Human Trafficking in [Russia Street Children in [Russia] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Russia] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Russian
Federation (Russia) [ Country-by-Country
Reports ] The Russia is a
source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children
trafficked for various forms of exploitation. Men and women from the Russian Far
East are trafficked to China, Japan, the Middle East, and South Korea for
purposes of sexual exploitation, debt bondage, and forced labor, including in
the agricultural and fishing industries. Russian women are trafficked to
Turkey, Greece, Germany, Italy, Spain, Malta, the United States, Canada,
Vietnam, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Costa Rica, and the Middle East
for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Moscow and St. Petersburg are
destination centers for children trafficked within Russia and from Ukraine
and Moldova for purposes of sexual exploitation and forced begging. Moscow
continues to be a significant destination for men and women trafficked within
Russia and from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Moldova, and
Belarus for purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labor, including work
in the construction industry; in 2007, the number of Belarusian men
trafficked to Moscow increased for purposes of forced labor in the
construction, textile, and food industries. The ILO reported that an
estimated one million illegal migrant workers may be victims of labor
trafficking in Russia. Moscow remains a transit point for women trafficked
from Uzbekistan and Armenia to the United Arab Emirates for purposes of
sexual exploitation. Men from Western Europe and the United States travel to
Western Russia, specifically St. Petersburg, for the purpose of child sex
tourism; however, law enforcement authorities report a decrease in the number
of cases of child sex tourism and attribute this to aggressive police
investigations and Russian cooperation with foreign law enforcement. - U.S. State
Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2008 [full country report] |
|
CAUTION: The following links have been
culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Russia. Some of these links may lead to websites
that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false. No attempt has been made to validate their
authenticity or to verify their content. ***
FEATURED ARTICLES *** Merchants of Misery: Human Trafficking in Moldova [DOC] Silvia’s descent into the dark world of trafficking began when a neighbor told the 19-year-old that she could get a good job as a sales girl in Moscow. Her ‘home’ in Moscow was a grimy
hotel in a seedy section of the city. Actually, the entire hotel was a
brothel, filled with girls from Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus and other former
Soviet republics. “At first we were forced to walk the streets in search of
clients,” recalls Silvia. “If I didn’t return with clients, I was beaten. We
had to work in thin dresses even in the middle of the Russian winter.” CASE STUDY: SERGEY'S STORY - Sergey is 27 years old and from
Perm in Russia. In 2001 he saw an advert in a local newspaper for a job
agency recruiting construction workers to work in Spain. The salary offered
was US$1,200 per month. This was much more than his monthly salary of just
$200 and more than he could ever hope to earn in Perm. He applied to the
agency who booked his plane ticket to Madrid on the condition that he would
pay back the money when he started work. On arrival in Spain, Sergey was
picked up by a person from the "agency" who took his passport. He
was taken to Portugal and forced to work on a construction site without pay for
several months. The site was surrounded by barbed wire. Without his passport
he was afraid that the Portugese authorities would
arrest him. One day Sergey managed to escape and begged his way to Germany.
Because he did not have a passport the German authorities arrested him. He
stated the police beat him and took away what little money he had before
deporting him to Russia. ***
ARCHIVES *** U.S.
Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Children are trafficked globally for sexual exploitation from There are reports that rebel
forces in Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS –
According to the IOM, women have been trafficked to almost 50 countries,
including every West European country, the Reports indicated that internal
trafficking, fueled by poverty and unemployment, remained a problem. Women
were recruited and transported from rural areas to urban centers typically to
work in sex industries. There were continued reports of
child trafficking, primarily for sexual exploitation. The victims were
usually homeless children or children in orphanages. There are no reliable
estimates of how many children were trafficked. The country has become a
major producer and distributor of Internet child pornography, leading to
confirmed cases of child sex trafficking and child sex tourism. Information from foreign
prosecutions, academic researchers, and law enforcement sources suggested
that criminal groups carried out most trafficking with the assistance of
front companies and more established organized crime groups. Typically, the
traffickers used a front company‑‑frequently an employment agency,
travel agency or modeling company‑‑to recruit victims with
promises of well-paying work overseas. Many placed advertisements in
newspapers or public places for overseas employment, some employed women to
pose as returned workers to recruit victims, some placed Internet or other
advertisements for mail order brides, and some victims were recruited by
partners or friends. Once the victims reached the destination country, the
traffickers typically confiscated their travel documents, kept them in a remote
location, and forced them to work. Reports indicated that employers
or traffickers withheld workers' passports or other documentation. They
threatened workers with deportation or prosecution if they demanded
compensation. One trafficking researcher indicated that some local police
cooperated with employers to "shake down" such workers to deprive
them of their wages. Traffickers often used their ties to organized crime to
threaten victims with harm to their families should they try to escape. They
also relied on ties to organized crime in the destination countries to
prevent the victims from leaving and to find employment for the victims in
the local sex industry. Trafficking organizations typically paid domestic
organized crime entities a percentage of their profits in return for
"protection" and for assistance in identifying victims, procuring
false documents, and corrupting law enforcement. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2005 [80] While welcoming the recent
introduction in the Criminal Code of norms prohibiting the trafficking of
human beings, the Committee is concerned that not enough is being done to
implement these provisions effectively. The Committee also expresses its
concern that protection measures for victims of trafficking of human beings
are not fully in place and that reported acts of complicity between
traffickers and State officials are not being fully investigated and
sanctioned. Russia:
Alarming rise in human trafficking raises concern Sky News reported that girls and sex
slaves were being sold by trafficking mafias at several street markets on the
outskirts of Moscow. "A person
with the lack of education, a person with the lack of opportunities in the
serious need to change the life will follow traffickers and then they end up
in Moscow or in another city, in the hands of these groups," Alberto Andreani, Immigration Organisation
spokesperson said in the Sky report.
Based on the latest report by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on
15 May 2008, Russia is a source, transit, and destination country for men,
women, and children trafficked for various purposes; it remains a significant
source of women trafficked to over 50 countries for commercial sexual
exploitation. RUSSIA:
Where Migration Means Trafficking According to qualitative research
in CIS countries, trafficking for forced labour
(other than forced prostitution) is the main form of trafficking in the
region, in particular central Asia.
Migrant workers are most exploited in construction, agriculture, trade
and informal economic activities. Law enforcement responses, however, tend to
focus on sex trafficking which often involves young women trafficked to
western Europe, the Middle East and Russia. Uzbeks
Prey to Modern Slave Trade When Abror,
an unemployed engineer at the locomotive depot in Urgench,
in northwest Uzbekistan, lost all hope of getting a job at home, he left for
the Volgograd region of Russia in
search of a better life. But he found
no job that matched his skills. Unwilling to go back to Uzbekistan, where his
family and aged mother depended on him returning with money, he took a job
with a local farmer. In return for weeding vegetable patches, feeding the
poultry and cleaning the hen house, the farmer promised him a small
wage. Abror’s
new life as a servant rapidly turned into a form of slavery. Far from giving
him any wages, the farmer seized Abror’s identity
papers and told him he was not going to pay him any money as he would have
“nowhere to spend it”. In spite of his grim experience in
Volgograd, Abror plans to hire himself out again
this spring to repay this debt. “Once
it gets warm, I’ll sell myself into slavery again,” he said. “What else can I
do? Otherwise, my family of four will be left to live off my sick mother’s
pension.” NGOs
warn against plan to increase Russian visas However, Russia is considered a
transit destination for trafficking operations, with many men, women and
children from neighboring countries arriving there before being transported
elsewhere. Egypt has no visa
requirements for Russian visitors, and its border with Israel is considered
to be a main entry point for human traffickers. A spokesman for Aharonovitch told the Post zthat
the minister was aware of the problems of human trafficking in Israel and
that the issue needed to be tackled; however, he added that there was little
connection between the trafficking and the cancellation of visa requirements
for Russian visitors. He also said
that the number of women arriving from Russia was much lower than those from
other countries and that countries with border policies stricter than
Israel's still had to contend with women and men being smuggled in for
illegal work purposes. Stopping
sexual abuse of Russian kids Sexual abuse of children can take
