Prostitution in Kazakhstan is almost legal. One can get a suspended sentence for pimping and running a brothel, but there is no criminal article for prostitution. Any woman can sell her body for money being sure she won’t be punished. We gonna have a raid on Almaty (capital of Kazakhstan) brothels right now.
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In this brothel one girl, whose name was Janna, was forced to provide sex services to clients.
The parents of the girl lost her two years ago. She was in one of the Almaty brothels. To detain the pimp the police has to catch her in the act so the policemen lie in wait for several days. They get the information about the brothel location from one of the clients.
This is Gulya, 38. She does the rooms when clients leave and cooks food. She works from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and gets 2000 tenges daily (13 dollars).
The police prevented clients from eating.
Janna, 20. She has been working here for two years.
Janna is a younger child in the family, she had always been a good student, a quiet obedient girl. She didn’t leave home after 8 p.m. and her parents knew all her friends. She was searched for all over the city. Later one guy from one social network informed them that she had fallen in love with some man and had been living with him for two months till he sold her to the brothel. Why? Her friends told her everything was over for her and her family would never take her back.”
Zarina, 28. Has been working in the brothel for one year.
She came to Almaty to find a job and her friend offered her one at the store. But the “store” turned out to be a brothel. It was really hard to find another job without registration so she had to agree. She had debts and was divorced, had a baby. They provide sex services to maximum four clients daily. They mainly prefer “classics”. When she has to leave nobody stops her so she visits relatives sometimes. One hour of Zarina’s services costs 4000 tenges (26 dollars), she pays 1500 tenges (10 dollars) to the pimp. It rarely lasts more than one hour, usually twenty minutes is enough for a client. It’s the first time she is caught by the police. She has never had problems with the law before.
Her family does not know what she does for money. She has a boyfriend and he is also unaware of that. She is proud she does not ask for money from him. They are going to get married soon and she plans to quit after New Year’s celebration. Her average monthly salary is 100 thousand tenges (665 dollars). But she does not work every day. Her mother helps to take care of her three daughters (6, 4 and 2 y.o.). She still remembers her first client, he was handsome but he was stinking awfully, it seemed he had not taken a bath for several days. Zarina tells one can never get used to it. This work can never become a routine one.
The girls know their rights and they are rather calm. They often say “I need money for living, and it is my body, I do what I want with it”. Police cannot work effectively till there is no criminal article for prostitution. They detain girls for three hours and make them write explanatories but then they go back to brothels. However when prostitutes are citizens of other countries they can be deported from Kazakhstan. But in some time they return too.
More girls are coming from neighbouring countries: Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. They can be detained for more days when they have no documents.
Pandering is a misdemeanor and punishable by a fine or imprisonment for up to three years.
Any woman who has been subjected to violence should be protected by law, regardless kind of her job. Clients can be rather violent and can even kill.
Pandering is hard to punish in the country. The best proof of a pimp’s fault is a video.
There are special organizations which help former prostitutes to quit and start a new life, find a job, get education. Some of them begin an honest and safe life.
Some of the girls can live a double life: be married, have children or be pregnant. If their husbands get to know what they do …
Elder sisters of Janna are happy to see her at last. They are crying all together.
This professional sphere becomes rather comfortbale for many girls – constant alcohol, funny companies, attention of clients, seemingly “easy” money. When they get to social organizations they are shown another life: theaters, concerts, museums.
The main problem is not even the absence of the criminal article for prostitution but neverending demand for this kind of services.
Should it be legal? Prostitution has a lot of negative effects: sexually transmitted deseases, broken families, moral degradation, human traffic etc. But there is a new tendency – more and more clients provide police with information about those girls who are forced to sell sex.
It is a very profitable business: human traffic. One girl brings about 45 000 tenges (300 dollars) daily and if a brothel has 20-25 girls…
Corruption is rooted deeply in this system. Pimps can often “buy” girls back from police. So some policemen cover the business.
After numerous police operations in the streets of the city the girls moved to motels, SPA centers, cafes and restaurants.
Sometimes police gets help from the city citizens who call or provide information in other ways.
One brothel may close today but another one will appear tomorrow.
2000 girls are registered by the police of Almaty as prostitutes.
Once a year, during Ramadan, the demand for such services dramatically reduces. Many prostitutes from other cities are leaving for their homes.
Those who start sell sex are often lonely women, who have no higher education and constant job. One prostitute who works at hotels, for example, is already 45, both her legs are broken, no relatives, bad health. She spends all money for medicines and food.
The hotel administration also gets profit from prostitutes. But it does not provide any information, says it knows nothing and is not involved into this. Sometimes they are detained too.
Ainura, 32, she has been working as a prostitute for two years.
She has two children, son, 11, and a daughter, 5. Ainura is divorced, her husband left her with two kids when she was working as a nurse. That salary was not enough to feed the family and help the parents. No relatives know what she does for money. She still wants to find a good person and get married, have another baby. But she has not met such a man yet, she says they are all the same, but in different trousers.
She does not understand why prostitution should be legalized, it is already legal. Any girl can sell sex and get good profit.
Ainura has five clients per night, she takes care of herself, often undergoes medical examinations. Almost all her clients are constant, they prefer classic sex. And, on the contrary, among new ones – 9 out of 10 want some perversions. “If men were normal we would not be prostitutes”, she says.
The bus is waiting for the first girls to take them to the police station.
Girls say hello to each other, drink beer together. They know each other in this business but never trust newcomers.
The owner of this building used to rent rooms to prostitutes but now here live large families and migrant workers.
The woman works at the market, she and her husband came from Uzbekistan. She says nobody makes her do something like selling sex.
Ksenia, 23, has been a prostitute for four years.
She graduated from the college and worked as a cook in a kindergarten but the salary was small. It was her friend who offered to come into this business. The minimal monthly salary she gets is 1000 dollars and she works only on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays. Her clients sometimes offer Ksenia to employ her as a secretary and have sex only with them and their friends…
At the police station the girls talk to the criminalist, are photographed and filmed and leave fingerprints.
Janna, 22. Has been a prostitute for two years.
She had no husband when delivered a baby, now her daughter is four and she lives with her and her mom. Once her friend told her how to become independent and even help mother. She says she has not had many clients lately so she often comes home. The maximum monthly salary of hers is 2000 dollars. It often happens when clients buy beer and come for a talk only. They tell about their problems with wives and at work. Clients often tell Janna she has sad eyes but everyone survives as she could: someone bakes bread, others sell sex. She plans to do this till her daugher becomes independent. “Nobody has a right to judge me till I am responsible for my child”.
They get used to being here but when they see a camera they turn away.
Zhanara, 31. Has been a prostitute for three years.
She has been at this police station for the ninth time. When they talk to police they just share the news, speak about life… They even have much respect for some police officers.
The young girl is crying, she has an emotional shock, it’s the first time she is at the police station. The more experienced friend calms her down: “they will do nothing to you, soon you will be able to leave”.
Location: Almaty, Kazakhstan
via voxpopuli
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