminals must pay for their crimes to the fullest extent,” says Andriyenko.
The government’s well-intentioned initiative originally stemmed from the need to honor the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, which Ukraine ratified on February 4, 2004. “We must bring our legislation in this sphere in line with European legislation to create a single legal field in which we would be able to operate,” says Andriyenko. “But they don’t have such a law and we don’t have a different law, and this is causing confusion and hindering work.”
Legalizing prostitution is a subject for a separate discussion. This issue is being debated in Russia, and the Russian legislative assembly is already considering a relevant bill. “Everything that cannot be fully banned must be brought into the legitimate field,” says Russia’s most vocal supporter of legalized prostitution, deputy parliament speaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Obozrevatel.com quotes him as saying that prostitution as a form of unofficial commerce is harming the greater economy and public morals and ethics. Its legalization would ensure greater safety of these kinds of services and result in economic benefits. Zhirinovsky also expects sexual services to become cheaper as a result of fewer opportunities for police corruption. Nearly all the arguments put forward by the flamboyant Russian politician are generally acceptable. Yet there is a counterargument for each of his arguments.
The main obstacle to sexual progress in Ukraine is public ethics. The general public is not prepared to countenance the legalization of prostitution. “So far this is out of the question,” says Mykhailo Andriyenko. At the same time, according to a poll conducted by the Ukrainian Institute for Social Studies, advocates and opponents of legalized prostitution in Ukraine are split almost evenly, with 38% of respondents in favor and 41% against, while 11% of respondents are undecided. Nonetheless, “prostitute” is still a brutal word and invariably associated in the public consciousness with moral turpitude and slovenliness.
Meanwhile, only 20% of the 636 representatives of the oldest profession polled by the Ukrainian Institute for Social Studies in 12 Ukrainian cities are satisfied with their work. Notably, 73% of them chose this profession so as “not to work for peanuts in some office,” 61% hope to earn enough money and then quit, and 27% admitted to having been forced into the sex trade. Pimps skim their earnings, while the women receive close to 20% of what they earn. At the same time, most women prefer to work with pimps or other “managers” for safety considerations.
Thus, society should demonstrate more compassion to sex workers instead of condemning them, if only because they run a high risk of getting AIDS. The poll shows that because of tight competition women often take additional risks, such as unprotected sex. The supply of sexual services greatly exceeds the demand, and the women have to compete for survival.
Their predicament is further aggravated by the lack of accommodations. They are forced to go to work under any circumstances and in any condition. On average, 54% of prostitutes in Ukrainian cities are locals and 46% come from other places. Among the out-of-town prostitutes, 6% lack permanent accommodations, 10% live in hostels, and 35% rent apartments.
According to psychologist Iryna Zhdanova, people’s hostility toward prostitution is often due to their own inhibitions. “On the surface it appears to be simple work that is very well rewarded,” says Zhdanova, adding: “Often women simply envy the ladies of the night, their emancipation and short skirts, but normally they cannot admit this to themselves. As for the psychology of the prostitutes, their motives and feelings are very different, but one thing is certain: their work causes great spiritual traumas that are very difficult to heal.” Family problems add insult to injury. More than half of these women were raised in broken families, and their relations with parents are constantly deteriorating. Only 34% of those polled have children, only 4% do not want to have children, and the rest cannot have them for a variety of reasons. Prostitutes do not have normal relationships with men. Only 6% of those polled are married (virtually all of them are hiding their occupation from their husbands), over a third of them are divorced, and more than half have never been married.
How many Ukrainian women are engaged in prostitution is anyone’s guess. There are no such statistics, for obvious reasons. Yet, according to sociologist Olha Balakyrieva, who coordinates the project “Sex Business in Ukraine: An Attempt at Social Analysis,” there are nearly 250,000 such women. The numbers are staggering. If we subtract 20% of those “who derive satisfaction from their work,” it turns out that 200,000 Ukrainian women are sex workers not by choice. These women could be helped by providing them with alternative, attractive, and well-paying jobs. But for now we could at least treat them with a little more tolerance.