several forms — from their use in pornographic materials for sale, to their
use in other countries and Russia itself as prostitutes. Lured by fake
promises in fashion magazines, some schoolgirls rate prostitution high on the
list of modern "professions" to pursue. They believe that
prostitution and contact with rich businessmen will provide them with the
kind of lifestyle that they could never expect otherwise. St. Petersburg and the northwest
region of Russia report a high incidence of sex tourism, which is widely
advertised on the Internet and aimed at people from neighboring Scandinavian
countries. Prostitution is the most common form of child exploitation in the
region. Frequent recruiting targets
are street children or children from dysfunctional families. Once they're
entrapped, they may end up in brothels and red-light districts as they get
older. Recruiters prey on these children's situations, deceiving them into a
life of dependency. - htsccp Four
Russians Arrested in Sweden Over Human Trafficking Swedish prosecutors have charged a
group of 24 Russians and Swedes with human trafficking, pimping and buying
sex from nine Russian women, the AFP news agency
reports. The prosecutor said he was only
able to prove human trafficking in one of the cases and said the other eight
women had come from Russia to Sweden of their own will. Spanish police arrest 7 for human-trafficking www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2007/April/theworld_April178.xml§ion=theworld &col= The arrests took place in the
northeastern Mediterranean coastal region of Costa Brava, where the gang
allegedly smuggled in women, mostly from Russia, forcing them to work
streetwalking or in roadside brothels, police said. Police said the group employed two people
based in St. Petersburg, Russia, who targeted women by offering jobs in Spain
in exchange for Ð2,000 (US$2,675). EU
Presses Russia on Human Trafficking Like many struggling young people
in the former Soviet republics, 17-year-old Maryam
dreamed of a better life. She thought she was on her way to one when she
decided to leave her native Kazakhstan to work as a shop assistant in
Russia. Instead, she walked into a
nightmare. When she arrived at her
destination, the shop she had expected to see turned out to be a locked cell
with barred windows and a metal door. Armed guards told she would be working
as a prostitute. NATASHAS - The New Global Sex Trade SMUGGLER'S
PREY - Every
day, scores of young women throughout the former East Bloc are lured by job
offers that lead to a hellish journey of sexual slavery and violence. Despite
the barrage of warnings on radio and TV, in newspapers and on billboards,
desperate women continue to line up with their naiveté and applications in
hand, hoping that, this time, they might just be in luck. Merchants of
Misery: Human Trafficking in Moldova [DOC] Silvia’s descent into the dark world
of trafficking began when a neighbor told the 19-year-old that she could get
a good job as a sales girl in Her ‘home’ in Human
trafficking on the rise in Russia The official said her predecessors
had focused mainly on the sex trade, whereas she was determined to extend her
position's scope to other related issues, such as the trafficking of people
into forced labor. She also stressed the importance of addressing the
problems of forced marriage and trafficking in human organs Russian
Officials Surprised At Reports Of Human Trafficking Fresh arrests at Vaalimaa border crossing - "The problem for the
officials is that the illegal border crossings take place legally." He says that there are always people who
will help in the acquisition of genuine travel documents. It is only after
the borders are crossed that the activities become illegal. Authorities Turn Blind Eye On Far East Russia Women Trafficking “Young women sought for very well paid job
in Russian
Girls Eager To Work Abroad, Despite The Danger Of Sex Trafficking It is really difficult for such
girls to escape when they reach Human Trafficking In US Gets Tackled Russian-speaking women trapped
into sexual servitude in the Few Human
Trafficking Cases Registered in 2004 Only 25 cases of human trafficking and slave labor were registered last year, but an Interior Ministry official said this was only the tip of the iceberg and understaffed police forces and hesitant victims were hindering prevention efforts. Freedom
House Country Report - Political Rights: 6 Civil Liberties: 5 Status: Not Free Human Rights Overview
by Human Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide Stop
Violence Against Women – Country Page U.S. Library of Congress
- Country Study ILO: 4
Million Enslaved in Russia A report published Thursday by the
International Labor Organization said that 80 percent of an estimated 5
million illegal immigrants in Russia are involved in forced labor. The report, titled "Forced Labor in
Contemporary Russia," is the first in a worldwide campaign to raise
awareness of the problem. New Forced Labour in Russia [PDF] www.ilo.org/dyn/declaris/DECLARATIONWEB.DOWNLOAD_BLOB?Var_DocumentID=2150 The Russian chaotic market and
corruption among officials result in serious marginalisation
of labour migrants and the emergence of new forms
of forced labour and slavery-like conditions. The study examined a wide range of data and
identified different elements of violence – from deception and blackmail to
abduction - that are already present in the migration and employment in
Russia. In the process of work the wide-spread forms of exploitation of
migrants are: compulsion to work extra-time without pay (62%), highly
intensified work (44%), lengthy wage delays (39%), compulsion to perform work
for which consent has not been given (38%), compulsion to work without pay
(24%), compulsion to provide sex services (22% of polled women),
psychological violence, threats, blackmail (21%), restricted freedom of
movement - being kept locked up all the time or for some time (20%). Such
cases are now so wide-spread in the country that they are not perceived as
marginal or unlawful practices, but as a normal state of affairs. Aid Group
Alleges Massive Child-Trafficking in Russia An aid group says more than 30,000
children and teenagers go missing every year in Russia, and that at least 500,000
children are living on the country's streets. Leonid Chekalin,
who heads the organization Children are Russia's Future, gave the estimates
at a news conference in Moscow late yesterday. He said 190 child-trafficking
networks have been uncovered in the past five years.
