Russia

Trafficking in women from the Soviet Union has exploded since 1989, with their percentage in the international sex market matching or overtaking previous sources of supply in Asia and Latin America," (Global Survival Network, Christina Ling "Rights Activists Rap Ex-Soviet States on Sex-Trade," Reuters, 6 November 1997)

Criminal groups make an estimated $7 billion annually by trafficking in women from Russian and other former Soviet Republics (Gillian Caldwell, Global Survival Network, Reuters, 6 November 1997)

Eastern European women are sold like slaves in Israel among Russian mafia operators for £6,000 (US$10,000) to £9,000 (US$15,000). (Detective Toni Haddad of Haifa vice squad, Kevin Connolly "How Russia’s mafia is taking over Israel’s underworld." BBC, 3 April 1998)

In 1989, 378 women from the former Soviet Union entered Japan on entertainment visas. In 1995, 4,763 Russian women entered Japan on entertainer's visas. (Gillian Caldwell, Global Survival Network, Christina Ling "Rights Activists Rap Ex-Soviet States on Sex-Trade," Reuters, 6 November 1997)

Eight women from Russia between the ages of 18 and 33 have been arrested in Kota-Kinibalu, on the island of Borneo, Malaysia. Local police said the women had been detained on charges of prostitution. They were taken to custody after a raid conducted at a hotel. Three men from Malaysia suspected of hiring the women have also been arrested. Other Russian women incriminated in prostitution have been expelled from the country. ("Eight prostitutes from Russia arrested in Malaysia," ITAR/TASS, 16 August 1998)

4,500 women and children were detained at the Russian border for trying to leave illegally in 1996. Trafficking represents a threat to Russian national security because there is currently a negative birth rate amongst Russians. (Victor Ilukhin, Chairman of the State Security Committee of the Russian Duma, Parliamentary Hearings, Russian State Duma, 9-10 October 1997, Personal Communication with Kristen Hansen, CEELI attorney in Russia)

Posing as employment and travel agencies, criminal gangs promise women jobs as waitresses and barmaids overseas, but then treat them as slaves, forcing them to work as prostitutes to pay off thousand-dollar debts for their travel. Victims, typically aged between 16 and 35, are often raped and beaten, have their passports confiscated and are threatened with harm to themselves and their families if they try to break their "contracts" or seek help. (Christina Ling, "Rights Activists Rap Ex-Soviet States on Sex-Trade" Reuters, 6 November 1997)

Russian recruiters, thought to be associated with the mafia, trafficked pregnant Russian women into the United States to adoption agencies who paid the recruiters US$15,000 for each woman. One such agency, the Special Delivery, placed 9 Russian babies with families last year. ("INS Probes Adoption Agencies Bringing Pregnant Russians to US," Associated Press, 16 April 1998)

Russian criminals are operating hundreds of brothels and striptease bars in Europe and Asia and are expanding. Bar and casino operators offer young Russian, Ukrainan and Baltic women high salaries to work in their clubs, but the women end up in near-slavery, unable to return home. Criminal groups are getting stronger and using Russia as a base for global ventures, including prostitution, drugs, currency exchange, and stealing World Bank and IMF loans. (Barbara Starr, "Former Soviet Union a playground for organized crime: A gangster’s paradise," ABC News, 14 September 1998)

25 distinct Russian organized crime groups are operating in the United States in the areas of prostitution, fraud, money laundering, murder, extortion and drug trafficking and the Federal Bureau of Investigation has approximately 250 pending investigations targeting Russian gangs in 27 states. (Barbara Starr, "Former Soviet Union a playground for organized crime: A gangster’s paradise," ABC News, 14 September 1998)

Russian and Ukranian women are the most valuable commodities in the sex trade. (Michael Specter, "Traffickers’ New Cargo: Naive Slavic Women," New York Times, 11 January 1998)

Case

An 18-year-old woman, who thought she was going to pick oranges, was trafficked to Cyprus, then Turkey where she was put in a brothel, raped, drugged and prostituted. She was forced to undergo two abortions, which left her unable to have children. (Vladmir Isachenkov,"Soviet Women Slavery Flourishes," Associated Press, 6 November 1997)

One woman’s story   
Lyubov, 17, arrived in Israel from a Russian coal mining city only to be sold into prostitution. Now she sits in a prison cell awaiting expulsion as an illegal worker. Six months ago, a man in Lyubov's hometown told the young woman he could get her a plane ticket, a visa and a job abroad. She entered Israel with a tour group and was met by a hotel owner who befriended her and gave her a job as a cleaner in exchange for a room. The hotel owner introduced her to friends, showed her around and taught her some Hebrew until one day he told her to get out of his car and into another. Then he drove away. "At first I didn't know I had been sold. Then my owner told me he had bought me for $9,000," Lyubov said in an interview in a prison office. Her new "owner," as she calls him, told her she would work as a call girl.

It was the beginning of a stint as an unpaid prostitute -- part of an international crime phenomenon which women's groups see as a modern slave trade. Lyubov's "owner" kept her and eight other women in two apartments. He never paid any of them but instead said they were indebted to him for their plane tickets and every expense incurred, from doctors' visits to haircuts. Transported to clients by drivers and often under guard, Lyubov had sex with an average of six men a day for about $75 an hour. All she could keep were tips. She worked round the clock, seven days a week, with no holidays except for Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. "You have to have very strong nerves to do this kind of work," she said.

