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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

Women’s Club — Weapon or Defense?

10 March, 1999 - 00:00

One could well have guessed the quantity of saccharine
greetings that poured on our women on the eve of March 8. The more so that
the President himself provided the impetus: on March 5 Leonid Kuchma congratulated
the lady People’s Deputies and presented them with spring souvenirs, gold
brooches and souvenir volumes of the book Leonid Kuchma: The President
And Man. Meanwhile women who work at Pervomaisky vuhillia (Pervomaisk Coal),
for example, celebrated International Women’s Day with a hunger strike,
for their husbands had not been paid for almost half a year, and they cannot
afford to buy their children their daily bread. Could it be that there
is more gold than bread in our country?

Certainly the officials need this holiday as much as February
23 (Soviet Army Day, given universal military service in the USSR, this
was really a day for all Soviet men — Ed.) to remain in power after this
October. And in this context Ukraine’s women are not simply representatives
of fair sex but of the electorate. Unfortunately, our small women’s social
organizations do not yet understand that they are slated to play the role
of the regimes’ hostages. For in every European country such a holiday
arranged to purchase women’s preferences would immediately become the subject
of close scrutiny and criticism by non-governmental structures. The silence
here means only one thing: both national and local officials are convinced
they have non-governmental organizations, women’s ones in particular, in
their pocket. Or is it because women Ukrainian voters can see striking
leaders like Natalia Vitrenko or Yuliya Tymoshenko (and the forces they
represent) are currently bound up with those in power? These rather less
than festive notes, it seems to me, are reason for long and serious discussion.

Our group arrived in Washington during Senate hearings
on the Clinton-Lewinski case. And what is more, we stayed only in two blocks
from the Mayflower Hotel where Monica stayed, besieged by journalists from
dawn till dusk. Hence, it was not surprising that every meeting with the
Americans started with questions on our attitude toward White House sex-scandal.
All America was aware of the moment’s importance: it was a time and place
of history in the making. Americans were reading with pleasure and telling
the whole world about this frivolous page in their history: America likes
to teach, even if it is advanced sexual education. No wonder that I flunked
the first question about Monica asked by colleagues from The Voice of America.
I stammered when their correspondent, Uliana Teliuk, asked whether the
Ukrainian mass media would cover a similar sex-scandal. Russians are in
better position: this question they answer without hesitation: “If such
thing happened we would at least know that Yeltsin is still alive.” And
what about those of us who cannot imagine Leonid Kuchma sex-symbol, even
after Iryna Zaytseva’s program, “Politician Without a Necktie,” where our
President not only dashingly played the guitar but also playfully put his
hand on the reporter’s back nether regions. Perhaps it is because Russians
accept their President as human, even sick and connected with characters
like Berezovsky and Lisovsky, but still a man, while in our minds Kuchma
becomes more and more associated with such official and sublime functions
as Guarantor of the Constitution or Arbiter of the Nation. But let us assume
that the details of a such a case could infiltrate our mass media. The
President’s opponents, having got such a chance would hardly dwell upon
the intimate details of the case; they would use it only as a key to unlock
the door to the realm of the head of state’s abuses. On the other hand,
cynical pressure on the judiciary does not leave the slightest chance for
an independent prosecutor like Starr to appear on our horizon. I listed
all these ifs without interruption and only then understood why a sex-scandal
would be impossible in Ukraine. It would be hard to find a woman willing
to share the details of such a romance. Americans, ready to discuss all
the details of Clinton’s case, carefully avoid conversations showing that
in the country with centuries-old gender traditions a woman can become
not only the Secretary of State, a District Attorney, or a Senator but
also a weapon of political struggle and political pressure. Of course,
this is a slap in the face to the thousands of women’s organizations in
the US which present a quite different image of the American woman: self-confident
and having equal rights. It is worth mentioning that in the United States
there are over 50,000 various women’s movements, programs, organizations,
and almost every American women takes part in them, and not only as an
outgrowth of her business, social, or legal activity. I think that her
desire to emphasize her belonging to some women’s club is caused by her
lack of ordinary human contacts. And membership in any social group is
something like psychological support and gives people confidence that everything
is all right in their private life.