htsc Monitoring the Stockholm Agenda for Action www.ecpat.net/eng/Ecpat_inter/projects/monitoring/monitoring.asp?LanguageName=Japanese&ThemlinkID=5#4 REGIONAL CONSULTATIONS - RUSSIAN NATIONAL CONSULTATION ON THE
COMMERCIAL SEXUAL EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN - Russia is now one of the main
producers of child pornography in the world, as new research on the
commercial sexual exploitation of children in Moscow, St Petersburg and Irkustk reveals. The research also indicates that Russia
is seriously affected by all forms of commercial sexual exploitation of
children (CSEC), registering alarming incidences of child prostitution and
trafficking of children for sexual purposes. U.S.
Diplomat Leads Charge Against Human Trafficking "We are not happy with what
is going on in Russia. They took some steps, they passed a new law with some
criminal provisions. They cooperated a little more with NGOs. But overall the
effort was weak …” Israeli
Minister Blames Russian Mafia for Human Trafficking Crisis He said that the mafia had transported
women to Egypt from their homes in the countries of the former Soviet Union.
Then they were smuggled across the border into Israel where they were sold to
so-called “health clinics” where they work long hours for minimal pay in
slave-like conditions, the website quoted the minister as saying. Russian
president seeks stronger penalties for human trafficking On 27 October, President Vladimir Putin submitted to Parliament a number of amendments to
the Russian Criminal Code which seek to introduce a maximum prison sentence
of 15 years for those convicted of trafficking. The maximum penatly will be reserved for cases where the trafficking
offence has caused severe damage to the health of the victim, or any other
grave consequences; posed a threat to the lives and health of many people; or
been committed by an organised group. CASE STUDY: SERGEY'S STORY - Sergey is 27 years old and from
Perm in Russia. In 2001 he saw an advert in a local newspaper for a job
agency recruiting construction workers to work in Spain. The salary offered
was US$1,200 per month. This was much more than his monthly salary of just
$200 and more than he could ever hope to earn in Perm. He applied to the
agency who booked his plane ticket to Madrid on the condition that he would
pay back the money when he started work. On arrival in Spain, Sergey was
picked up by a person from the "agency" who took his passport. He
was taken to Portugal and forced to work on a construction site without pay
for several months. The site was surrounded by barbed wire. Without his
passport he was afraid that the Portugese
authorities would arrest him. One day Sergey managed to escape and begged his
way to Germany. Because he did not have a passport the German authorities
arrested him. He stated the police beat him and took away what little money
he had before deporting him to Russia. Russia
moves to curb human trafficking After the break-up of the Soviet
Union in 1991, Russia emerged a major channel of human smuggling from Asia to
the West. International criminal networks made full use of Russia's porous
borders, legal loopholes and rampant corruption to haul illegal migrants,
mostly from China and Vietnam, but also from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan
to Europe. Russian consulates in Asian countries would rubberstamp hundreds
of tourist visas on the basis of fraudulent invitations sent in by
non-existent Russian firms, while Russian borderguards
would look the other way when crowds of "tourists" crossed the
border. Russia’s
Willing Sex Workers Find Enslavement Abroad Through the Inostranets
weekly, a paper geared toward Russians looking to find employment abroad, the
institute polled women who already had job offers and were preparing to leave
Russia. The poll ran twice, revealing the same result — 25% of young
women (5% of all women) leaving Russia were prepared to become sex workers if
it earned more money. Unfortunately, since prostitution is illegal for
migrants even in countries where it’s legalized, that means involvement with
the underworld. Once they are absorbed into the shady illegal sex trade
network, there’s a good chance they’ll find themselves in conditions they hadn’t
bargained for. They are threatened, held responsible for travel costs, and in
general are kept ignorant about their legal options. Supplying
Women for the Sex Industry: Trafficking from the Russian Federation [PDF] INTRODUCTION - The Russian Federation is a
major sending country for women trafficked into sex industries around the
world.1 Russian women are known to be in sex industries in over 50 different
countries (Global Survival Network, 1997). The number of women who have
become victims of this criminal trade is unknown, but are estimated to be in
the hundreds of thousands (International Organization for Migration [IOM],
