Why Russia doesn't need "legalization of prostitution"

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

There is no legislative definition of the concept, but there is punishment - this is the paradox of Article 6.11 "Prostitution" of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation. Coda explores why experts are allergic to the phrase “legalizing prostitution” and explains what is happening in Berlin, where sex work is legal.

Elena grew up in a Polish province and has been living in Germany for over 20 years. She is 42 years old and very tall. She has a well-groomed face without makeup and almost without wrinkles, a gray-blue short fur coat and two affectionate white lapdogs. “Mom and daughter,” Elena smiles.

Elena worked in the sex industry in the past, and occasionally does a part-time job now, but "only for regular clients." For the past 5-6 years, she has had a "normal, normal" job as a waitress in a cafe. She likes to meet new people, communicate, she goes to work with pleasure. She doesn't like the area, but now she has to live here, "because it is difficult to find an apartment with two dogs."

I ask Elena why she did sex work.

- You will die laughing now.

When I was 16, I was firmly convinced that I wanted to be a prostitute.

I cannot explain why this is so, but I really chose this job because I liked it. I cannot explain it otherwise.

I'm not laughing. I ask her if she thinks that this is related to the search for her own identity.

- No, not at all. It has nothing to do with it. Generally.

I wonder why Elena stopped working as a prostitute. He says he doesn't want any more.

- I'd rather go to gastronomy. I earn my 70-80 euros per night, everything is calm and nothing bothers me.

Elena is a transgender woman from the Polish province, we met in Berlin on the street when she was walking the dogs. Her parents and sister live in Poland. She is not going to return there, at least not yet: according to her, it is boring and there is nothing but vegetable gardens and grocery stores.

- What should I do there, grow tulips?

Germany has two laws on prostitution. One of them is new, it has been in effect since July 1, 2017 and is called "On the Protection of People Employed in Prostitution." It contains legal definitions of basic terms, including the concept of "prostitution". Those who do it do not hesitate to say the word, activists and aid workers prefer to talk about "sex work." This is the term used by the UN, the world health organization WHO, the human rights organization Amnesty International. WHO defines prostitution as “providing sexual services for money or goods”.

Why do people engage in "prostitution"?

It is estimated that there are millions of people in Russia who are engaged in activities without definition and regulation, making money and raising children. The Ministry of Internal Affairs in 2013 counted 1 million people, the chairman of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation Valery Zorkin back in 2007 called the figure at 4.5 million citizens.

Economic reasons rank first among motivations for sex work

The director of the St. Petersburg movement of sex workers and activists "Silver Rose" Irina Maslova speaks about 3 million. The figure of 3 million, Maslova says, was calculated by analogy with Japan according to a complex scheme with a discount on living conditions in Russia and the lack of full-fledged social support from the state. The Silver Rose Foundation follows the path of the world community and uses the term “sex work”. Maslova assures: in St. Petersburg there are now about 40-45 thousand "workers", and in Moscow there are "three times more, under 150 thousand."

The main reasons why people do this work are, contrary to popular beliefs and myths, not slavery or "love of art" at all, but a lack of means for a living. The authors of International Approaches to Prostitution, published in 2006 by the University of Chicago Press, or a 2014 study by German sociologists and social workers, Prostitution in Germany: A Professional Review of the Challenging Challenges, highlight many reasons why people have sex. work: in the first place - economic or socio-economic reasons. This is also the opinion of the "Silver Rose".

“We may be wrong, but no one has proved the opposite to me,” Maslova says.

“As a rule, there is no one there who does this out of love for the profession,” laughs Kirill Barsky, head of programs at the Charitable Public Foundation for the Fight against AIDS “Steps”.

According to him, there are 5-10% of people who have been involved in the industry and are forcibly detained, and it is precisely with such cases that law enforcement officers are more or less successfully fighting.

According to both Russian and foreign experts, the majority go to the sex industry in order to simply get money, which, for a number of reasons, cannot earn otherwise, or want to earn quickly. Russian experts say that there are about 90-95% of such people.

