Number of CIS women in prostitution increasing

by Special Correspondent
March 2, 2010

http://www.weeklyblitz.net/566/number-of-cis-women-in-prostitution-increasing

The collapse of the Soviet Union created an area of new states without structures to control borders and no resources to arrange proper management of migration flows. This opened a corridor for uncontrolled transit migration from East and South East Asia, Africa, South Asia, and Middle East through the CIS countries towards Central and Western Europe. The end of a government run economy and state social system resulted in mass unemployment, poverty and large-scale migration. The difficult economic transition has hit women especially hard raising their share of the unemployed as high as to 80 per cent of all unemployed in e.g. Ukraine. These conditions have created a market for traffickers and smugglers in migrants and especially women who are transported to Western Europe, to the Balkans, to South East Asia and North America.

Trafficking in women is an attractive enterprise for criminals because the profits are high and the risks are low, compared with the trade in drugs or arms. For decades the main sending countries were Thailand and the Philippines. The collapse of the Soviet Union has opened up a pool of millions of women from which traffickers can now recruit. An estimated 175,000 persons are trafficked from Central and Eastern

Europe [CEE] and the CIS annually, that is up to 25 per cent of the 700,000 to 2 million persons trafficked around the world every year.

In the sex industry markets today, the most popular and valuable women are Slavic. The CEE and the CIS account for the fastest growing segment of trafficked persons in the OSCE region. The OSCE found "a connection between trafficking and the dislocations associated with economic transition, especially increases in female poverty and unemployment." Currently, over 60 per cent of the population of the Kyrgyz Republic earn less than $7 per month. The location of the Central Asian states, between the main destination countries in East Asia and the Middle East, make them an ideal recruitment area for traffickers. The Kyrgyz Republic is an attractive prospect for traffickers for several reasons. It is geographically convenient for criminal groups in China and South Asia and currently has gaps in its legislation, law enforcement and border control capabilities. It is already a primary route for the illicit drug trade from South Asia to the West and has an organized criminal network that could easily be exploited to traffic people. Notwithstanding the potential for traffickers to utilize Kyrgyzstan as a transit country from countries in east Asia and south Asia, it is also understood that the country may serve as a source of trafficked migrants both within the CIS and outside the CIS borders. There is growing concern in the Kyrgyz Republic that the trafficking of migrants, particularly women and children, is increasing. The International Committee on the Rights of the Child stated there is insufficient data and a lack of awareness of the phenomena of commercial sexual exploitation of women and children in Kyrgyzstan. Several articles in the media have raised public awareness over the past two years without giving an indication of the scale of the problem.

Many trafficked women are lured with promises of jobs as waitresses, dancers or hotel workers, but even those who know that they would end up in prostitution have been overwhelmed by the forceful coercion, limitation of freedom and physical and psychological violence that the criminal groups are using in forcing the women to earn money for their "owners" in sex work. Often the women are sold many times

from bar owners to others. It is therefore with justification that the trafficking in women has been called the modern slave trade.

UAE:

In the heart of the Middle East resort where a young engaged British couple were jailed for sex outside marriage we found the law turning a blind eye to Arab locals bedding an army of prostitutes.

At the swanky Hyatt Regency hotel, amid families on sunshine breaks, Russian brunette Irena - tottering in high heels and skimpy black dress, propositioned our man:

"Do you want to make sex with me? I can go back to your room. Give you best price." Irene said.

Beneath Dubai's veneer of tough Islamic morality, is a sordid world of vice not just tolerated, but exploited, by its wealthy two-faced elite.

This week, as fury raged over the 23-year-old British rape victim who was locked up with her fiancé for daring to sleep together, we saw the hypocrisy of Dubai's sex industry in full flow.

The old town's Broadway Hotel nightspot La Piazza was packed with dozens of scantily-clad vice girls from all over the world.

After paying the £17 entrance fee our investigators walked beneath framed photographs of United Arab Emirates rulers into the club. Inside hookers lined the bar waiting to be summoned to join robed locals at their tables. Bottles of beer and spirits were covered with white napkins in a farcical effort to hide the consumption of alcohol.

As Western pop music boomed from a huge plasma TV Turkish madam Ayesha sidled up and bragged: "I have the best girls - best for sex. Look round and take your pick. It's £250 for the whole night or, if you want a quick one, gets a room upstairs and its only £85."

Across the room, two punters threw punches as they squabbled over an Iranian hooker before being hauled apart by a doorman. An Arab alongside us said:

"Why are they fighting when there are so many beautiful girls here to f***?"

As a stream of men headed off to their rooms with vice girls, Ayesha brought us Russian brunette Katrina and a curvy Turkish hooker called Aliya.

The hotels are not involved in the vice but our men paid them £101 for a room, handed Ayesha £170 for the girls and went upstairs.

Katrina, 23, detailed the sex services on offer and told us she works from 9 pm to 3 am. "Arab men are very naughty." she said. "I make them very happy."

Aliya, from Istanbul, added: "Some girls like me work for Ayesha but others find their own customers here. It's £50 extra for sex without condoms." We declined the girls' offers saying we were worried about breaking the law.

But Aliya replied: "Drinking and vice IS illegal because Dubai is a Muslim country but here you have no problems, you are safe.

"The police allow it. Many of our customers are top people from the police and important people in Dubai.

"None of us girls have proper papers but they allow us to work here no problem." If the authorities stop turning a blind eye the girls face being flogged or stoned to death.

But the rules ARE enforced on British holidaymakers. In July 2008 Michelle Palmer and Vince Acors, both 36, were caught romping on a sunbed and given three-month suspended prison sentences.

A shopping mall sign decrees: "No kissing or overt displays of affection." Alongside is a warning not to hold hands! But not far away, at the Hyatt Regency hotel's Premier nightclub, we found - unknown to the management - the world's biggest sex-for-sale market.

On three successive nights, our reporters paid the £25 admission and watched more than 100 girls from Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia and China propositioning local men eager to whisk them home or to nearby hotel rooms. Blonde Natasha from Belarus told us: "It's from £250 for the whole night depending on the girl, as much sex as you can manage."

Clutching a Chanel handbag, Laila from Uzbekistan said: "I was taken from Premier club by one Arab to his flat and then he kidnapped me. He locked the door and kept me there for three nights. He raped me again and again and did dirty sex with me. I finally escaped while he was asleep."

Her friend Lisa, from Turkey, added: "Most of us girls here don't have visas so the local men know they can take advantage and abuse us.

"I am a Muslim and a bad one, but these men are worse."

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