You're reading: Sex workers share advice, stories in self-made magazine

On the outside it looks much like a typical women’s magazine, with beauty tips, celebrities’ stories, cooking recipes, healthcare advice and advice on rearing children. 

But upon
closer inspection readers will find that Podorozhnyk,
which translates from Ukrainian as both “travel companion” and “Plantago”
grass, is addressed to a very special audience – women involved in the sex
trade.

A group of
sex workers in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolayiv came up with the idea
to create the magazine in 1995, feeling as though they had valuable advice to
share with other women in the same line of work.  

The idea
was picked up by social workers of UNITUS charitable foundation, who decided
that with the help of the magazine they would be able to easier reach this
vulnerable and discreet group of women and promote the issues of safety and
health.       

“The women
who invented the magazine have since died,” Natalia Babenko, an editor of Podorozhnyk
said.

But the
magazine has survived and now has a monthly circulation of 6,000 copies, which
is a significant figure for the regional printed edition in Ukraine. Sponsored
by International HIV/AIDS Alliance, the magazine can now be found in health
centers, picked up at locations where prostitutes work or shipped to the social
NGOs all over Ukraine.  

Themselves sex
workers, four of eight members of the magazine’s editorial staff give only
their first names – Alyona, Iryna, Tetiana and
Nastia. Babenko said that just like in any editorial team, they often hold heated
discussions about the content of every issue.        

In its
nearly 20 years, Podorozhnyk has changed in size, from a typical periodical
size to a format that easily fits in ladies’ handbags. Another change came when
its editorial staff made the decision not to publish images of sex workers on
its front page, after some of the women were persecuted by local police.  

A popular
section of the magazine is the comic feature, which often illustrates the sticky
situations some of the girls get into and tips on how to successfully get out
of them. Some of the features advise to avoid getting in a car with several men,
and emphasize the danger of sexually transmitted infections.

Other top
reads are the life features sent from readers to Podorozhnyk. Babenko retold
several of them to the Kyiv Post, some of which would make for captivating scenes
in made-for-television movies.

A 17-year-old girl didn’t stop working on the
highway even after she became seriously ill with hepatitis. She had been sent
to the hospital only after social workers found her unable to walk. The girl
spent over week at hospital in such a grave condition that rumours of her death
had spread in the city. But she survived and after all her suffering she is now
planning to get married.    

Sometimes the sex business becomes a family
occupation. The years of work on the street didn’t scare off the woman, who
invited her eldest daughter to start working alongside her. And recently the
younger daughter joined them also, despite the girl being only 15-years-old.

Once a sex-worker found her love, got married and
relocated to Moscow. She said she had a secure life with her husband, a businessman,
and had no need to work. But years passed and the woman grew bored. So she went
back to Mykolayiv, and went back to work on the same highway.
      

Kyiv
Post staff writer Oksana Grytsenko can be reached at [email protected].