Life in Russia was very difficult. "There were days when I had nothing to eat," Lyubov said. She weighed 50 kg (110 pounds) when she left Russia, and gained 20 kg (45 pounds) after arriving in Israel. She said circumstances had made it hard for her to quit (leave her "owner"). "I came into this circle and then it was very hard to get out. My papers were fake, I had no money, I had no acquaintances and I was in an enclosed place," she said. The nearest police station was across the road from the apartment where Lyubov was kept but she never went there, inhibited, like many others, by the double bind of fear of her owner and fear of deportation. "I kept hoping some day I would earn some money. But when they actually caught me, I was relieved," she said. (Elisabeth Eaves, "Israel not the promised land for Russian sex slaves," Reuters, 23 August 1998)

A recent study showed that prostitution is high on the list of "professions" that modern Russian schoolgirls dream of pursuing. With no other options for survival, women increasingly resort to prostitution. Nadia, a Siberian woman was divorced, and with no other economic opportunities resorted to prostitution. She said it was humiliating, but she didn’t have a choice. (Helen Womack, "Street life - I’m a prostitute. I have no choice so I lose no self respect," The Independent, 7 July 1998)

Approximately 500 prostitutes, called "night-time butterflies, were are on Tverskaya Street, in Moscow each night. (Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov, Maura Reynolds, "Moscow Plans Prostitute Zone," Associated Press, 13 June 1997)

There are more than 80 escort services operating in Saratov, Russia. (Alessandra Stanley, "Russian Cities Weigh Legalization of Prostitution," 3 March 1998)

Methods and Techniques of Pimps

Pimps are doubling as doormen at hotels in Moscow to keep control of their business and the women. (Judith Matloff, Christian Science Monitor, 18 February 1998)

Health and Well-being

Russia has seen a dramatic increase in sexually transmitted diseases since 1993, with syphilis rising between 10 and 40 times in some areas. ("AIDS cases jump in former Soviet Union," United Press International, 21 April 1998) 90% of those arrested for prostitution or drug-related crimes in Kaliningrad Oblast are infected with HIV. This region has the most recorded cases of AIDS in Russia. (Interior Ministry, RFE/RL Newsline Vol 1, No. 119, Part I, 17 September 1997)

Hundreds of women - teachers, nurses, single mothers and even school girls have been driven into prostitution to survive the economic crises in Volga, Russia. Diseases such as syphilis, tuberculosis, and AIDS have increased. Syphilis rates are four times higher in 1998 than they were in 1995. (Alessandra Stanley, "Russian Cities Weigh Legalization of Prostitution," 3 March 1998)

Case

A 12-year-old girl, found on the street in Saratov by police, said she was in prostitution to raise enough money to buy a Barbie doll. (Lt. Andrei Demikhov, Alessandra Stanley, "Russian Cities Weigh Legalization of Prostitution," 3 March 1998)

Policy and Law

St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad and Saratov are considering the legalization of prostitution. Prostitution has risen sharply in recent years. The Russian Orthodox Church and the Communist party are strongly against legalization. So are many local residents. The maximum penalty for prostitution related offense is US$14. (Alessandra Stanley, "Russian Cities Weigh Legalization of Prostitution," 3 March 1998)

In January 1998, the governor and the local legislature of Saratov, Russia banned escort services from advertising in local newspapers. Prostitution continued unabated, as escort services distributed business cards and leaflets. (Lt. Andrei Demikhov, Alessandra Stanley, "Russian Cities Weigh Legalization of Prostitution," 3 March 1998)

Governor Dimitry Ayatskov has proposed legalizing prostitution in the Saratov region to bring in tax money into the regional treasury. Police estimate the monthly illegal income from prostitution exceeds US$417,000. Prostitution has greatly increased in that region, syphillis rates have quadrupuled in the last three years. ("Russians May Legalize Prostitution," Associated Press, 21 February 1998)

Official Response and Action

Kaliningrad Oblast Governor Leonid Gorbenko advocates legalizing prostitution as a way to combat the spread of AIDS. (RFE/RL Newsline Vol 1, No. 119, Part I, 17 September 1997)

Official Corruption and Collaboration

In 1996 in Moscow an entire police precinct was disbanded because officers had been running a prostitution ring along Tverskaya Street in Moscow. (Associated Press, 1997)

The Interior Ministry, Federal Security Service and Ministry of Foreign Affairs have been implicated as being complicitous with traffickers. (Gillian Caldwell, Co-director, Global Survival Network, Vladmir Isachenkov, "Soviet Women Slavery Flourishes," Associated Press, 6 November 1997)

The republic of Ingushetia has appealed to President Yeltsin to stop federal officials investigating the common but illegal practice of "wifenapping." The Caucasus tradition of young men kidnapping and marrying village girls is making a comeback, along with Islamic customs, in this mountain region. "We recently requested the President to order federal authorities to stop interfering in our customs," said Rustam Chabiyev, a representative of the Ingush Government in Moscow. (Richard Beeson, "Tiny republic in Caucus calls on Yeltsin to let ‘wifenaps’ continue," Times of London, 19 March 1998)

The economic decline in formerly communist Eastern Europe has hit women especially hard. World Bank figures show women in Russia earn only 70% of men's wages for the same work and make up 70% of the official unemployed. (Elisabeth Eaves, "Israel not the promised land for Russian sex slaves," Reuters, 23 August 1998)