Кыргызстан
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Although Kyrgyzstan has no laws punishing sex work, sex workers suffer from police harassment. Human rights organisations report periodical raids, money extortions and stigmatisation of women who provide sex services.
Diana (not her real name) is a former sex worker. For two years of work in this sphere, she got many problems both in gynaecology, and in psychological and moral area. After she made sure we did not have video cameras or cameras, she agreed to tell about the work of female sex workers in Bishkek.
I was in this ‘profession’ for almost two years. In fact, my story is very traditional. I was 19 years old and I was a second-year student. I lived with my parents. We were a middle-class family, my parents paid my tuition fee at the university, and gave little pocket money to me.
One day, when I once again complained to my school friend about the shortage of money, she offered “work” to me. As it turned out, my friend was familiar with this place as she belonged there.
Everyone goes there for money. Those who say they don’t do it for money are telling lies.
When I first came to “work”, I wanted to cry my heart out. I felt myself so humiliated. I was wearing a short skirt, a crop top and high heels. By the way, these clothes were not mine. My madam told one of our colleagues to give me those clothes and threatened to “kill me if I damage the clothes.
In Kyrgyzstan, there were 7,100 sex workers registered in 2013. Since then, the data was not updated, according to the non-governmental organisation Tais Plus. According to Shakhnaz Islamova, the chief of the organisation, the number of sex workers who contacted such NGOs was reduced. This is because the police exert pressure. The sharp decrease began after the “clean-up” of 2016, when the chief of GUVD of Bishkek promised to clean up the city from sex workers for a week at the press conference.
“The clean-up campaign continued not for a week, but much longer. Some sex workers started to look for a job abroad, and some went underground. One year after the beginning of the “clean-up” the number of sex workers who participated in the HIV and sexually transmitted infections prevention programmes reduced twice,” said Islamova.
Nearly two-thirds of sex workers in Kyrgyzstan are 19-30 years old. This is the result of national surveys. The recent survey by Tais Plus was held in 2018 in partnership with AUCA.
According to the same survey, women stay in sex work longer to feed themselves and their families. 73 per cent of sex workers in the republic have children and parents and the number of dependants is increasing. In 2018, one sex worker provided sexual services to almost 4 people.
According to Tais Plus, sex workers are harassed and have to change their place of work, leave street sex work, and constantly change locations. They have difficulties because of periodical change of location and phone numbers – it is hard to keep in touch with them and provide services on prevention of diseases to them.
The customer is always right
According to Diana, men aged 18 to 55 use the services of sex workers in Kyrgyzstan.
To get into bed with a stranger, you should pull yourself up, which is very difficult. Especially, at the very beginning,” said the girl. “Therefore, I always drank a strong alcoholic beverage before the ‘shift’ to loosen up.
Step by step, I began to get used to, turned off emotions and did my job mechanically. I tolerated the process and got the money. Sometimes, I had five-six clients per night, and at other times I had none.
Men paid up to 30 dollars per one ‘visit’. I had to pay a part of my earnings to the madam. Sometimes, I could ‘earn” up to 200 dollars per night, but it was easy money. Easy come, easy go. I had no savings. I did not even know where I spent all the money.
We worked in apartments, saunas, hotels. You don’t know what to wait from the clients, you always do that on your own risk and peril. Some men consider sex workers second-grade and treat them respectively: they can hit and kick them, hurl an ashtray. Our pimps did not allow us to hit back or say anything in return because the client is always right.
I encountered some perverts, as well. I don’t even want to tell the details, what they wanted me to do, but these were terrible things. Even for me who has dealt with so many men in my life.
Once, the client at an apartment paid only for himself, but his friends used my services, as well. I don’t remember how many they were, I think eight. It was a real violence and it continued all night long. I could escape only when they drank a lot and fell asleep.
I did not report it to anyone. Who will believe that a prostitute was raped? It is unthinkable for most of the people. Sometimes, I had clients who just wanted to have a heart to heart talk with me, and they complained a lot about their wives, mothers-in-law… I always wanted to tell to such clients, “Am I your psychologist?”
Reproductive health issues
Commercial sex workers are highly subjected to HIV and other diseases because of frequent change of sexual partners and hazardous working conditions. According to Shakhnaz Islamova, the chief of Tais Plus, many sex workers migrate within the country and have no documents. They are not registered with any policlinic, respectively, and cannot get medical assistance guaranteed by the state.
Moreover, women do not go to hospitals but look for trusted physicians because of the stigma and fear that their personal information would be disclosed. Most often, they go to practicing medical workers who provide paid services. In 2017, with the support of the AIDSFonds (Netherlands), Tais Plus launched the project to provide diagnostics and treatment of STD in Bishkek and the suburbs.
In 2020, the number of visits declined due to the spring lockdown caused by COVID-19.
In turn, the ministry of health noted that Kyrgyzstan does not carry out legislative activities to provide for annual compulsory medical check-up of sex workers. According to Aibek Bekbolotov, deputy director of the AIDS Republican Centre, they cannot identify sex workers.
“Compulsory medical check-up will be considered as the forced one, which is not a good practice for the democratic country. The best approach is to carry out preventive work in this group: raising awareness, distribution of medical products and voluntary testing,” he said.
