Правда

            So Правда, meaning truth, is this news source that has been around in Russia for FOREVER. It was first published in 1912! While the NY Times has roots to 1851, this is still an impressive feat and a long time! It is a pinnacle source of the Russian Empire, the USSR, and Russia itself, as it has been around since the Tsarist days and has been controlled by each regime in turn. Censored by Tsars, controlled by Communist party members, today it has no official relations with the party. But who knows right? Check the article below.

PRAVDA

Pravda (the name means "truth" in Russian) was first issued on May 5, 1912, in St. Petersburg by the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party. Its aim was to publicize labor activism and expose working conditions in Russian factories. The editors published many letters and articles from ordinary workers, their primary target audience at the time.

Pravda was a legal daily newspaper subject to postpublication censorship by the tsarist authorities. These authorities had the power to fine the paper, withdraw its publication license, confiscate a specific issue, or jail the editor. They closed the

paper eight times in the first two years of its existence, and each time the Bolsheviks reopened it under another name ("Worker's Truth," etc.). In spite of police harassment the newspaper maintained an average circulation of about forty thousand in the period 1912 to 1914, probably a higher number than other socialist papers (but small compared to the commercial "penny newspapers"). About one-half of Pravda 's circulation was distributed in St. Petersburg. After the authorities closed the paper on July 21, 1914, it did not appear again until after the February Revolution of 1917.

Pravda reopened on March 5, 1917, and published continuously until closed down by Russian Republic president Boris Yeltsin on August 22,1991. From December 1917 until the summer of 1928 the newspaper was run by editor in chief Nikolai Bukarin and Maria Ilichna Ulyanova, Lenin's sister. When Bukharin broke with Josef Stalin over collectivization, Stalin used thePravda party organization to undermine his authority. Bukharin and his supporters, including Ulyanova, were formally removed from the editorial staff in 1929. By 1933 the newspaper, now headed by Lev Mekhlis, was Stalin's mouthpiece.

Throughout the Soviet era access to Pravda was a necessity for party members. The paper's primary role was not to entertain, inform, or instruct the Soviet population as a whole, but to deliver Central Committee instructions and messages to Soviet communist cadres, foreign governments, and foreign communist parties. Thus, as party membership shifted, so did Pravda's presentation. In response to the influx of young working-class men into the Party in the 1920s, for example, editors simplified the paper's language and resorted to the sort of journalism that they believed would appeal to this audience—militant slogans, tales of heroic feats of production, and denunciation of class enemies.

Pravda also produced reports on popular moods. This practice began in the early 1920s as Bukharin and Ulianova played a leading role in organizing the worker and peasant correspondents' movement in the Soviet republics. Workers and peasants (many of them Party activists) wrote into the newspaper with reports on daily life, often shaped by the editors' instructions. Newspapers, including Pravda, received and processed millions of such letters throughout Soviet history. Editors published a few of these, forwarded some to prosecutorial organs, and used others to produce the summaries of popular moods, which were sent to Party leaders.

After the collapse of the USSR nationalist and communist journalists intermittently published a print newspaper and an online newspaper under the name Pravda. However, the new publications were not official organs of the revived Communist Party.

Sex Slavery Thrives in Russia Out of Public View

            While sex trafficking is a global issue, new reports suggest that Russia is one of the most prominent countries for it. Russia has been dubbed the “hub for trafficking and exploitation in Eurasia, and was recently ranked 6^th out of 167 countries for having the most sex trafficking. They have 1 million known current slaves, and in a system where only one in every 9 cases come to light, that number is startling. Russia presents an interesting challenge in that they do not have a very active role in combatting sex slavery. Most victims’ best hope is for a Good Samaritan to buy them out. In addition, were a victim to escape, there are no state run safe houses for them, so many have no hope. When there is not a greater safety found in escape, there are few who fight for it. In addition, it is not really a matter on the agenda, for “the government and the legislature both ignore the problem for fear that it would damage Russia's reputation, even though sex trafficking exists everywhere, said activist Boris Panteleyev.”

              Most victims are not procured through outright abductions, but instead through scams. These scams promise high paying jobs or grand opportunities, however, when the victim arrives at the planned place of meeting they are forced into the trade.

            This area of criminal activity is the second most profitable, right after the drug trade. Due to the high demand within Russia, victims are commonly imported from other countries. A new rising trend is also seeing “ethnic diasporas in Russia import women from their native countries, including Vietnam, China, the Central Asian republics and African nations, to work in their brothels.”

Human trafficking is a global pandemic that needs to be stamped out. While it is coming to the forefront in Russia, every nation needs to be conscious of its presence in their societies. These changes start at individual levels; we are the catalyst. You, reader, are may no longer use ignorance as an alibi. Action is now your responsibility.

“The wicked flee when no one is pursuing.” Proverbs 28:1

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/sex-slavery-thrives-in-russia-out-of-public-view/512215.html