----- Original Message ----- From: Yoshie Furuhashi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2000 4:22 PM Subject: Women after Socialism: "After the Fall, Traffic in Flesh, NotDreams" > June 11, 2000 _The New York Times_ > > After the Fall, Traffic in Flesh, Not Dreams > > By ALISON SMALE > > IF anybody has borne the brunt of the changes in Eastern Europe and > the former Soviet Union since the fall of Communism, it has been > women. While the picture varies wildly from the relatively developed > countries of central Europe to the huge, impoverished swaths of the > Balkans, Russia and central Asia, women have not benefited from any > economic gains as men have. At the same time, they appear to have > disproportionately shouldered the stresses brought by a total change > of life style. > > Health care and child care have all but collapsed in many places. In > some, fewer girls are finishing high school than 10 years ago. > Between 1985 and 1997, a recently released United Nations study > found, the transition to a market economy meant that the number of > working women fell by 40 percent in Hungary, 21 percent in Russia and > 24 to 31 percent in the Baltic states. Of course, men have lost jobs, > too, and they often sink into apathy and alcoholism, women say. > > Women who might have hoped for a clerical or professional job under > Communism find themselves forced into menial work -- frequently in > the unprotected realm of the black economy -- to make ends meet while > caring for children and keeping their family together. Some, indeed, > are forced into prostitution, often after being trafficked abroad on > the pretense that they will work as a maid or waitress. > > "Women take the role of savior -- they try to save themselves, their > family," said Olga Gerasymyuk, the host of a popular television > program on social affairs in Ukraine. > > Women's magazines there promote what may seem to the West an > idiosyncratic message of empowerment: "They teach them to save the > gentle spirit of their husbands, who are at a loss," Ms. Gerasymyuk > said. > > Zina Mounla, who coordinates programs across the former Soviet bloc > for the United Nations Development Fund for Women, said that > statistics are hard to come by on how poorly women are doing compared > to men in this shifting environment. > > One area in which east European women have clearly regressed is in > political representation. Under Communism, quotas ensured that > one-third of the seats in the often nominal parliaments went to > women. "Even now," said Gulmira Asanbayeva, an activist from > Kyrgyzstan who promotes women's leadership, "we remember the names of > famous women from the Soviet period," women who had the kind of > political sway now exercised almost exclusively by men. > > Ms. Asanbayeva, 22, was one of the 10,000 women estimated to have > attended a conference in New York last week titled Beijing Plus Five, > which examined the worldwide status of women five years after a giant > gathering in Beijing that was attended by, among others, Hillary > Rodham Clinton, who inspired heated debate in the United States over > the wisdom of a first lady visiting China, with its poor human rights > record. In hundreds of meetings, formally and informally, women > discussed the gains made toward equality and set goals for the future. > > Although Ms. Asanbayeva and several other eastern Europeans spoke out > on women's causes, there was little indication that they would > succeed at home any time soon. Lenka Simerska, 24, who works with the > Gender Studies Center in Prague, said she feels far removed from the > stresses of poverty described by women from the Balkans or the former > Soviet Union. In the Czech Republic, she said, men were so long > frustrated by the deadening hand of Communism that they took over > everything after its fall in 1989. As a result, educated women > seeking a good job often fall prey to chauvinist prejudices about > leaving work to have children (paid maternity leave in the Czech > Republic lasts up to three years) or taking time off to rear them; > above all they lack mechanisms for righting perceived wrongs. > > "Women's consciousness and solidarity are not great," Ms. Simerska > said, predicting change only when "young women will slowly get angry, > and something will happen." > > For some women and girls, particularly the poor and undereducated, > notions of power are unimaginable. Indeed the poorer and more > uneducated the women are, the more likely it is that they will become > involved in prostitution. Irene Freudenschuss-Reichl, Austria's > delegate to Beijing Plus Five, estimated that half a million women > from central and Eastern Europe are shipped abroad each year as part > of the worldwide trafficking in prostitutes. A recent American study > shows that an increasing share of the 45,000 to 50,000 such women > traveling to the United States each year come from the former Soviet > bloc. > > Selma Gasi, 20, an activist with the Women to Women group in Bosnia, > tells a particularly chilling tale of pimps, accompanied by older > women, scouring the war-devastated villages, ostensibly for sitters > or housemaids, and taking girls as young as 14 to strip-dancing bars > where they become prostitutes. > > Ms. Mounla said this is not unique to the Balkans; it is seen in > Ukraine and Russia, where pimps have been known to take teenagers > from orphanages that release them at age 16. Some women know they are > going to work as prostitutes, she said, but that doesn't mean they > should forfeit all their rights. > > Yasmina Dimiskovska, of the Union of Women in Macedonia, said Russian > and Ukrainian women are trafficked through her country to Italy, or > their passports seized locally and they are sent to strip-dancing > bars. Again, statistics are hard to come by, but 40 women came from > Ukraine last month alone, she said. > > "We can talk to them, go to the police," Ms. Dimiskovska said. But > "there is no shelter willing to help" women who lack official > identity papers. If they are shipped home, she added, they risk > repercussions from the criminals who first sent them abroad. "It's a > circle which can't be stopped," she said. "I think they cannot do > anything." > > http://www.nytimes.com/library/review/061100women-communisim-review.html
