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Risk of Sexual Exploitation against Foreigners in Azerbaijan

Society Materials 31 May 2008 15:29 (UTC +04:00)

Azerbaijan, Baku, 31 May / Trend corr. K.Zarbaliyeva / According to statistics, about 800,000 people become victims of human trafficking in other countries and millions of people - within their own countries. The women who were engaged to sexual exploitation make up majority in the human trafficking. So, approximately 12mln children and men become human trafficking and engaged to labour force.

The facts of human trafficking were registered in about 127 countries by the UN report in 2007 and human trafficking victims are exploited in 137 countries.

Azerbaijan is a source and transit country for gender exploitation and labour force for men, women and children. This was said in the US department of State annual report on the state of human trafficking.

The report says that most women are taken from Azerbaijan to Turkey and United Arab Emirates for sexual purposes. Most children are taken from Azerbaijan to Turkey for exploitation purposes and as work forces to Russia. The human trafficking is continued within the country. The women, who are drowned to sexual exploitation, men to labour force and children to panhandling become victims of human trafficking. The victims from Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Moldova are transported via Azerbaijan to Turkey and United Arab Emirates.

The number of victims of human trafficking has been increasing in Baku recently. Javad Shikhaliyev, Chief of the Anti Human Trafficking Administration, stated that the President approved the National Action Plan in 2004. The Bill on "Struggle against human trafficking" was passed in 2005. The Articles 144-1, 144 - 2 and 316 - 1 were introduced into the Criminal Code of the country in order to reduce the rate of human trafficking in the country in 2005.

The regulations on establishment of special institutions for victims of human trafficking and exercising control over them have been approved by the Cabinet of Minister in 2005 in order to reintegrate them into the society, educate, to provide them with medical and judicial help, with housing and jobs and judicial support. The Fund for Support to Human Trafficking Victims was established in 2005 and the Government created jobs for them.

The US State Department stated that Azerbaijani government should open rehabilitation centers for the human trafficking victims as soon as possible.

The official representative of the Interior Ministry said that a rehabilitation center where the victims will go through full rehabilitation will be established soon. The victims will be provided with jobs and housing in these centers. The Cabinet of Ministers has decided to pay the victims one-off compensation of AZN33. According to Shikhaliyev, some 16 people have been paid compensation in 2008. The court has also decided to pay compensation worth $1,000-1,400 to 4 victims.

The report of the US State Department says that though Azerbaijani government does not meet minimal standards of eliminating human trafficking, it makes efforts in this regard. The report recommends intensifying efforts to stop human trafficking and to make answerable those officials who sponsor human trafficking.

The report includes Azerbaijan to the group of countries where the authorities take measures to solve this problem, but these measures are not enough. This group also includes countries such as Armenia, Japan, Turkey, Georgia, Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia and Moldova. Estonia and Lithuania is included in the first category.

The number of the human trafficking victims reached 500 people for the last two years in Azerbaijan with women making up the majority. According to experts, it is only registered figures. In fact, this figure is higher as majority of the victims do not appeal the government because they are ashamed to do so.

Some 35 human trafficking related crimes have been registered in Azerbaijan for the last 5 months of 2008. The Department Head of the Interior Ministry said that some 32 people became human trafficking victims during this period. Some 74 human trafficking cases and 101 victims have been registered in 2007.

Scolt Dudas, the representative of the World Labour Organization on South Caucasus said in his interview with the press that he concerned not only with the sexual trafficking in Azerbaijan, but also with the fact that the people are used to sell their organs or employed as a labour force in Azerbaijan.

According to Shikaliyev, no fact of human trafficking for transplantation purposes has been registered in Azerbaijan so far. In 2008, only one case of child trafficking has been registered.

Shikhaliyev denied the established viewpoint that orphanages and boarding schools are the sources of children trafficking, exploitation of children's labour, child pornography. According to him, the people who formed the viewpoint have no idea what trafficking mean. He said the rumors about orphanages and boarding schools are very dangerous.

