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Paige Ferreira

The Female Slave Trade Catalyzed by Russian Patriarchy

       Within the global community, advancements in technology and education have created a paradigm so apt to progress and opportunities. However, those who fall in between the cracks of success become subject to elitism and manipulation by those in power. The “Olympic Citizen” of any nation becomes the dictator of labor and opportunity by which a spiral of downward oppression occurs. This “Olympic Citizenship” is more in line with an oligarchy than a democracy (Shachar and Hirschl 207).  It promotes an unequal distribution of power based on material wealth and the prospect of material contribution to the society. Human trafficking, a crime involving the buying and selling of people for forced labor, sex, etc., has become a business weaving in and out of the international sector in which underdeveloped and developed countries are both to blame. Specifically, with the case of the patriarchal-based Kremlin, the advancement of women in Russian society is stifled by underrepresentation in government and often characterized as an affront to the country’s male-dominated social, political, and economic structures. The Russian Federation, built on misogyny and the domestication of women, has created institutions structured to accommodate men. With the presidency of Vladimir Putin, this notion is accentuated as less women are being governmentally involved or set as figureheads within authority. Russian women are among the biggest victims of sex trafficking and forced labor “within the former Soviet Union” with an “estimated 500,000 women and girls... trafficked” which can be attributed to the lack of care from the authoritarian regime governing the country (Buckley). Therefore, based upon these factors, those countries with less democratic female involvement lead to higher cases of female slavery in underdeveloped, patriarchal-based societies.
        At the end of the Cold War, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the various nations began to undergo severe economic and political shifts in which domesticated women began to look for work in a new capitalist environment. Ultimately, “economic systems were transformed, resulting in increased unemployment and poverty”; consequently, as a result, women became dependent on cheap sources of labor (Buckley). Currently, Russia’s democratic system continues to draw speculation of election tampering in Western democracies; meanwhile, the country is beset with domestic issues that threaten its ability to sustain itself in the future.  Gender inequalities are at the root of these issues and have become a stumbling block for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government.  Russia has instituted policies and laws to further subjugate women, and at first sight, he has seemingly implemented programs to bridge the gender gap, but in reality, his efforts are a ruse to relegate women to traditional roles in favor of male leadership. Ultimately, these policies create a gap and lack of consideration for female involvement within democratic institutions. Without women in the government, mothers, wives, and young adults are left to search for cheaper sources of labor. This inability to find work resorts to desperate measures like human trafficking. Russia in the early 2000s is notable for its increased migration of civilians to other Western nations like the United States and Europe.
       The repercussions of the transitioned capitalist economy of the Kremlin has created “a flow of women out of Russia into prostitution...women are also trafficked into the sex industry;” consequently, these acts are expanding into a specific industry synonymous with the Kremlin (Buckley).  Putin’s political power and his 2007 Munich speech pronounced a rejection of the “unipolar vision of the world” that the United States imposed. Therefore, the Russian president failed to see that his country’s worsening demographic crisis would not remedy itself; it would take a stark departure from past domestic policies and a feminization rather than a masculinization of Russian rule to correct problems at home before Russia could stand on equal footing with other first world nations and decrease the number of women falling victim to human trafficking (Nalbandov, 2016).




















References
Buckley, M. (2013, September 8). Human Trafficking In and Out of Russia. Retrieved December 11, 2017, from Fair Observer website: https://www.fairobserver.com/region/europe/human-trafficking-and-out-russia/
Nalbandov, R. (2016). Not by Bread Alone. Lincoln: Potomac.
Schahar, A., & Hirschl, R. (n.d.). On Citizenship, States, and Markets. Political Theory Without Borders, 206-220.

      


















Comments

  1. UnknownDecember 17, 2017 at 4:56 PM

    I really liked the point you made about the democratic involvement of women and the sex trafficking numbers. This is something that I have not heard before and was very interested in.
    The illusion that Putin is running with trying to get women into stereotypical lifestyles with male leadership is an interesting point as well. When looking at Russia in news you only really hear about the problems they create in other countries but not what is happening inside the country.

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