Of no little irony is the fact that while African Americans are demanding reparations for the period of American slavery; the followers of their common ancestors on the Dark Continent are continuing the same inhumane practise.
A new form of slavery has emerged since the fall of the Soviet Union - the sexual exploitation of women and children from Russia. Last week’s Estonian Life leader emphasized that according to an UN agency, UNAIDS, AIDS is raging rampant in Russia and Central Europe. New information about the sex trade adds to an already disturbing trend.
Last Friday, a study authored by Donna Hughes was released by the International Organisation of Migration (IOM). Hughes (who lives in Moscow, and has first-hand access to the problem) believes that the trafficking of women is “easily tolerated” by Russian authorities. The author describes the new sex trade as a “growing and dangerous phenomenon throughout the Russian federation.”
The IOM report says that the trafficking of Russian women is a multi-billion dollar business that involves at least 43 countries, including (no surprise here) most Western European countries as well as Canada and the United States. Apparently, no one is able to put even an estimated figure forward as to how many women and children from the territories of the former Soviet Union are being peddled like so much flesh across the globe. The U.S State Department estimated five years ago, in 1997, that there were then at least 100,000 people enchained by the sex trade.
According to the report a top destination for enslaved women is the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific Ocean, a U.S. territory. The capital, Saipan, is a hotspot for the euphemistic “sex tourist”, catering, not really surprisingly, to the Japanese, drawn to “exotic’ women. The study states that while Russians are preferred, Asian women are also recruited, ostensibly for domestic jobs in the United States. When they arrive in the Marianas, as a stop-off point en route, their passports are confiscated by the criminal syndicates, in effect enslaving the women. Hughes claims that local as well as U.S. officials have obstructed investigations into the claims of women being sexually exploited. Trafficking of women has prospered in Russia, for the most basic of all reasons - there are huge profits to be made. Anyone who has watched a so-called American newsmagazine television program in the last five years has certainly been exposed to the fraud involved in the Russian “mail-order bride” business. The prostitution described by the IOM is a step further. The explanation given for the fact that dealing in people can even take place is the incredible corruption within all levels of Russian government, and police forces that are routinely and easily bribed to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the pleas of family and friends.
While the problem is known in Russia, it is also one that is difficult to take care of. The primary reason is the desire of so many people to seek a better life in the West. The population in the former Soviet Union is becoming increasingly impoverished - according to the report nearly 60 million Russians, or over 40% of the poplation were living in poverty in 2000. This at a time when the head of the Yukoil energy concern is a multi-billionaire (in US greenbacks), earning an estimated $200 million US per annum. Russians are bombarded with images of glamour and wealth from the West by the media, notes Hughes. Many Russians “believe these images represent the average standard of living and way of life in the U.S. and western Europe”, explains the author. She feels strongly that the unregulated economic transition from communism to an oligarchic form of capitalism is to blame. Many women lost their jobs and social status in the transition process - this in the context of a highly educated female population, one of the few laudable characteristics of Soviet society. These women have few choices other than seeking employment abroad. The situation is magnified in rural and poor urban areas.
The IOM study expresses hope that authorities in Russia and the West will take action to curb this trend. To which a pessimistic response must be given. Consider what is happening in Canada - most notably in Toronto, where the Russian Mafia has established strong roots. Russian “escort” services are popular, but do not expect to find them listed in the Yellow Pages - word of mouth serves best here, such as on a construction site.
And insofar as the spread of sexually transmitted disease goes, consider the following. The identity neutral (anonymity assured) walk-in sexual disease clinics in Toronto are seeing young Russian teenagers coming in for treatment of syphilis and gonorrhea, genital herpes. Interchangeable in their garb with other teenagers, wearing the same provocative skin-tight jeans and flimsy tops, their identity is revealed when they speak among themselves. Hearing Russian spoken in public places in Toronto is becoming more and more common, one wonders how many of these young women are here legally, and whether or not they are enslaved to a criminal syndicate. According to the IOM study the problem is far greater than lonely bachelors in the United States being bilked and hoodwinked in the mail-order bride business. Trafficking in women and the sexual exploitation of children is a global problem, and because of the clout of Russian criminals the West has not dedicated the necessary resources to halting, never mind curbing a most disturbing trend.
One also wonders, if the new Canadian immigration requirements will stem the flow of newcomers from Russia - for it is certain that the new restrictions must apply to them as well. Or are there conditions of corruption here as well? This is said with view of the fact, that south of the border Russians are rivalling Mexicans these days in illegal immigrant numbers - once in the USA it is quite simple to disappear, especially into a ghetto of one’s own people. Whatever the outcome, the Russian influence on society and crime is far stronger now, a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, than it ever was during the Cold War.