According to the program coordinator of the Safe House Foundation and an expert in the problem of human trafficking, Veronica Antimonik, people most often fall into the sphere “from socially unprotected groups, from disadvantaged families, with insufficient or absent social support, with a low standard of living, with inadequate education. and difficulties in finding employment to support other family members and victims of violence."

Maslova confirms that the matter is in "the absence of social protection, support and prospects":

“Where will this young girl who did not go to college go? For a salary of 7 thousand in your small town? It is, in fact, a social doom."

Antimonik continues: “The graduates of orphanages and boarding schools are especially vulnerable - one in three girls is involved in prostitution within a year after graduation. Visiting women are very vulnerable, especially from other countries. In our opinion, the reasons are always associated with some kind of vulnerability."

Visiting women in a foreign city or country are especially vulnerable. According to Maslova, in St. Petersburg, out of 40-45 thousand sex workers, only 30% are St. Petersburg women. “Everything else is newcomers, internal and external migrants,” Maslova says. Internal and external migrants are girls, boys and transgender people from the near abroad and the Russian hinterland. Maslova believes that if prices continue to rise and the ruble exchange rate falls, it will get even worse.

- Several economic crises passed before my eyes. And I understand that the crisis that is taking place in the state, this vulnerability of a woman pushes her into sex work.

- Do you want to say that now there are more people in this area than in the last 5-10 years?

- If the situation starts to deteriorate now, then more will come. Someone leaves, but someone comes.

The average age of a sex worker in St. Petersburg is 32-34 years. These are not young 18 year old girls.

In addition, according to Maslova, when people agree to such work, they do not always understand what they are going for and what they will have to face.

Now in Moscow, sex work, according to Maslova's estimates, can earn 150-200 thousand rubles a month, but with high costs: paying for a rented apartment for work, advertising that costs "big money", money for medicine, beauty salons, lingerie, condoms.

“Most often this is a much smaller amount and for people it is very difficult emotionally - there are many consequences: a person begins to cut social ties, because he has to lie, the process of self-destruction begins. Plus stigma, condemnation,”says the director of the Silver Rose.

6.11

In the perestroika film "Intergirl" there is a scene in a hotel police station, in which plainclothes officers interrogate the girls detained at the hotel and empty the contents of their handbags on the table. When the heroine Lyubov Polishchuk says that there is no warrant for a search, the policeman decides to “issue her to the police station” for “staying at the Intourist Hotel after 11 pm in a state of intoxication”. And he adds - they say, if he was "armed with the law against prostitution," the girls would be isolated.

The film by Pyotr Todorovsky was released in 1989, 30 years have passed, but little has changed in Russian legislation since then. The police are still not "armed" by law - Article 6.11 of the Administrative Offenses Code of the Russian Federation consists of one sentence: "Engaging in prostitution shall entail the imposition of an administrative fine in the amount of one thousand five hundred to two thousand rubles."

In fact, this is the same “crime” as crossing the street in the wrong place or smoking under the sign “no smoking”.

There is no legal definition of prostitution in the law, and the rights of millions of people employed in the field of activity, the definition of which does not exist, are not protected or ensured in any way.

Maslova says that Article 6.11 "gives rise to a huge wave of violence against men, women, transgender people who provide sexual services." Maslova means extortion and torture in police departments - it is only in the movies that the police are kind, in reality everything is different.

“You see, if robbery, murder, violence, extortion, illegal detention can be allowed in relation to one category of people, one social group of people, then sooner or later it will spread to everyone else,” Maslova says. -

And you can do the same with respect to detainees, knocking out testimonies.

You can rape men in the same way, stuffing them with various objects … remember the Dalniy police station."

In March 2012, 52-year-old Sergei Nazarov, a local resident detained on a fraudulent theft charge, died at the Dalniy police station in Kazan after he was raped by police with a champagne bottle.

Maslova believes that these are links in one chain: "This cruelty, violence, aggression - if you can behave like a policeman, then why shouldn't everyone else?"

