Prostitution in Russia: there are few criminal cases, and no one is afraid of fines

For six years, according to the official data of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Omsk region, the police drew up 268 protocols for engaging in prostitution, according to which they collected a little more than 350 thousand rubles in fines, based on the requirements of Article 6.11 of the Code of Administrative Offenses.

Upon closer examination, these figures are insignificant in comparison with the scale of the shadow business.

So, in 2017, 67 administrative cases were opened. In other years, the numbers did not exceed the 50 mark - no more than one per week. And in 2021, only 19 protocols were registered.

As for the financial punishment, it is not difficult to divide 350 thousand rubles into 268 cases and get 1400 rubles for one "offense". The priestess of love will work that kind of money in an average of half an hour.

Much more punishment threatens the organizers of the criminal business. The Criminal Code of the Russian Federation has an article under No. 241 "Organization of prostitution", the punishment for which is fines from 100 to 500 thousand rubles, as well as forced labor and real imprisonment for up to 5 years, reminds the Gorod55 edition.

Over the past three years, Omsk policemen initiated only 11 criminal cases under this article: 5 in 2018, 4 in 2019 and 2 in 2020.

However, not everything is as bad here as required by the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

At the end of January 2017, Omsk businessman Alexander Tenkovsky went to a colony-settlement for three years. The Pervomaisky District Court of the city of Omsk found him guilty under the same article 241 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

During the investigation and in court, it was proved that since 2010, Tenkovsky rented four premises in different parts of Omsk and opened Sakura relaxation salons in them. According to the case file, Tenkovsky personally selected girls for work, and the salons themselves were actively advertised in the media. through business cards and on banners, including in the center of Omsk.

On November 6, 2019, the name of Tenkovsky was again sounded in court - and again in the case of organizing prostitution and involving girls in it. As it turned out, all the time the businessman was in the colony, his business lived and flourished. And he was helped in this by five girls who ran intimate massage establishments.

So, Tenkovsky's company in the dock in the Oktyabrsky district court of the city of Omsk was Omsk businesswoman Svetlana Shultays. As Gorod55 found out, Shultays positions himself as a certified presenter of Tantra and Osho-meditations, as well as the general director and founder of two companies: LLC Shishki-Mishki, which specializes in the sale of tea, coffee and cocoa, and LLC Resources of Siberia, the main whose field of activity is physical culture and health services.

The legal business did not in the least prevent Svetlana Shultays from running a brothel, which was disguised as the Butterfly Effect massage parlor at 7/1 Kemerovskaya Street.

In addition to Tenkovsky and Shultays, Elena Gunkina and Svetlana Stadnikova, the organizer of local, All-Russian and international beauty contests, for example the Omsk stage of Miss Top Fire - 2017, Makhhabat Kizeeva (nee Zhunusova) and her alleged sister, a frequent participant in such contests, the first Vice-Miss Eurasia - 2017 Botogoz Zhunusova.

The defendants heard their verdict on January 13, 2021. For the general public and the media, he remained a secret due to the specificity of the criminal case. However, the City55 managed to find out its results.

The judge found all the accused guilty of organizing prostitution, involvement in this activity, and sentenced: Svetlana Stadnikova and Botagoz Zhunusova to 1 year and 1 month in prison, Elena Gunkina - to 1 year and 2 months, Makhhabat Kizeeva - to 1 year and 4 months, and Svetlana Shultays - one and a half years in prison. At the same time, the court ruled to consider the punishment as conditional with a probationary period of 1 year.

But Mr. Alexander Tenkovsky, who had already been released by the time this sentence was announced, was less fortunate: the court sent him to a strict regime colony for 1 year and 8 months. They took him into custody right in the courtroom.

Needless to say, such verdicts are a drop in the sea of illegal business?

In total, according to the regional Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in Omsk alone, 197 various baths and saunas, hotels and hotels, massage parlors and health centers were identified, where intimate services can be offered for a certain fee. In addition, there are a lot of thematic sites on the Internet, where women workers of intimate business place their ads.

In Russia as a whole, the amount of income of the organizers of such a business, according to the most conservative estimates of experts, can vary from 800 billion to 1 trillion rubles. But the state gets only crumbs in the form of fines. And their size hardly scares the prostitutes. In Omsk, for example, an hour of services for a call girl is estimated at 2500-5000 rubles. Let us recall that the fines range from 1.5 to 2.5 thousand rubles.

And if this shadow business cannot be eradicated, perhaps it is worth considering at least an increase in fines for engaging in prostitution and earning income from this occupation?

Representatives of the international human rights organization Amnesty Internationa l proposed to allow prostitution throughout the world . In Russia, this appeal did not go unnoticed.

Priestesses of love have been officially outlawed in our country since 1917, but the unsuccessful struggle with them continues to this day. The census of prostitutes has not been carried out by anyone for a long time. For example, the statistics of the Ministry of Internal Affairs has been unchanged for several years: according to the department, almost a million people are selling their bodies in Russia. Both women and men.

How the police managed to calculate exactly this figure is unclear.

But anecdotal evidence suggests that the sex market is larger than one might think. And there are three times more prostitutes in Russia.

"There are 3 million of us: powerless, humiliated, outlawed by the state, and all other problems stem from this," Irina Maslova, leader of the Association of Sex Workers, unregistered in Russia, complained to Vesti.Ru.

She is sure that it is articles 6.11 and 6.12 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation ("Engaging in prostitution" and "Earning income from engaging in prostitution") that allow the police to abuse their powers with impunity.

"Have you ever tried to defend yourself against a drunken policeman who extorts money and then hits? It's impossible. In our country these people (representatives of the ancient profession) are not considered people, they are not considered anyone at all," says Irina Maslova.

“Therefore, it is necessary to abolish any laws that criminalize or punish,” the activist explains her position.

The legalization of prostitution is further complicated by the fact that the Russian Federation is among the 82 states that have adopted the Convention against Trafficking in Human Beings. It obliges to prosecute any organized prostitution.

A quite reasonable question arises: if this business is allowed, then it turns out that Russia will not only have to withdraw from the international convention, but also change its own laws.

And here it is important not to confuse how legalization differs from decriminalization. Decriminalizing prostitution means abolishing laws that punish the sale of sexual services, and legalizing it means giving licenses to existing, so far clandestine, brothels.

Proponents of legalization believe that the introduction of prostitution into the legal field will prevent abuse of sex workers, stop human trafficking and the spread of dangerous diseases, primarily AIDS.