Recently I stumbled upon a collection of photographs from 1990s Moscow, taken as the city’s vice squad waged a mini crusade against the wave of women who turned to prostitution out of desperation in those grim years after the Soviet collapse. It’s not hard to understand why the city authorities were concerned. Prostitution reflects a deep-rooted social and cultural attitude towards women as sex objects who exist for men’s pleasure. And, as I have noted before, many prostitutes believe that they are providing a valuable service for their customers and so can justify their work on the basis of this belief. проститутки индивидуалки интимсити
But, as the images from this period show, prostitution was also about money. In fact, it was often the only way for women to make a living, especially in the cities and towns. Many of these women were not registered prostitutes, operating out of brothels, but instead roamed the streets or stayed in hotel rooms, sex workers who had to be constantly on the move to pick up their next client. And sex work was usually very illegal.
It was only after perestroika that a rethinking of the morality of commercial sex took place. But even then, as the Interdevochka character in the film shows, it was with an ambivalence that Russia approached the issue.
This is reflected in the fact that, as late as 1910, there were few instances in the official record when prostitutes spoke out themselves. One exception was the first All-Russia Congress on the Struggle against the Trade in Women in St. Petersburg, which, despite inviting a broad range of social activists involved in questions of prostitution (medical society representatives, government bureaucrats, university professors, feminists and temperance organizations), did not invite any actual prostitutes.
Even today, efforts to unionize sex workers face resistance from the state. For example, the Russian organization Silver Rose (Serebrianaia Roza) has made repeated attempts to register as an official ngo but has been blocked by the ministry of justice on the grounds that ‘sex worker’ is not a recognized profession.
The sex worker’s situation is also made all the worse by the widespread and well-documented practice of trafficking. Alternativa has reported on numerous instances of women being brought to Russia by pimps from other countries, often to be forced into prostitution. A Nigerian woman named Precious told The Moscow Times in September 2016 that on arrival in the country, a woman she met in Lagos confiscated her passport and kept her in an apartment with six other girls, telling her to earn $45,000 before she would be allowed to leave. Her mother ultimately committed suicide out of shame when she discovered her daughter’s employment.
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