Police raids
Some guys wearing kalpaks (national headwear – editor’s note) appeared inside. My limbs became numb because of fear and the only thought in my head was “I don’t want my parents to learn about it.” Later on, I learned that the raid was organised by the police together with Kyrk Choro (national patriotic movement in Kyrgyzstan – editor’s note). I guess the security officer of the club told them we were inside. The girls saw that one of the security officers opened the door to the “raiders”, put on the kalpak, locked the door with the key so that no one could escape.
We were delivered to the police station and were kept there for several hours. They asked us why we were doing this. They threatened us to tell everything to our families. Finally, they released us.
According to various surveys held by human rights organisations, police officers often violate the rights of sex workers, conduct raids, blackmail, humiliate, film what they do. According to Shakhnaz Islamova, the police go unpunished in such cases. The same happens when sex workers rent an apartment together as it cheaper and neighbours file complaints against them.
“We have it this way: if there’s some noise coming from the apartment with sex workers, the police must be called to stop the work of the ‘brothel’. If some noise is coming from the apartment where husband beats his wife, it is a “domestic affair – they will solve it by themselves.” This is double standard. Moreover, the noise is often caused by the police officers themselves: they drive into the premises to extort money,” Islamova said.
The Ombudsman Office in Kyrgyzstan confirmed this fact. According to Umida Abylgazieva, expert in protection of rights of children, women and families, in 2016 human rights organisations filed complaints about police officers discriminating against sex workers.
Very few sex workers dare to report against police officers. But even those ones are stopped by pressure and threats. According to Abylgazieva, a similar case happened in 2016, when they received a call on detention of three sex workers. They were told that the police officers applied force and kept the women in the reception centre for a while.
“We went there, took the reports from the women and applied to the prosecutor’s office asking them to take measures against those police officers. But later on, we received the reply from the prosecutor’s office saying that those sex workers withdrew from their reports. I contacted the women later and asked them why they did so. They said they feared for their safety as they knew it would be even worse later,” the expert said.
According to Abylgazieva, sex workers are often interested in paying the bribes to police officers. This is how they can ensure safe work without any intervention from the law enforcement officers.
According to the GUVD [Main Department of Internal Affairs] of Bishkek, by results of the first five months of 2021, three preventive raids were conducted in brothels. After the first raid, police detained 27 sex workers, 17 after the second raid, and 56 during the third raid.
Deputy head of the GUVD of Bishkek, Tilek Tyukebaev, noted that all operations were carried out under the president’s decree “On moral and spiritual development and physical education of a person”. According to him, they talked to sex workers, registered and released them. The organisers of those brothels were treated differently as it is a criminal offence.
“Several cases were directed to court, and some cases were decided,” Tyukebaev said to CABAR.asia. “For example, one of the organisers was imprisoned for two years, and the second one was fined for 220 thousand som (2,600 dollars).”
The police doubt that raids diminished the number of brothels. However, they said that they make sure that they do not disturb the life of locals. Moreover, preventive work is being held with adolescents. The facts of involvement of minors to sex business have not been reported lately.
Does sex work need to be legalised in Kyrgyzstan?
“We do not stand for legalisation on purpose,” said Shakhnaz Islamova, the chief of Tais Plus.
According to her, legalisation is often confused with decriminalisation, but they are different models:
- Decriminalisation is the cancellation or lack of laws punishing for sex work,
- Legalisation is the adoption of new laws to regulate and control sex work and sex workers. Very often, these laws are unfair and restrict the capabilities of those involved in sex industry as compared to other areas of employment.
“Legalisation is based on the fact that sex work is not recognised as a common labour and it cannot have the same rules as other fields of labour and the same labour rights,” Islamova said. “Decriminalisation recognises sex work as the same work as all other works and it can be regulated just the same as any other labour, and the same rights should be exercised in regard to its workers.”
In case of legalisation, according to Islamova, only some sex workers can meet the conditions that make their activities legal. For example, female migrants or women who do not have documents or residence registration will not be able to work legally. They will continue to work on the streets or will receive orders by phone, and the police officers will continue to harass them, extort money and blackmail them.
“Decriminalisation of sex work is the optimal model,” said Islamova. “Voluntary individual sex work in Kyrgyzstan is not prohibited. For a start, our country needs to obey the existing law. If the police do not harass them, the level of stigma will decrease and sex workers will be able to do check-up regularly without hindrance, and just like other people working under licence apply for it and pay taxes.”
Member of Parliament of Kyrgyzstan Irina Karamushkina in her comments to CABAR.asia said that the issue of legalisation and decriminalisation of sex work was raised earlier by some members of parliament, yet they were not supported. According to Karamushkina, some parliamentarians adhere to the position that Kyrgyzstan should not legalise sex work because “our country is the Islamic one”.
There have also been initiatives on punishing those who lease out apartments to sex workers and they have tried to ban them. However, such initiatives faced some obstacles – it is almost impossible to identify those who lease out apartments for such purposes.
“I think that today all brothels and hotels are controlled by the authorities themselves. This is the business of particular persons and those who ‘give cover’ to them derive their income from it,” Karamushkina said.
According to her, it is impossible to ban sex work in the country, as this sector will go underground and the number of human trafficking cases will increase. However, it is either impossible to legalise or decriminalise this sphere. All the efforts are hindered by moral standards and morale of the country.
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