Barsky agrees with her - the point is not even in Article 6.11 itself, but in the fact that it creates the preconditions for the creation of large-scale criminal structures. Police officers "arrange lawlessness", there are frequent cases of violence by "crazy clients", in which the victims cannot even report to the police, because they do not take statements from them. Maslova gives a typical conversation in the police:

“Why didn't you know where you were going? You are a prostitute, what are you talking about? She's a fool herself - she's gone, she's a fool, she's to blame. '

In St. Petersburg, the case with the participation of the nationalist and former boxer Vyacheslav Datsik is well remembered: in May 2016, he burst into one of the brothels, made people completely undress with threats, and in this form led them barefoot through the streets. Datsik was convicted, but on February 25, 2019, the court of appeal released him.

Article 6.11 has other consequences as well, they hit not directly at sex workers, but at their children and relatives: data on all offenses, even minor and administrative ones, of any citizen of the Russian Federation are stored in the database of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. “If there is an article“for engaging in prostitution”, then the children of this person will not be able to work in the civil service, they will not be able to serve, as they say,“high”. Of course, they will take them into the army - they all take us into the army. But as far as further advancement is concerned, it will be impossible,”says Barskiy.

Human rights activists believe that it is too early to talk about the "legalization of prostitution" in Russia.

First, you need to cancel 6.11 and try to at least start to competently apply the existing laws.

And only then discuss what to do next.

“As soon as this article is removed, our entire criminal structure will begin to collapse. And she's huge. She's colossal. And first of all, certain power structures and many others, criminal bodies and so on, are interested in it,”said the representative of the“Steps”foundation. He is sure that the cancellation of the article will radically change the world of a huge number of people, while there will be no negative impact on society.

Maslova says this: now girls pay only to the police, and in case of legalization, they will have to pay "firemen, sanitary inspection, district, tax and police."

“The presence of this Article 6.11 for engaging in prostitution in the Administrative Code is a very big corruption trap,” she states, and calls for action “step by step” - first, stop raids and abolish Article of the Administrative Code, including because “the state has no right to interfere with the sex life of adult citizens. It is adults, she emphasizes, that she considers the existing punishment for pedophilia insufficient; in Maslova's opinion, it should be much tougher.

“We are talking about sex work in a very strict framework - this is a person over 18 years old who voluntarily provides sexual services to another person over 18 years old. Voluntarily and without coercion,”she says, stressing that coercion into this activity must be fought by force.

Sex services “have been, are and will be” always, states Barsky

“At all times of civilization, they have existed, whether we like it or not. As the saying goes, if you cannot deal with a problem, then you have to accept it and start working with it, soberly assess it,”he concludes.

What a legal business looks like

In the 30 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, and with it the Berlin Wall, in Germany, unlike in Russia, a lot has changed - not one law was passed, but two. Nevertheless, representatives of the German professional sex industry for money react to the phrase "legalization of prostitution" in about the same way as Russian ones. But for completely different reasons.

Former mistress of a brothel in Berlin, sex worker and activist Felicitas Shirov says this: prostitution in Germany has always been legal, the first law "On Prostitution" came into force in 2002 and, from a legal point of view, equated prostitution with a service, although taxes on a woman's earnings paid before. The difference with the situation in the past was that in 2002 sex work was recognized as a professional activity, women had more self-confidence. The disadvantage of the law, she considers the fact that it was not brought into line with other legislative norms and they came into conflict with each other.

According to her, later in the public discussion there was a statement that most women are forced to work in prostitution.

He was supported, among other things, by journalist and feminist activist Alice Schwarzer.

“She claimed that 90% of women are forced to work in prostitution. However, she did not give a definition of what coercion is. We can say that the one who works for economic reasons, he also works under duress. But everyone who goes to work does this,”says Shirov.

Then a discussion began in the public space of Germany, ardent defenders of women appeared, advocating the prohibition of prostitution. Maslova calls such people "abolitionists." This led to the emergence of the Law on the Protection of People in Prostitution.

