Defense Politics Asia – > 99
orig date 2023-07-16 01:52:19
05:00 16-07-2023
"Isaeva is aware of sex workers traveling to the Donbass, to both sides of the frontline, to work for soldiers on both sides. “The violence that they face there is not much different from the violence that they face elsewhere in Ukraine,” she tells me."
"Sex work is everywhere in Kyiv. Everyone seems to know someone who has either worked as a translator or a copy editor creating ads that advertise women's sexual services (a good part time job for a broke literature student), a dispatcher juggling between her different mobile phones to match clients and sex workers, an administrator running a brothel, a male or female exotic dancer who occasionally sells more than dances.
Iulia Tsarevska, who works for Alliance for Public Health, an organisation that provides walk-in consultations for sex workers and conducts weekly outreach work in brothels or on the highway, tells me that in the eleven years working with sex workers in Ukraine, she’s found the last two years the hardest after the country experienced a significant drop in living standards. The organisation has been helping sex workers working in brothels that were moved, very suddenly, from Donetsk to Kyiv, and who didn't know where the basic services were located in the capital.
All the women I meet there are over 30 and come from the provinces. Most are single mothers who have to support their children alone"
"Many people refuse to speak about sex work taking place near the conflict zone. They say the topic is sensitive, and that talking might displease soldiers or put sex workers at risk from the police. Doors are closed, organisations never return calls. I’m told people are probably concerned I will use the information obtained against the Ukrainian side."
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/ukraine-sex-work-in-times-of-war/
Ukraine: sex work in times of war – openDemocracy
Ukraine’s military conflict and economic crisis are affecting the country’s sex workers. Read how these women’s lives and concerns are changing, in their own words.
