EDITORIAL: Ukraine's commodities market (08/09/98)

EDITORIAL

Ukraine's commodities market

Not land, not coal, not iron ore, not wheat - one of Ukraine's most coveted commodities is people: women for sex; children for foreign adoption; men for cheap menial labor. The exploitation of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians in foreign lands is one of those off-the-books expenses of the current economic crisis in Ukraine. Tired of the economic degradation at home, in dozens of ways they leave Ukraine, hoping for a better life, but more often than not getting trapped in more degradation abroad.

The exploitation of women from Ukraine, Russia, Moldova and Belarus as prostitutes and "sex slaves" in Europe, Asia and the Middle East has recently been receiving increased attention. Participants of a recent anti-trafficking program held in New Jersey explained that the combination of Ukraine's deep economic crisis, sudden political freedom, geographic proximity to Europe and the Middle East, and general naiveté of its young women have dovetailed to produce an environment of need and vulnerability that is exploited for great profit by international sex rings.

In Ukraine, a young women's degree of susceptibility to a sex scam runs the range. There's complete naiveté (I was told I would be a secretary in a joint venture.), or complete vulnerability (the sadly true story of an high-school-age orphan girl, whose parents had been Chornobyl clean-up workers, accompanied to Poland by a relative whom she trusted, forced into prostitution) or complete trust (Mama! My new boyfriend is so nice! He has money! He says he'll take me to Turkey for a vacation!).

There are those who indulge in self-delusion (So what if I have to dance topless? I have no job, no money. Maybe I'll have to sleep around some, but it won't be that bad), or wistful rationalization (I won't have to become a prostitute, because I paid a fee in advance to get a job as a waitress; since the agency already has my money, they can't make me sleep with men to pay off debt.). There are those who travel out with intent (I have an offer to work this summer as a prostitute at a Black Sea resort; nobody in this family has been paid in six months; somebody has to make some money.). However, none of these women expect to be lured out under false pretenses, or to be held captive and forced to have sex against their will for months, even years, on end.

Threatened with physical abuse and harm to their families in Ukraine, the girls don't run. Another reason is the fear that, without documents, they risk jail. They doubt the police will help (in most Arab countries they won't). They usually don't know the language, they have no money. The heavily guarded bordellos are in dangerous or remote areas in cities with which they are unfamiliar.

Ukrainian government reaction to this problem of trafficking of women from Ukraine has been slow and mixed. International organized crime rings coordinate this trade in human flesh, and the Ukrainian government crackdown on these organizers has been minimal to date - whether out of impotence or unwillingness or ignorance is unclear. Ukraine's foreign affairs minister, Borys Tarasyuk, at a recent appearance at the National Press Club in Washington, relegated the issue to the level of a criminal problem, distancing it from the arena of international relations.

However, last winter, his ambassador in Washington, Dr. Yuri Shcherbak, appealed at the highest levels of the U.S. government for assistance in resolving this situation. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke of the crime of trafficking of women during her visit to Lviv last November, and in March of this year President Bill Clinton announced U.S. initiatives to help Ukraine stem the trafficking problem.

With the passage of the new criminal law in Ukraine aimed at traffickers, with increased international attention, support and funding, as well as efforts to raise public awareness in Ukraine about the problem, we can only expect the Ukrainian government to more intensively pursue its responsibility to protect its people.

Kateryna Levchenko of LaStrada-Ukraine warns, however, of a potential solution: to simply not give travel visas to young women from Ukraine - an enforcement that will punish the young women, instead of going after the criminals. Even if governments go after the criminals, crackdown on the scum that profit from the trade in human flesh is only part of the solution. Economic opportunity is critical.

Ukrainian women risk degradation and exploitation because they need to make money. Poverty and its companion, despair, motivate the exodus. Economic opportunity and success are the best antidotes to trafficking of women. However, many Ukrainians no longer hold out hope. Ukrainian's quiet fears - that Ukraine and its people will get sucked dry to fuel the success of other countries, that economic stability will always elude Ukraine - can still be averted. But much of the responsibility for success is in the hands of the government and the new business elite. Not just shrewd, but courageous, leadership is necessary. Ukraine still waits for its Washington.