Ukraine feminists campaign against sex tourism(视频)

VOA 2012-11-08 10:58

分享到

 

Get Flash Player

Get Flash Player

Download

At first, protests by Ukrainian feminist group Femen were ignored by the media. But two years ago the women started taking off their shirts. In recent months, their tactic has spread to France, Canada, and Brazil.

Back home, in a basement office in downtown Kyiv, Oleksandra Shevchenko, a Femen founder, rebuts critics who say Femen protesters attract media attention for the wrong reasons.

“When we mixed nakedness, intelligence and our ideas, we saw that it is working,” she says. “People saw this contradiction, they are not ready to see, and to listen to women, and to see aggressive women, naked, aggressive women.”

Coming from Eastern Europe, Ukraine’s Femen and Russia’s Pussy Riot band represent a new kind of feminist protest, theatrical and radical. In Kyiv, activists train regularly for protests. Behind the training is anger that Eastern European women are 30 years behind Western European women, in salaries and in job discrimination by employers.

“They say, 'You will get married in a few years, or even like, in a few months you will be pregnant, like you are not a good worker, I don’t want to have you in my office,” Shevchenko says. “Or, like the second way to work there, they say that you have to sleep with me, we have to have sex. And we can do nothing.”

In June, Femen protested Ukraine's co-hosting of the European football (soccer) championships. They argued some fans would also visit Ukrainian brothels and strip clubs.

Shevchenko says, “We have a lot of sex tourists here in Ukraine. Because nobody cares about that, nobody wants to stop this problem.”

The sex industry thrives in Ukraine, a country where women score high in beauty and low in income.

“It is really easy to become a prostitute in Ukraine, even for me, or for other girls,” notes Shevchenko. “You just need to make this one step to become a prostitute. I have a lot of invitations from a lot of brothels, from different strip clubs.”

Oksana Shachko, a veteran Femen activist, goes a step further, attacking Internet international dating sites, sometimes called mail-order bride sites.

“There are many websites that advertise Ukrainian women, because Ukraine girls are beautiful. But, unfortunately, many are undereducated and want to become a wife of a rich man, their knight on a white horse,” she says. “But in actuality, it is only like exporting human flesh, and it is illegal. We are trying to explain to these girls that it is not a real way to a good life. “

Shevchenko, 24, has to juggle her feminism with the traditional expectations of her mother and grandmother.

“They imagine for me another life,” says Shevchenko, who grew up in a mid-sized city in Western Ukraine. “They wanted to see me as a wife and a mother. And each single day when my mom calls me she says, 'When I will have my grandchildren, did you find a man?' And I do not know what to answer her.”

But Shevchenko believes she can have it all. A few weeks ago, she helped to open Femen’s new office in Paris. She says she met several interesting Frenchmen, men she calls ‘male feminists.’

相关阅读

Make-your-own soap entrepreneurs clean up

Taylor Swift's 'Red' among 2012's best sellers

Obama, Romney head to key states on election eve(视频)

American Red Cross feeds hungry after hurricane(视频)

(来源:VOA 编辑:Julie)

 

分享到

中国日报网英语点津版权说明:凡注明来源为“中国日报网英语点津:XXX(署名)”的原创作品,除与中国日报网签署英语点津内容授权协议的网站外,其他任何网站或单位未经允许不得非法盗链、转载和使用,违者必究。如需使用,请与010-84883561联系;凡本网注明“来源:XXX(非英语点津)”的作品,均转载自其它媒体,目的在于传播更多信息,其他媒体如需转载,请与稿件来源方联系,如产生任何问题与本网无关;本网所发布的歌曲、电影片段,版权归原作者所有,仅供学习与研究,如果侵权,请提供版权证明,以便尽快删除。

中国日报网双语新闻

扫描左侧二维码

添加Chinadaily_Mobile
你想看的我们这儿都有!

中国日报双语手机报

点击左侧图标查看订阅方式

中国首份双语手机报
学英语看资讯一个都不能少!

关注和订阅

本文相关阅读
人气排行
热搜词
 
 
精华栏目
 

阅读

词汇

视听

翻译

口语

合作

 

关于我们 | 联系方式 | 招聘信息

Copyright by chinadaily.com.cn. All rights reserved. None of this material may be used for any commercial or public use. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. 版权声明:本网站所刊登的中国日报网英语点津内容,版权属中国日报网所有,未经协议授权,禁止下载使用。 欢迎愿意与本网站合作的单位或个人与我们联系。

电话:8610-84883645

传真:8610-84883500

Email: languagetips@chinadaily.com.cn