The political exclusion and commodification of women - Environmental and Human Security in the Arctic - page 252

and the Soviet Union ceased to exist, the society was not prepared to face
the societal sexual problems, including those of trafficking in women and
prostitution.
Post USSR: the emergence of the problem with
respect to state policy
Since the democratic reforms starting in the early 1990s, Russia has become a
country where the transit, export and import of women is common, and ever
increasing (Tverdova 2011). After the fall of the Soviet Union, many people
regarded the opportunity to express their sexuality as the freedom to make
a personal choice and as a newly obtained right. They considered it to be an
essential aspect of the implementation of democracy: we are free to do what
we want to do. They accepted primarily a freedom as a right to be independ-
ent from the state and to be free of any imposed values (either democratic or
communist) in their actions. 'The liberalisation of moral attitudes, following
a period of relative Puritanism, may find women as well as men enjoying what
they see as newly won personal freedom' (Bridger et al . 1996:167).
This attitude of the vast majority of the population left almost no room for
addressing and solving the problem of trafficking in women. Rapid declines
in support, the impoverishment of the population, chaos and confusion in
ideals and no clear guidelines for appropriate behaviour have led to changes
in priorities. In January 1993, a report on young women and prostitution
appeared in the media: 'According to sociologists, in answer to the question,
“Which is the most attractive profession?” 60 per cent of Moscow female
school-leavers replied, “prostitution”' (Beliaev 1992, quoted by Bridger et al .
1996:174). Prostitution, especially that motivated by the desire to gain hard
currency, became an essential part of life for some women, and was viewed by
a society as a good possibility to make a lot of money. 'As the social climate
in Russia has become ever more oriented towards making money, by what-
ever means present themselves, becoming a prostitute could be viewed as an
entirely rational choice for a young woman to make' (Bridger et al . 1996:174).
Prostitution has become a widespread profession. Boris Panteleev , 2 in his
interview to the Russian BBC office, mentioned that, in post-reform Russia, a
new generation has grown up that does not consider prostitution to be a crime
or immoral action . 3
Authorities and bureaucrats have not grasped the magnitude of the prob-
lem as it has emerged. The 1999 survey by the MiraMed Institute stated
that because of the lack of interest from state authorities in the issue of traf-
ficking, the number of women trafficked from the CIS countries (Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, etc.) had exceeded the numbers
of women that were being trafficked from Asia (Preliminary survey report on
sexual trafficking in the CIS 1999). Three years later, a United States-based
researcher defined the same situation in the Russian Federation: