RIGHTS: Russian Women Trafficked for Sex Trade all over the World

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Jul 5 2002 (IPS) - The trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and children from Russia is “easily tolerated” by authorities in that country and other nations, the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) warned Friday.

Donna M. Hughes, the author of the IOM study, who lives in Moscow, described it as “a growing and dangerous phenomenon throughout the Russian federation.”

The trafficking of Russian women for the sex trade is a multi- billion-dollar business that involves at least 43 countries, including most Western European nations, Canada, the United States, Mexico, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Thailand.

Although no one knows just how many women and children are trafficked for the sex trade from the countries of the former Soviet Union, the U.S. State Department estimated that in 1997 alone, the total amounted to more than 100,000.

At the same time, there are more and more street children in Russia, a problem that practically did not exist 10 years ago. According to the report, many children as young as 12 “are recruited at an early age, virtually sold into slavery, and may never know another way of life” other than prostitution or a life of crime within criminal syndicates.

The tentacles of the Russian criminal rings involved in prostitution and trafficking in women and children extend throughout Europe and to Asia, the Middle East and North America.

Some 200 crime syndicates in Russia are active in 58 countries, such as Austria, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Hungary, Israel, Poland, Sri Lanka, Turkey and the United States, says the report.

“Russian organised crime groups cooperate with…U.S. crime syndicates, the Cali drug cartel, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the four main Italian organised crime groups – the Sicilian Mafia, ‘Ndrangeta, Camorra and Nuova Sacra Corona – as well as Hungarian, Czech and Serbian crime groups, the Albanian Fares, the Japanese Yakuza, Israeli and Turkish organised crime groups, and Chinese Triads,” it adds.

A top destination for Russian women is the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific ocean, a U.S. territory. Saipan, the capital, is a hotspot for sex tourism, catering largely to the Japanese, many of whom are drawn by the “exotic” Russian women, says the report.

Although the study states that the local government denies the existence of sex tourism, the author observes that Russian women and Asian women from the Philippines and other countries are recruited for jobs in the United States, not finding out until too late that their real destination is the Northern Mariana Islands.

Once they arrive, their passports are seized by the crime syndicates.

The report cited complaints that the local government of the islands and U.S. officials obstructed investigations into the trafficking and sexual exploitation of women.

A source in the Marianas quoted by the report said “the local government has lobbied Republican members of the U.S. government at a cost of over 11 million dollars to prevent legislative intervention that would interfere with immigration and the manufacturing industries in the Northern Mariana Islands.

“As part of this effort, over 90 members of the House of Representatives and their families and aides had expensive paid trips to Saipan,” according to the IOM.

Trafficking of women has prospered in Russia for many reasons, including the huge profits to be made, corruption “at all levels” of the government and police force, and the reluctance of lawmakers to intervene, due partly to the fear of reprisals by organised crime syndicates.

The break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991 eliminated the majority of “the systems and infrastructures that provided social safety nets and a minimal standard of living for the Russian population,” the report points out.

The economic and institutional transition was characterised by heavy capital flight, while inflows of foreign investment slowed to a trickle.

The privatisation of industries and natural resources and the opening of the economy was carried out without the oversight of any regulatory body, Hughes noted.

Nor did the western governments or businesses that advised the Russian authorities suggest mechanisms for limiting or regulating the flow of resources from the state to the private sector, she added.

“For this reason, many commentators believe that the problematic transition in Russia has been in part the responsibility of western advisers who failed to understand the full context and ramifications of the transition,” said the author.

The result was economic instability and an increasingly impoverished population, said Hughes.

In 2000, nearly 60 million Russians, over 40 percent of the population, was living in poverty, she reported.

In the transition process, many women lost their jobs and their social status. That occurred in the context of a highly educated female population, one of the characteristics of Soviet society. In fact, educated women have been disproportionately affected by unemployment, said Hughes.

“Many women have few choices because they have become impoverished and find themselves devoid of options for jobs or means of survival. This is the plight of many women in poor rural and remote areas of Russia or those attempting to survive urban poverty,” the report underlined.

“In contrast to the deteriorating conditions in Russia, the people of Russia have been bombarded with images of glamour and wealth from the West by the media. Many Russians believe these images represent the average standard of living and way of life in the U.S. and Western Europe,” explained Hughes in the study released Friday by the IOM.

The “unregulated” transition provided fertile ground for the expansion of organised crime, she added.

In conclusion, the IOM study expresses hope that authorities in Russia, the United States, Western Europe and other areas will take action to curb the trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and children.