Ukrainian activists go topless for women's rights

Some observers are shocked, a few are scandalized, and some Ukrainian feminists have even called the tactic frivolous and harmful to their cause.

But across the very paternalistic former Soviet republic, there seems to be at least one point about “sex protesting” on which almost every one agrees: it's not so easy to ignore a half-naked young woman not shy about expressing a strong opinion.

Take the former Soviet republic's recent presidential election, pitting two main candidates - one a woman as it happened - who in months of mud-slinging at each other had ignored bread-and-butter feminist issues like equal pay regardless of gender, or maternal leave.

Polling was proceeding as normal at election station Number One in Kiev's exclusive Shevchenko district, on Feb. 7, when four warmly-dressed women in the 20s entered the premises.

Almost demurely, the four stepped across the melting slush to a clearing in front of the tables used by election officials to unveil — as the protestors later explained — an unconventional attack on Ukrainian “politics-as-usual.”

Defying Ukraine's current brutally cold weather, the women threw their winter coats to the floor. They were naked from the waist up bar bits of blue tape crossing their nipples, surprised onlookers noted.

Polling site workers milled around, and voters stared, as the feminist group FEMEN members then unveiled hidden placards reading “The last day of Democracy!,” “Don't sell your vote!,” and “Don't be a slut!”

“The politicians are raping us!” one yelled, as she shook off a security man attempting — unsuccessfully — to put an end to the noisy, but peaceful protest.

Still naked but for low-cut trousers stuffed into their stiletto heels or cowboy boots, the demonstrators next took their protest outside, to shout insults at the powers-that-be from the union hall steps.

Dozens of news photographers, freezing nearby as they waited for big-shot politicians to show up and vote, snapped away madly, and within minutes the bare torsos of yet another FEMEN “action” was spreading through the Ukrainian-language Internet, and hours later the display was all over the conventional media.

Police later arrested the women, perhaps gallantly allowing the protestors to their coats back on first.

“All in all, it went very well,” said Tatiana Kozak, FEMEN's founder and spokeswoman, told the German news agency dpa. “We drew attention to ourselves and our cause, and that is the point.”

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