Of the three interventions, assistance through international development agencies and large charitable foundations was clearly the most effective at fostering feminist mobilization. Global feminism and transnational feminist networking helped the movement get off the ground, but it took feminist alliances with democracy assistance donors to create a women’s crisis center movement, an unusually successful segment of Russia’s weak civil society. Despite some problems, the most dire concerns raised by critics of democracy assistance—that NGOs would be used to legitimate neoliberal privatization policies by replacing state services— were not realized for women’s crisis centers, many of which remained both service providers and advocates for change. The best testament to the success of these initiatives is that when these funds were most available, the Russian local and federal social services began to mimic the autonomous women’s crisis centers with their own crisis centers. In a country where women’s organizations are not even allowed to use the word “feminist” in their official names,64 the creation of a broad network of women’s crisis centers and some government counterparts is a remarkable change. Working with antitrafficking crusaders shaped by states more concerned with sovereignty, security, and border control, on the other hand, pushed the de-radicalization of the movement and embroiled it in geopolitics, funneling support to organizations least concerned with feminist mobilization.
What made the alliance with democracy assistance more successful than the states’ (and the EU’s) antitrafficking initiatives was the greater influence of global feminism and transnational feminists on the process. Although far from perfect, this kind of alliance, in which feminists were involved in the grant-distributing process and gendered implications of intervention were considered, led to the most feminist intervention. The Nordic NCRB project in northwestern Russia illustrates the potential of a real partnership, not just alliance, between transnational feminists and donors, creating the most responsive and most inclusive intervention. In a context of already existing feminism, the involvement of transnational feminists helped donors see a little past their “shareholders’” interests for short-term observable outcomes because they are committed to broader, longer-term goals. In contrast, there was less global feminist influence on antitrafficking initiatives in terms. The lack of consensus among transnational feminists meant no coherent ideology on how to address the problem, and an issue first raised by feminists was preempted by states for pragmatic and ideological reasons. This Russian case illustrates that the transnational women’s movement, at its best, has become more reflective and responsive to the concerns of those beyond the Global North/West.
CHAPTER FOUR