React and influence the acute social issues of the Ukrainian society, especially those that directly touch upon the interests of the Ukrainian Women

The interview we publish accomplishes one of the missions of the Centro Studi Est Europa. This particular mission deals with the opportunity to give real voice to those ones fighting for own rights everywhere. Today the turn is up to Anna Hutsol, a social leader coming from Ukraine.

Anna Hutsol

Why did you decide to start this campaign?

All our campaigns start from our member’s opinions and problems. Once when we sat down with FEMEN girls and they told me that there’s a problem that often foreigners address them as prostitutes, offered sex straight away. Then we carried out a social opinion poll and found out that 67.5 % of girls in Kiev have received a sex offer from foreign tourists. I realised that there is a problem and it needs to be solved.

Which are the reasons why the sexual tourism is so frequent in Ukraine?

It is due to many factors - political, legal, psychological, economical. Since the World Economic Crisis the income level of Ukrainians is getting lower and lower. In European and other countries Ukrainian women have got the image of beautiful and "easy" women, they are known as prostitutes (for instance 70% of prostitutes in Portugal are Ukrainians). Cheap flights, visa-free entrance for Europeans and USA. There is no legal base to control sex tourism, the law enforcement bodies are corrupt. That all allows to create convenient schemes for inviting foreigners to Ukraine and sending women abroad. And that all influences dramatically on sex-tourism growth.

Are there relations between this situation and the Mafias?

Yes, of course. This is a criminal sphere (prostitution is illegal in the country). They have got a serious relations and cover from the law enforcement authorities (militia or else) and among Parliament members. The income from the Sex industry in Ukraine counted 750 billard dollars in 2008. All sex-tours are organised through the marriage agencies, tour-agencies, hotels. And mafia is not planning to lose it’s income.

How do you judge the activity of Ukrainian authorities to stop this awful traffic?

They do literally nothing. There was an attempt in February to pass the law on laying administrative charges on clients but it was withdrawn straight away. Government officials even start talking about legalisation the prostitution by Euro 2012 which we think will make the sex industry even bigger and our country will become the official centre of European sex tourism.

What do you ask to the authorities of Ukraine and international organisations?

Our demands are to give a legal definition of sex tourism and criminalize the client. We have been trying to get in touch with the government of Ukraine since we started our campaign in June 2008 but there was no reply yet. Only in Spring this year we managed to find contact with the Human Trafficking Department of Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. To help the situation out we are also addressing foreign embassies to carry out an information campaign against sex tourism for those who are arriving in Ukraine. To talk about threats and consequencies. Now we are cooperating with the embassy of Germany in terms of information exchange.

What can we do to support your campaign?

The biggest problem with sex tourism is that the society is quite conservative and ashamed to talk about it and prefer to think that the problem doesn’t exist. Thanks to foreign press in Germany, Italy, Poland etc our SOS message spread in the world and many people responded and sent their letters of support. At the moment we have a poster campaign going on "Say it out loud - Ukraine is not a Brothel!"

If this is a woman organization - we will be happy to talk about cooperation.

A public meeting of Femen

I would like to know more about the life of women in Ukraine...

Ukrainian women in general are not emancipates, got used to the sponsorship, oriented more on the family rather then carrier. They are beautiful and naive, like to gossip, don’t have a women’s society and vaguely understand what kind of rights they have and how to use them. Young women try to get education, some of them make a carrier, first gender research groups appear. But most of young women hope to get successfully married. At the same time sex industry and poverty keeps growing.

Which are your future plans? Do you have hope to see all that over?

Of course! We have a lot of plans and ideas. We are planning to lobby the criminalisation law. With the help of local and world opinion leaders that we are uniting to fight the problem we hope to win. Right now we get a support, for example, from DJ Hell (German musician, Helmut Geier) who is arriving 1, 2 October to participate in our action at the Parliament building. We also receive a lot of letters of support from all over the world. That means that we are moving a little bit and start changing the opinions on Ukrainian Women. And this is great!

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