“Sexual exploitation has become a huge global phenomenon adversely affecting both women and children. We cannot wait anymore — contemporary slavery ought to be eradicated immediately, and not only individual organizations but all countries should join their efforts in this cause. Men and women should get actively involved in combating sexual slavery,” concluded participants in a recent seminar on issues of sexual exploitation organized by the Council of Europe.
The total number of prostitutes in the world is currently 10 million, including 2 million underage children; women from the former Soviet Union, who are rather active in this area, account for 15% of this number. For instance, over the last three years Israel has deported 1500 Russian and Ukrainian prostitutes, and Turkey expelled 239 prostitutes from the post-Soviet states between last January and April. Ukrainian prostitutes are arrested in Egypt on a weekly basis. Step by step, Ukraine is gaining a leading position in the red light districts, and the reasons for it are not merely the popularity of Slavic female beauty, Ukraine’s limited experience in migration processes, and the strength of the Mafia. Gulbin Sayilgan of the Turkish Television and Radio Council told The Day that half of the deported foreign prostitutes make their way back to Turkey illegally. Obviously, in some cases our women are under the impression that they are going abroad for a normal job, but instead they end up in brothels. However, this is an exception rather than a rule. The “Slavic commodity” is especially valuable because many women go into prostitution of their own free will. Flourishing unemployment and meager wages in Ukraine provide fertile ground for dreams about a better tomorrow in a foreign country, and how to do it does not matter at all. The author of this article has personally seen the women, among them Ukrainians, working in Frankfurt brothels. I must admit that some of them look quite good and can afford to go out to restaurants and bars every night on the money they make. This is the best scenario, however, even in such cases the women’s freedom is confined to such visits, since they are considered something like a live commodity with neither rights nor future.
This year, four Ukrainian prostitutes have been murdered in Frankfurt. In Italy, a woman forced into prostitution is killed on average once a month. For some reason, these facts are seldom discussed in the Ukrainian and foreign press — often publications on prostitutes are presented as erotic material on the entertainment pages. Some young Ukrainian men also totally reject any moral codex: “So what if a woman is involved in prostitution? I personally would not mind if my future wife happened to be a prostitute in the past, before I met her.” However, many such “tolerant” young men fail the next question: and what if your daughter should become a prostitute?
The world is sounding the alarm. Prostitution is further expanding to include the sexual exploitation of children, sex tourism, international trafficking, pedophilic networks, and child pornography. Related to them are also marriage classifieds that can be rather innocent at first glance. According to Monika Gerstendorfer, President of the Lobby for Human Rights organization in Germany, use of cutting-edge information technologies in people trafficking has already become traditional. The Internet, being an extremely useful resource, has also been turned into a podium for the sex Mafia. Anybody can obtain all the information they need from it, such as where to find a hooker, how much hotels cost, a list of available sexual services and their prices, assessments of prostitutes’ looks and “professionalism.” It is next to impossible to stop the circulation of the mostly anonymous information found on pornographic servers. Yet, there is also a bright side to it — for instance, the Computer Crime Units, set up by the Belgian police in 1992, every now and then track down pedophiles and other sexual criminals through the Internet.
The Scelles Foundation, established in France in 1954, lays out specific ways of combating contemporary white slavery: raising public awareness and cooperating with state authorities in order to amend the relevant legislation and aid victims of prostitution. And what is being done in our country from which, according to the information provided by the Interior Ministry, 400,000 women under 30 have emigrated since 1990, and most of them allegedly work either in brothels or in strip bars? In a country where 1,400,000 women under 25 are unemployed and thus considered a potential risk group? In a country whose Mafia controls the prostitution markets in Hungary and Austria?
Until this year, our country’s efforts in combating trafficking in women were hardly noticeable, although some foreign countries have been reluctant to issue visas to young Ukrainians — each is viewed as a potential immigrant related to the Mafia. In Ukraine, the breakthrough occurred this spring, when Verkhovna Rada approved amendments to legislation introducing criminal responsibility for the unlawful adoption of children and trafficking in people. Verkhovna Rada Human Rights Ombudsman Nina Karpachova views these amendments as the first step to bringing Ukrainian legislation into conformity with international standards. Apart from this, the International Migration Organization (IMO) is currently implementing a quite expensive project in Ukraine, which includes coverage of trafficking problems in the mass media, distribution of information brochures on the issue, discussions with young women on the unattractiveness and danger of going into prostitution abroad. “Are you really willing to trade your dignity, freedom, and well-being for a life in a cage?” asks one of the distributed brochures. Yet, as IMO representative Joanna Maycock pointed out to The Day, printed materials rarely reach the target audience, i.e., the risk groups. Nevertheless, soon the brochures will be distributed in secondary and higher educational institutions across Ukraine.
We are certainly pleased with all these good efforts. Official Kyiv and Warsaw have also recently signed an agreement on combating prostitution. Will all these actions make a difference in the moral principles of our women? We certainly hope they will, but as long as young Ukrainians do not have real jobs, the migration of prostitutes will unfortunately continue to exist.
Strasbourg—Kyiv