On the other hand, the variety and diversity of non-governmental
organizations and groups demonstrates the realization of skills in the
sphere of legal culture which in American primary schools USA are taught
even before grammar and math. Perhaps it is because Americans know that
the so-called third sector, non-governmental organizations, long ago made
the authorities not only take it into consideration but also recognize
it as equal partner in carrying out practically all aspects of political,
economic and social life.

Perhaps that is why the most interesting and lively among
all the necessary meeting was the acquaintance with Julie Stuart, founder
and leader of the Family Against Maximum Imprisonment Term organization,
the goal of which is to give judges more freedom in pronouncing sentences.

Our delegation was the most surprised by the fact that
Congress not only pays attention and reacts to the activities of the movement
defending the interests of a very small social group and supporting (also
thereby asserting) the right of its representatives to solve similar problems
through official structures. Perhaps we have not yet realized the simple
truth learned in the USA on the level of truism: one of the main functions
of public organizations is to track violations of citizens’ interests and
rights by the authorities and drawing public attention to them. We will
never understand this. For in our country the distance between the state
and people’s representatives is a yawning abyss that grows wider every
day. 80% of our citizens think that their participation in social and political
processes cannot change anything in real life. Perhaps that is why in Ukraine
there are only 120 women’s public associations, and the number is very
symbolic. Apparently, the lack of faith in the real capabilities of public
and political organizations is one of the reasons why our women’s political
parties, Women of Ukraine and Women’s Initiatives, have suspended their
activity.

However, I was most impressed by the fact that Ms. Stuart
has no desire for a political career. She says, “To solve problems on the
local level, remaining an observer of political processes, is harder but
more effective,” while in our country an organization with 30,000 members
would be considered as a good jumping-off place into the world of big-time
politics (for only the most influential parties can boast of such size).

In addition to “Monicagate” Americans in 1998 found one
more trifle: the problem of trade in women in the USA was detected, and
the struggle against it began, which looks somewhat paradoxical considering
that America is one of the world’s main consumers of sex services. Still,
everything is very simple, like in our country, I would even say. Public
organizations got the idea from First Lady Hillary Clinton within the context
of her campaign for family and moral values. Such use of the idea of struggle
against sexual slavery seemed to me serendipitous for the pragmatic Americans.
First, because putting into practice the idea of the President’s wite means
a kind of skeleton key to the financing of similar programs not only from
federal funds but from local budgets as well. There is one more side of
this award which Americans themselves prefer to pass over in silence. The
point is that Slavic women in only a couple of years have become a real
threat to the homegrown priestesses of sexual gratification. This, however,
was a small loss. The Slavs who crowded the United States became more serious
threat to good American wives: the number of divorces grew and it became
fashionable to “marry Russians.” And even that might not have been the
main reason for initiating a mechanism to combat sex slavery. Most likely,
such programs do not help individual victims of sexual abuse because the
fighters do not even know their exact number. Such organizations as a rule
are headed by former employees of the FBI and other law enforcement structures
who have no intention of catching pimps red-handed or join the police on
raids into the red-light districts.

Quite obviously, the struggle for the rights of women netted
in the sex-industry as a part of struggle for human rights is nothing more
than a nice cover for the real basis of the problem. No wonder that the
USA painstakingly tries to explain to Ukraine the importance of the idea
and do not want to accept the counter-argument that the active migration
of young women seeking an easier and better life is only a part of our
social and economic problems: when living standards rise migration will
decrease.

But we should also be honest: seven years of relative democracy
in Ukraine is very short period in which to understand that the problem
of asserting the rights of women who fell into sex-industry net and is
in general a problem of asserting human rights and developing democracy.
Society’s nebulous reaction to this problem is a litmus test of the level
of democracy, of civil rights and freedoms in the country, something quite
obvious even without PACE’s conclusions.

And those numerous public organizations that suddenly and
sooner than others “understood” the national importance of rescuing sex
slaves do not really demonstrate third sector development as an essential
part of democratic society, as much as Americans want to believe it. In
the present instance this faith is ruthlessly exploited, just like all
those calls “for closer friendship with dear American friends,” which often
looks like the friendship of a tortoise and a snake.

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