Andreas Odrech, a spokesman for the German Ministry for Family Affairs, Elderly People, Women and Youth, notes that a key element of the new law is the obligation of people involved in sex work to register and obtain permission. “Prostitutes are required to register their activities with the relevant department and undergo regular medical examinations,” explains the representative of the department.

Shirov calls this situation “fatal”.

“They have to get a 'prostitute certificate', many women do not want this and are afraid, they have to carry it with them at all times when they work. If a woman, for example, works in secret and has a cruel husband … If he sees this document, then one can imagine what will happen,”she says. The Shirov have such a document, but she was reluctant to receive it. The document looks like a registration certificate for a car - a small cardboard booklet.

“I have nothing to lose, I am a public person, but even this decision was difficult for me,” she says. Shirov is afraid that her 11-year-old son, for example, will one day go into her bag for change and see her certificate. Or the bag will simply be stolen, and the next day a photo of the "prostitute's passport" will be posted on the Internet.

At the same time, German officials promise that if a woman wants to change her profession, she will be able to come to the point of issue of the document and it will be destroyed in your presence without entering information into a personal database.

The social worker of the consultation for prostitutes "Hydra" Petra Kolb, in turn, speaks in this situation about a forced coming-out. “Do you know at least one prostitute? Not? I am sure that there are some of your friends, you just don’t know what they are,”says Kolb. In her opinion, there is nothing surprising in the fact that people do not want to receive a document, no.

In the consultation room there is a stand for announcements, on which a journalist from German television has attached an advertisement - the channel is looking for an interview for a woman who "is just starting to engage in prostitution." Kolb gets angry and disrupts the ad: "He doesn't belong here."

Shirov claims that the law was passed without consulting the sex workers themselves and says with irritation that she wrote to one of the authors of the law, and he answered her something like this:

"Ms. Shirov, I have such good consultants that it is not necessary to speak with those who are really concerned."

Thus, very few are officially registered, and street prostitution, the most severe form of this activity even in Germany, often continues to operate in violation of all applicable laws. The people who work on the streets are mostly from less prosperous countries in Eastern Europe, as both Elena and Felicitas Shirov say. I myself was able to interview 10 women in a "profile" quarter in the west of Berlin, they were all from Romania or Hungary and spoke German with difficulty.

Another major problem should be mentioned here: according to statistics, at the end of 2018, more than 40 million people worldwide are victims of human trafficking, this is data obtained by the Australian Walk Free Foundation together with the International Labor Organization - ILO (ILO) and the International Organization for migration - IOM (IOM). Human trafficking is a highly profitable criminal business. In the Global Slavery Index database, Russia ranks 64th out of 167, Germany - 134th. These are 794 thousand and 167 thousand people, respectively. The fund, in which Veronica Antimonik works, deals with this very problem, according to her, now there are 16 women in the care of the fund, all of them are adults, the oldest is closer to forty. “They are from different countries: Uzbekistan, Nigeria, Cameroon, Congo, Moldova, Russia. We do not disclose information about the cities of Russia, where the girls are from, for their safety,”says Antimonik.

In the database of the Federal Statistical Office of the Federal Republic of Germany, as of December 31, 2017, there were only 6 thousand 959 officially registered people providing sex services. In reality, the figure is much higher, as a ministry spokesman said, this is a "dark field" that is difficult to assess.

“During the work on the 2017 law, we proceeded from a number of about 200 thousand prostitutes,” says Andreas Odrech.

Irina Maslova is sure: the legalization of the sphere can only be talked about under the conditions of a functioning legal system, in which the law is not “like a drawbar”, but “is equal for everyone”. The experience of her German colleagues is therefore very different from her own.

“I was shocked. We came to "Hydra" to visit, we talked for a very long time. I ask: what is the main request from sex workers. It’s just interesting,”Maslova says. In "Hydra" she was told that women come to the counseling center in order to ask for help in filling out their tax return.

“I was shocked,” says Irina.

It is believed that the word "fraer" got into the Russian lexicon from Yiddish through Odessa jargon. Translated from modern German, Freier (pronounced "fraer") is a brothel client.