The latest news from Ukraine today is that seven children were injured when the new president of the country unleashed his military forces on a residential neighborhood in the city of Slavyansk.
A few days ago, I put up a post entitled “Ukrainian Jews Celebrate Poroshenko Win,” in which I discussed Petro Poroshenko’s support amongst Ukrainian Jews and which also included a repost of an article by Gregory Kolyada. That article deals with the shady business practices of the new Ukrainian president, whose exploits have included, says Kolyada, involvement in drugs, prostitution, and illegal arms. “The Poroshenko family had plans to expand the activities beyond Ukraine,” says Kolyada, and in the closing paragraph of the piece, the author refers to the billionaire oligarch as “one of the most odious figures in Ukrainian politics.”
After I posted that article, a friend sent me a link to a document entitled “Trafficking in Women from Ukraine” that was submitted to the US State Department in 2003, but which for some reason was never published. Of course in 2003, US efforts to bring “democracy” to Ukraine had already been under way for some ten years, according to Victoria Nuland, so maybe that was a factor in the decision not to publish it at the time.
In any case, the report, authored by Donna M. Hughes of the University of Rhode Island, and Tatyana Denisova, of Zaporizhia State University, discusses at length the recruitment of Ukrainian women into prostitution rings, transnational crime networks through which they are ferried to other countries for purposes of sexual exploitation. And one of the countries of destination discussed in the report is Israel. You can access the full report here, in PDF format, but below are some excerpts:
…Ukraine, now the second largest country in Europe, is one of the largest suppliers of women for prostitution…
Transnational crime networks take advantage of patterns of migration to traffic women. An example is the increased migration and trafficking of women from the former Soviet Union to Israel. After 1989, Soviet Jews started immigrating to Israel, resulting in 800,000 dew immigrants to Israel. Russian and Ukrainian traffickers used this cover to bring 10,000women into Israel for the sex industry. The sex industry in Israel has since grown into a US$450million a year industry, which is dependent on trafficked women from Eastern Europe. Professor Menachem Amir of Hebrew University, an expert on organized crime in Israel, estimates that 70 percent of the women in prostitution in Tel Aviv are from the former Soviet republics.28Moreover, according to Israel’s report to CEDAW (Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women) Report, more than 95 percent of the women deported from Israel for illegal prostitution are repatriated to the former Soviet Union.29From 1995-1997, Israel deported 1500 Russian and Ukrainian women.30
In Israel, a Russian or Ukrainian woman earns the pimp who controls her between US$50,000 and $100,000 per year.