Devastation following the collapse of the USSR
Women also are being recruited in unprecedented numbers for the booming sex industry that caters to foreign and domestic businessmen. Unable to find employment in the professions for which they originally were trained, many highly educated Russian and Eastern European women go abroad to work as prostitutes. Women are not the only ones being channeled into the sex market. As reported in Newsweek (9/2/96):
Prague and Budapest now rival Bangkok and Manila as hubs for the collection of children to serve visiting pedophiles. Last year one investigator was stunned to find stacks of child pornography in the reception rooms of Estonia’a Parliament and its social welfare department. “Free love is regarded as one of the new ‘freedoms’ which the market economy can offer,” she wrote. “Simultaneously, sex in the market economy has also become a profitable commodity.” In some cases “children are kidnapped and held like slaves,” says [Thomas] Kattau [a specialist with the Council of Europe]. “This is happening more and more. It is organized crime.”
Life conditions for children have deteriorated greatly throughout the ex-communist world. Free summer camps have been closed down. School lunches, once free or low-priced, are now too costly for many pupils. Hungry children constitute a serious school problem. Instead of attending classes, chidren can be found hawking drinks or begging in the streets. Juvenile crime is booming along with juvenile prostitution, while funds for youth rehabilitation services dwindle (Los Angeles Times, 7/15/94).
Parenti, Michael. Blackshirts and Reds (pp. 115-116). City Lights Publishers.
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