2001). Women are recruited from
sending countries, such as Russia, by various means, but upon reaching the
destination country, they find that the promised job or circumstances is
really prostitution under brutal and exploitative circumstances. The
traffickers and pimps control women by confiscating their travel documents,
battering, rape, threats to harm them or family members, and debt bondage
(Hughes, 2000). Trafficking is an activity of Russian organized crime groups
and their partners that operate prostitution and trafficking rings throughout
Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and North America (Global Organized Crime
Project, 2000, p. 42). Corruption of officials through bribes and even
collaboration of officials in criminal networks enables traffickers to
operate locally and transnationally. For the last two years, Russia has
received a failing grade from the U.S. State Department for its efforts to
combat human trafficking. That's the grade it deserved, because each year,
thousands of women and girls are trafficked for prostitution in Russia. The
total number over the past decade is estimated to be over half a million.
Organized-crime groups run the trafficking networks that have sold Russian
women and girls into prostitution in over 50 countries around the world,
including the U.S. Trafficking
for Sexual Exploitation: The Case of the Russian Federation [PDF] EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - There are a multitude of
reasons why the trafficking business thrives in Russia, including great
profits which can be made by the traffickers, corruption of officials and
police at many levels, and reluctance of lawmakers to intervene due in part
to fear of reprisals by violent criminal syndicates. Many women have few choices
because they have become impoverished and find themselves devoid of options
for jobs or means of survival. This is the plight of many women in poor rural
and remote areas in Russia or those attempting to survive urban poverty. For others, such as the new groups
of street children and orphans which did not exist in Russia ten years ago,
they are recruited at an early age, virtually sold into slavery, and may
never know another way of life. This is true for countless young Russian
girls and boys, some as young as 12 years of age, who may later become a part
of criminal syndicates themselves and perpetuate this phenomenon. In this
way, more and more people without options are lured into sub-human and
degrading conditions, often for the rest of their lives. - htsccp Russia: With
No Jobs At Home, Women Fall Victim To Trafficking (Part 2) According to a recent survey conducted
in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg, as many as 70 percent of women
between the ages of 18 and 30 would like to leave the country to find work
abroad. Visa restrictions, however, make it almost impossible for young women
to gain legal working status abroad, leaving them only one option -- buying
visas from so-called "employment" services who force them into
prostitution and slavery once they cross the border. In this second of a
two-part series, Galina Stolyarova
reports for RFE/RL that economic and social
conditions in Russia have allowed the women-trafficking trade to flourish. Forced Labour In The Russian Federation Today: Irregular Migration And Trafficking In Human Beings [PDF] - Elena Tyuryukanova www.ilo.org/dyn/declaris/DECLARATIONWEB.DOWNLOAD_BLOB?Var_DocumentID=5879 [page 107] APPENDIX I
- INTERVIEWS WITH VICTIMS OF
FORCED LABOUR [page 116] CASE 6 - A 17-year old man from Novosibirsk in Russia was
kidnapped and coerced into construction work. The interview took place in Omsk I am from Novosibirsk. At present
I live in Omsk because I do not want to be traced.
I am seventeen. Half a year ago they kidnapped me. It happened as follows: I
was going home, a foreign car approached me, and they put a sack on my head, drew
me into the car and then injected me with something. I remember nothing. I do not even remember
how they took me away. It seemed as if we were flying or if it was a car, it
was shaking. It was dark, like a bunker - they covered me up with something. I
only came to when we were somewhere in the East. They watched. There were no
hand-cuffs, but guards with guns were present, and a supervisor with a stick
was there. If somebody fell, he beat then until they stood up and collected
the things that they had dropped. There were ten of us. We were not allowed
to speak. They kept us in pairs, even at night we weren’t allowed to speak.
The supervisors walked around to check that nobody was speaking. All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC §
107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use |
Human Trafficking in [Russia Street Children in [Russia] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Russia] [other countries]