aaus-list @ ukrainianstudies.org -- [aaus-list] 'NATASHA' TRADE

[Taras Kuzio <t.kuzio@utoronto.ca>]

RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
___________________________________________________________
RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 6, No. 168, Part II, 6 September 2002



END NOTE

THE 'NATASHA TRADE'

By Taras Kuzio 

The Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (OMCTP), established
within the U.S. State Department in October 2001, estimated in its second
annual 
report released in June that between 700,000 to 4 million women, men, and
children have been "bought, sold, transported, and held against their will
in 
slave-like conditions." Although this figure includes forced labor, the
majority 
of these slaves are sex slaves.
    Poor socioeconomic prospects in their own countries are the main reason
why so many women migrate abroad from postcommunist Europe. Between 60-70
percent of the unemployed in Russia and Ukraine are women, who tend to be
paid 
less than men and are usually the first to be dismissed from jobs.
    The sex-slave trade, which has been given the name the "Natasha Trade,"
is 
more than a human story of modern-day slavery. It generates huge profits for
organized crime -- some $83 million a month in Italy alone. It also breeds
corruption among state officials involved in collusion in the trade, and
destroys morale among peacekeepers who are accused of complicity in, and use
of 
the sex slave trade, in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosova. Many sex slaves
are 
sexually underage, orphans, the children of divorced marriages, or runaways
fleeing abusive parents.
    The sex trade also breeds violence and murder. Only "a tiny percent of
those 'sold' manage to return home alive," a Dnipropetrovsk prosecutor's
office 
investigator said. With their passports confiscated, the sex slaves have no
form 
of identification, are sold on to different clients, subjected to torture,
and 
deprived of food and sleep. But if they become physically ill and mentally
traumatized they are no longer of any use to their traffickers.
    The sex trade also contributes to the spread of sexually transmitted
diseases. Some sex slaves turn to, or are given, drugs to keep them pliant,
thereby increasing the number of drug users. Drug users, in turn, are a
major 
source of the spread of AIDS because they often share needles. Sex slaves
who 
have managed to escape and return home are also a source of sexually
transmitted 
diseases as they were often raped and forced to have sex without protection.
The 
trade also spreads AIDS in the countries where the sex slaves are held
against 
their will. Turkish officials and the media have blamed "Natashas" for the
rising incidence of AIDS in that country. The reluctance of rural Turkish
men to 
use condoms means they often pass on sexually transmitted diseases to their
wives. 
    The AIDS epidemic is growing faster in the former USSR than anywhere
else 
in the world, and the region has become second only to Africa with 250,000
persons infected last year alone. Although Ukraine has the highest rate of
AIDS 
infection in postcommunist Europe, with 1 percent of the adult population
estimated to have HIV, this was ignored until November 2000 when a
presidential 
decree adopted a three-year program.
    A recent BBC news report described the Ukrainian port of Odesa as the
"AIDS capital of Europe," and AIDS is developing in Ukraine as fast as in
Africa. Dr. Aleksandr Sidyachenko, head of prevention and treatment of
infectious diseases for the Odesa Oblast health authority, admitted that "We
are 
witnessing the beginning of the AIDS epidemic [in Ukraine]."
    Of the 27 postcommunist countries, Ukraine, Russia, Moldova, and Romania
are the main source of sex slaves. The second OMCTP annual report found that
in 
Moldova, new amendments to the Criminal Code that were adopted in April have
yet 
to lead to any convictions. Similar amendments imposing penalties for human
trafficking went into effect in Ukraine in September 2001. Both countries
are 
classified as "Tier 2" by the OMCTP, meaning they have begun to attempt to
deal 
with the problem of trafficking of women. Meanwhile, in Russia, there is
still 
no legislation against sex-slave trafficking and the country "is not making
significant efforts to" undertake any action. Russia is therefore classified
as 
"Tier 3" by the OMCTP.
    The transit countries for the trafficked women are Albania and the
former 
Yugoslavia. The major destinations for the "Natasha Trade" are Germany,
Italy 
(half of its 50,000 prostitutes are East Europeans), Turkey, Israel, the
United 
States, and the United Arab Emirates.
    In Israel, Amnesty International reported that 10,000 women from the
former USSR became sex slaves in the last decade and until recently the
authorities were reluctant to prosecute those involved. In August 2000, four
Ukrainian sex slaves died in a brothel in Tel Aviv after an arsonist,
suspected 
of being from an extremist ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect, set it ablaze.
Between 
100,000-150,000 women are sold as mail-order brides to Israel each year, an
industry that generates $17 billion annually. Some of these women end up as
sex 
slaves. 
    Ukraine not only has the highest rate of AIDS infection in Europe, it
has 
eclipsed Latin America as the leading source of trafficked women. The 14
August 
edition of the Ukrainian parliamentary newspaper "Holos Ukrayny" reported on
the 
breakup of a gang that had sent women to the United Arab Emirates and been
paid 
$2,000 for each girl. In the last three years, 125 criminal cases have been
instituted in Ukraine against persons accused of the "unlawful employment of
Ukrainian citizens abroad."
    According to "Holos Ukrayiny," 120,000 young Ukrainian women were
trafficked last year alone and a total of nearly half a million in recent
years. 
The International Organization for Migration estimates a higher figure of 1
million Ukrainians abroad who are in danger of being forced into becoming
sex 
slaves. In the brothels of Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Italy, Greece,
and 
Spain, an average of 10 percent of the women are from Ukraine. In the
Netherlands an estimated one-third of the prostitutes are believed to be
from 
Ukraine, while in Greece, the term "waitress" has become synonymous for a
Ukrainian woman engaged in prostitution, either voluntarily or as a sex
slave. 

Dr. Taras Kuzio is a resident fellow at the Centre for Russian and East
European Studies and adjunct staff in the Department of Political Science,
University of Toronto.


------ End of Forwarded Message