Ukrainian women dragged into prostitution in foreign lands (08/03/97)

Ukrainian women dragged into prostitution in foreign lands

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Lena thinks it is the opportunity of a lifetime. She has been invited to Italy to become a cabaret dancer. The 24-year-old believes that now she will have a chance to see the world and make real money.

Lena, who asked that we not use her surname, doesn't even want to consider that she is being set up by one of several organized crime syndicates that lure women to foreign lands illegally and then force them into prostitution.

"The guys I talked with were really nice. They are legitimate, I am sure," said the 25-year-old, dark-haired Kyivan.

She also is not bothered by the fact that she may have to enter Italy illegally, with a forged visa.

Lena is unemployed and has little hope for a job in Ukraine that pays enough to allow her to support herself comfortably. She is one of hundreds, if not thousands, of women who answer ads that run in shoppers' newspapers or who are approached at clubs by young, good-mannered males and deceived into believing a bright future lies before them in the "entertainment" industry. Others are simply attracted by offers of a good job in a country more economically stable than Ukraine.

"These are girls who have ambition, but no money and no job," explained Oleksander Akimov, assistant director of the Consular Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, who is in charge of emergency actions. "It is a huge temptation. They do not foresee what can happen to them."

Lena met two young men while working out at a local gym. They said they saw in her an undeveloped talent for dancing, a latent talent they suggested she should develop. They offered several dancing lessons and a job in Italy as a cabaret dancer afterwards.

Lena said she knows the danger exists that the offer is not on the up and up, but she feels confident that she can take care of herself. "I trust these people," she said.

Woman are increasingly turning up at consular offices in Italy, Greece and Turkey, the warm-climate countries where most of these young women are forced into prostitution, after having escaped from pimps who keep them locked them up in hotel rooms. "Around 60 to 70 percent are young women who are tricked into going there," said Mr. Akimov.

In the first three months of 1997 alone, 28 of the 36 Ukrainians expelled from Turkey had worked as prostitutes. Typically, the women are between the ages of 18 and 29 and accept proposals to work as dancers or in fashion boutiques. They are offered double or triple what they could make in Ukraine's stagnant economy and are given free transportation. "Illegal firms hire our women to work at stores, at bazaars, selling leather goods, jeans, whatnot. They are promised $600-$700 a month, which is not bad money and attracts our girls," said Mr. Akimov.

But once in the foreign country, the "nice people" who recruited them demand that the girls pay back the cost of the airline ticket and the hotel at which they have been staying. The horror begins when the girls can't cough up the cash.

"Their passports are taken from them, and they are taken to another hotel, or to other cities to work off their debt," explained Mr. Akimov. And that means prostitution.

"They are forced to live in a dirty hotel and work night and day," he continued. "They are afraid to leave the hotel without their documents."

The girls, invested with the Soviet notion that it is illegal to walk the streets of the city without documents, fear arrest and imprisonment by the government, and do not make overt efforts to escape, which their controllers use to their advantage. Mr. Akimov said that a type of brainwashing occurs. "The pimps tell the girl that she came into the country on an illegal visa, that she was working illegally. They tell her that if she is caught by the police she will be arrested and sent to jail, where she will die. They convince her that she is safest doing their bidding."

The biggest problem is that the girl in most cases doesn't realize that all she needs to do is go to the local police or to the Ukrainian Consulate. "But she has little access to the real world," explained Mr. Akimov. "She lives in a hotel and is watched by bodyguards. She is taken from hotel to hotel, from client to client."

The girls typically languish in slavery, while often sold to other pimps and moved to other countries, until they accept their fate, die of a sexual disease or, at times, escape.

"Usually, we are made aware of a problem by the parents of the girls," said Mr. Akimov. "They contact us because their child went on vacation, or to work in another country and hasn't returned or called."

Other times a girl calls home but gives little information of what she is doing, or where she is. "She may say that she is fine, and then turn the conversation to what is going on in Ukraine," explained Mr. Akimov, which leaves parents concerned and moves them to call the Consular Division.

When a report is received by the Consular Division, local officials are contacted in the country where the girl was to have traveled. Investigations rarely turn up much. In a tourist mecca like Istanbul, with a population of more than 7 million and 2,000 hotels, finding one girl is an impossible task.

A girl's only real hope for freedom is to run. Usually, a girl escapes with the help of a bodyguard who has become infatuated with her or due to the carelessness of a pimp who has grown to trust her.

When she finally turns up at a police station or at the Ukrainian Consulate, she is given food and documents and is transported home; the costs are covered by the Ukrainian government.

She is also debriefed and, if she can identify where she was imprisoned, the hotel is raided.

Other times the woman is not even that lucky. A day after an interview with The Weekly, Mr. Akimov informed this correspondent that the previous evening, two Ukrainian women aged 42 and 36 were found dead, shot in the head, in Istanbul. According to Mr. Akimov, their pimp is the prime suspect.

Mr. Akimov emphasized that not every offer of a job in a foreign country means trouble. "Don't get me wrong, there are girls who are recruited to work in legitimate cabarets or even in exotic dance clubs, shake a little every evening and make good, honest money. But the legitimacy of such proposals is very evident."

Others find good work as waitresses, as salespersons and as professionals. However, his advice for those girls who seek to better their financial picture by working in a foreign country remains: don't do it. If the individual is determined to go than he recommends that the girl, "consider the proposal 100 times and research it 300 times before she makes her decision."

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