The head of the Administration said that export of women to abroad where they undergo sexual exploitation is more peculiar to Azerbaijan. Women are exported to UAE, Pakistan, Turkey and, partially, to India. "The women believe to the promises of their close people and agree to go abroad. After they leave their identities, passports and other documents are taken away," he said. According to him, no forceful woman export case has been registered.

The official representative of Interior Ministry said that the punishments envisaged for such crimes are very strict. He did not rule out that the courts considering those criminal cases patronize human traffickers. Shikhaliyev referred the cases when human traffickers were mot imprisoned to family and psychological state of the accused and their health condition.

According to Shikhaliyev, human trafficking victims are mainly the people with secondary education or uneducated at all. He said the victims aged 19-35 comprise the majority.

Shikhaliyev said that the rumours that human traffickers are patronized by state officials, well-known people are false. "We have heard of that. We are also interested to expose the people," Shikhaliyev said.

He said that human traffic within the country is not wide-spread, but forceful prostitution cases are more frequent.

"No fact has been registered for women brought to Azerbaijan from other countries for sexual exploitation, but he did not rule out that such cases may occur in future.

Shikhaliyev is not satisfied with cooperation with NGOs on identification of victims. "Although, Interior Ministry is cooperating with 21 NGOs, only one NGO helped to find a human trafficking victim so far," he said.

The head of Women Crisis Centre Matanat Aziziva said that most of the victims applying to the Centre wan to receive psychological aid. They do not apply to law-enforcement bodies because they do not believe that will receive any assistance there.

According to Azizova, victims resort to voluntary prostitution because they are rejected by their families, undergo public criticism and fail to integrate with the society. "They are a group of large risk. If the society does not accept them they may become human traffickers in futures," she said.

According to Azizova, Azerbaijani women are mainly exploited in prostitution. She added that in the world practice, women are used in taking pornographic films, in slavery.

Being dissatisfied with the fighting against human trafficking, Azizove considers that the law-enforcement agencies mainly combat prostitution. According to her, to increase the number, the Department on Fighting against Prostitution accepts those, who are engaged in voluntary prostitution, as victims. The Head of the Center said that the court punishments against human trafficking are very simple. She considers that the courts make unfair judgment because they can not differ prostitution from human trafficking.

The judge of the Supreme Court Muzeffer Agazade considers that the Criminal Code specifies severe punishments with regards to human trafficking, but the legislation inaccurately determines the essence of this crime. According to the judge, majority of those who are recognized as victims of the human trafficking are women voluntarily engaged in prostitution. "I do not consider them as victims and up to now, I have not seen case of victims of this crime in court practice," the judge said.

Agazade considers that court experience has to be created on the human trafficking and the Supreme Court has to make a decision explaining this crime. "The legislative body inaccurately explained the essence of this crime and I consider that works should be done in this direction. The investigation body and court insufficiently investigates this case," Agazade said.

The Head of the organization Clean World, Mehriban Zeynalova, does not agree with the opinion of the Supreme Court. According to her, the courts considering such criminal cases, accepts the victims as streetwalkers and mainly accuse them. It presents difficulties in protecting the victims.

According to Zeynalova, such position of the judges means repeat insulting of the victims. She considers that such attitude leads to the issue that the suffering women again become victims of human trafficking. "In practice, we only several times severely punished the human traffickers. Oftenly the offenders get rid of easy punishments. If the payment for the moral damage is paid, the courts sentence human traffickers to easy punishments, and it decreases belief of the victims in justice and they do not wish to appeals to the law-enforcement agencies," Zeynalova said. Informing about existence of the order on establishment of Fund of Assistance to Suffering People, Zeynalova said that the Fund will have certain budget and will pay compensate to the victims.

Probably the amount of the compensation will total $500 like Georgia.

According to him, as the victims can not prove that the property of the human traffickers have been acquired at the expense of revenues from exploitation of the human, difficulties appear in making judgment on confiscation of the property.

Zeynalova positively appreciated the activity of the Department on Fighting against Human Trafficking of the Interior Ministry and expressed her dissatisfaction with the activities of other State organizations in this regard.

The correspondent can be contacted at:[email protected]

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