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Poverty, Prostitution, and Trafficking
- The Feminist Press
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124 P over ty, Prostitutio n, and Trafficking Elvir a Novikova, Russian Federation In 1986, I was a professional researcher at the Trade Union Research Center in Moscow, responsible, as Chief of the Section, for studying issues concerning working women. In that capacity I had prepared a variety of documents for the United Nations and the International Labour Organization (ILO); I had taken part in the Second and Third UN World Conferences on Women in Copenhagen (1980) and Nairobi (1985), as well as the ILO Session (1981), which adopted the Workers with Family Responsibilities Convention.1 When the Ministry of Foreign Affairs approached me to propose that I be nominated for membership in the CEDAW Committee, I was quite surprised but also interested. Thus, I became a CEDAW member in 1987. During my four years of work in the Committee, I often asked myself a question to which I still have no real answer even today: Do we discuss the country report of the respective State Party or the real status of women in that country? Clearly, governments always try to present the best picture. But understanding the actual situation is more important, and, in my experience, the Committee always tried to make a real impact on the situation of women in the country under discussion. One of the means through which this can be achieved is to study additional materials provided by various organizations and specialized UN agencies and by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Such information was and is particularly helpful with regard to the exploitation of women in prostitution and the trafficking of women, both prohibited by Article 6 of the CEDAW Convention. In this essay I want to explore these topics, which are of an international nature, from a Russian point of view. I will first point out the negative impact on women of the economic reforms in Russia, which have forced them legally and illegally to migrate for work, often falling prey to trafficking, mostly in the sex industry. Second, I will highlight the elements of the recruitment processes and the trade routes for trafficked women. Third, I will discuss legal measures to deal with these criminal phenomena. Lastly, I will make some recommendations to the CEDAW poverty, prostitution, and trafficking l 125 Committee on dealing with the issues of women’s exploitation in prostitution and trafficking under Article 6 of the Convention. Gender Dimensions of Russian Reforms: Creating Conditions for Human Trafficking Since the dissolution of the USSR in late 1991 and the establishment of a new state—the Russian Federation—radical changes have taken place in the country. These have strongly affected the daily routine of people’s lives, their moral values, common perceptions, and life strategies, as well as social norms in general (Russian Academy of Sciences 2002). The evolution of market relationships, privatization of property, economic restructuring, and changes in the social sphere, as well as other changes associated with the transition period, have affected the status of women and men in different ways. They have also generated a variety of acute problems, including the sexual exploitation of women and human trafficking —phenomena that are strongly contextualized, i.e. dependent upon the general social and economic situation (International Labour Organization 2005, 74–78). Studying the context allows for a better understanding of the genesis and evolution of these phenomena in modern times, their incorporation into the existing economic and social order, and the potential implications of their escalation. It also permits the development of effective measures to combat them. In analyzing the transformations in Russia as they affect women (who make up 53 percent of the population), one can make the generalization that women’s adaptation to the new realities is fraught with disproportionately high cost (Pachi 2003, XIV). These realities include low pay, unemployment, and increasing poverty; rising crime; violence and the threat of violence; immigration and prostitution ; and illegal migration and international human trafficking. Poverty Following radical changes in the employment structure, Russian women (whose share in the labor force amounts to 49 percent) now prevail in the lowest-paid sectors of the economy (textile and food industries, health care, and education). Reforms have increased the gap in growth rates between salaries in the so-called “nonproductive” female-dominated spheres of the economy and average growth rates of salaries in the economy at large. Horizontal (interdepartmental) gender segregation adds to predominant vertical (intradepartmental) employment practices; women receive lower wages in all sectors of the economy, both in those where they are...