Now I feel ashamed. One of the characters is a theater actress, another an opera singer and a third a ballet dancer. Each has a story about the hardships of feeding a family or paying for treatment for a sick relative in Russia. According to police, the number of foreign women arrested for prostitution rose from 1,020 in 1999 to 1,375 last year. Many were from Russia and Ukraine, but the majority were from Georgia and Azerbaijan.
Criminal gangs run by Russian and Turkish men dominate the trade.
They know they would be killed. Many prostitutes ply their trade in seedy hotels in Istanbul's commercial Laleli district. Lower prices in China have lured away many of the suitcase traders, and Laleli's once-brimming stores are all but empty. But shopkeepers in Laleli say some women traders stopped coming to Turkey after being treated as if they were prostitutes. Turkey's sensationalist press has reinforced the stereotype.