Thread by @benbackupbackup

RTSG commies have been slandering and attacking Saint Nicholas II on this point for a few weeks now. Time to show that the Tsar not only “didn’t do anything about” this issue, but he did far more than the Bolsheviks ever did to protect young girls and prostitutes🧵

Contrary to what RTSG claim, late Imperial Russia criminalized the sexual exploitation of minors, often more harshly than modern states. Here's what the laws and records actually say:

In the late 1800s, Russia had a regulated prostitution system. Only women over 16 could register (raised to 18 by 1903). Procuring or trafficking underage girls was explicitly criminal.

The 1909 Criminal Code included Article 524, which outlawed the procurement of girls under 21 for prostitution years before many Western countries passed similar laws.

Sex with a girl under 14 was treated as a severe crime: molestation (растление) carried harsher penalties than rape of an adult. Even “seduction” of a 14–20-year-old virgin by a guardian/employer was criminalized.

books.openedition.org/obp/1256

Yes, child prostitution existed. But it was seen as a moral crisis, not something the Tsar and Russian society ignored. Religious and women’s groups like ROZZh exposed abuse, pushed reform, and documented cases to build public support for change.

By 1910, public concern over child prostitution was at a fever pitch. Medical and court records treated it as “the most acute and menacing social problem.”

Nicholas II’s government passed anti-trafficking laws, created women’s protective societies, and supported reforms to raise the age of consent and outlaw procurement. The problem wasn’t legal tolerance, it was urban poverty and war.

Compared to the Bolsheviks, who also saw widespread child prostitution during the civil war and NEP, Nicholas II’s government actually passed stronger anti-exploitation laws and didn’t pretend the issue was “solved.”

A Finnish observer in 1923 reported seeing “dozens of little girls engaged in prostitution in broad daylight” on Moscow and Petrograd. Soviet children’s commissions noted that unsupervised homeless girls placed in work homes had often already “engaged in prostitution”

alphahistory.com/russianrevolut…

The Bolsheviks did end up banning prostitution, but it did not go away. Things got much worse for the women who were illegally selling themselves and then getting caught.

Lenin personally ordered deportations and even shootings of prostitutes in 1918 to “prevent hooliganism” among troops by 1919 the government opened a forced-labor camp for women (over 6,500 inmates, 60% suspected prostitutes) in Petrograd.

The Bolsheviks actually ABOLISHED age of consent. This led to more and more exploitation of young girls.

It was a tough uphill battle, but Saint Nicholas II did what he could. The Bolsheviks on the other hand, murdered and exploited women and young girls en masse.