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45 Trafficking Victims Registered in Armenia in 2009
“12 cases of trafficking were detected in Armenia in 2009”, said colonel Hunan Poghosyan, chief of organized crime combating department of the RA police during the press conference on October 27, 2009. “45 trafficking victims were registered in Armenia this year,” he mentioned in his speech..
Compiled from:
www.armtown.com/news/en/pan/20091027/38470/
27.10.2009
For Armenian version, click here.
US Embassy Donates Computer Equipment to Help RA Police to Combat Trafficking in Persons
On July 17, 2009, the U.S. government donated computer, radio equipment, and a vehicle, worth a total of over $40,000, to the National Police Unit to Combat Trafficking–in-Persons under the Main Department Combating Organized Crime. The donation ceremony on behalf of the U.S. Embassy was attended by Ambassador Marie L. Yovanovitch and, on behalf of the Government of Armenia - by Chief of Police Major-General Alik Sargsyan.
Purchased by the International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Office of the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan, the equipment includes two servers, several computers and printers, six radios and a vehicle. The new equipment and the vehicle are donated to assist the Unit to Combat Trafficking-in-Persons to effectively and speedily implement operations and searches; compile, process and preserve sensitive information and databases on trafficking cases and traffickers; as well as protect victims from potential threats during the investigation of cases. It will also contribute to effective cooperation between the Police Unit and other stakeholders (state agencies and NGOs) in implementation of the National Referral Mechanism and National Action Plans to fight trafficking-in-persons.
In the most recent U.S. Department of State Trafficking-in-Persons Report, Armenia was ranked in Tier 2, reflecting advances made by the Armenian Government, NGOs and citizens in combating modern-day slavery.
This project is only part of the U.S. Government’s comprehensive law enforcement assistance program in the Republic of Armenia. The U.S. Embassy in Yerevan, through its International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Section, has funded the renovation of the Police Induction Center in Kanaker and donated administrative and classroom equipment to the Police Academy of the RA. In cooperation with the Government of Armenia, the Embassy successfully established a nationwide computer network for the RA Police.
U.S. Government assistance in the fight against human trafficking is directed at training law enforcement personnel in investigation, prosecution and prevention of the crime, victim protection, as well as legislative instruments and international practice in the field. The U.S. Government has been funding the operations of the NGO “Hope and Help,” which provides a hotline, shelter, and social, psychological and legal assistance to the victims of trafficking.
Compiled from: www.armradio.am
17.07.2009
For Armenian version, click here.
Crisis for Prostitutes
As the Police media service has noted, a 42-year-old procurer, who had assisted two citizens of Georgia to enter the life of prostitution, was invited to the Department of Struggle against Organized Crime. These two citizens of the neighboring country are not yet thirty years old.
As a rule, this kind of crime in Armenia has a local character with few exceptions. According to the data of the public prosecutor's office, in 2007, 29 cases of trafficking were registered: 17 - in marzes and the rest - in Yerevan city. Two criminal cases were transferred from 2006, 4 more were refreshed with the discovery of those who were "wanted." As a result, in the course of a year, 35 criminal cases were prosecuted in the criminal agencies. According to the active cases in the prosecutor's office, 143 women were subjected to sexual exploitation, 77 of them - in Armenia, 66 - abroad, especially in UAE and Turkey. For their transportation abroad, the territories of Georgia or Russia are selected as a transit country. As the investigations revealed, most of the procurers are ex-prostitutes. Women, who become the only breadwinner and have no other means for survival, become prostitutes and some of them later become “bosses” or “mama Roses."
The organizers of the job follow one irreplaceable rule – if there is demand, there will also be supply. Moreover, it appeared that the demand is available everywhere, and always. Everyone has heard about the revelation of the Volgograd resident who was mobilizing women to send to Armenia. The investigation showed that the Russian resident, Yelena Kolyakina, together with her daughter and husband, mobilized girls for compulsory jobs of sexual exploitation. They were promising highly-paid jobs to the girls, residents of Volgograd and Volgograd regions, in the restaurants and clubs of Yerevan. In fact, they forced the girls to work as prostitutes and strippers. On February 28, 2009, in the sauna “Aquarium” located on Abovian street, the police arrested three prostitutes: Oxanna, Yana and Aneta.
Marietta Malumyan
“Novoye Vremya” Newspaper N 1773
04.08.09
Unofficial translation
For Armenian version, click here.
Armenia Registers Progress In Its Efforts to Combat Human Trafficking
On June 16, 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released the U.S. Department of State's 2009 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report. The report, which documented the efforts of 175 countries to combat human trafficking over the period of April 2008 to March 2009, recognized Armenia as having made progress in its anti-trafficking efforts.
Based on that progress, Armenia´s ranking rose from the Tier Two Watch List, where it had remained four consecutive years from 2005 to 2008, to the Tier Two category of the U.S. Department of State's four-tier ranking system.
While the TIP Report stated that the Government of Armenia does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, "it is making significant efforts to do so." The Department of State positively assessed the Government's reopening in December 2008 of an investigation into a well-documented 2006 case of official trafficking corruption, as well as the Government's allocation of financial resources to protect trafficking victims and raise public awareness about the dangers of trafficking. The Department of State also recognized the November 2008 implementation of a new national referral mechanism that provides assistance to trafficking victims, but urged the Government to follow international best practices and standards.
The annual TIP report was mandated by the U.S. Congress through the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. Its purpose is to increase global awareness of human trafficking, to highlight national and international efforts to combat it, and to encourage foreign governments to take action against all forms of modern-day slavery. The Embassy commends the constructive steps taken by the Armenian authorities to address the issue of human trafficking, and looks forward to continued cooperation in this important area.
Compiled from: www.usa.am
Embassy of the United States of America, Armenia
A Story of Sex Trafficking in Dubai
According to information from international organizations which work on trafficking, income from human trafficking is in third place after drugs and weapons. Every year, through the borders of different countries all over the world, more than 4 million people are transferred, and their fate is nothing more than a dependent work. Trafficking brings more than 82 million dollars in a year to criminal syndicates. “The National” magazine tells about one of these trafficking victims, a 20-year-old girl named Ani, who was once working in one of the trading houses in Yerevan. As the magazine notes, Ani agreed to work in Dubai as a nurse. Saint simplicity! At the moment she left the plane in Dubai, her passport was immediately taken away, and she was sent to Dair city to madam Anush. It is right to call her “mama Roza”as this woman forced Ani into prostitution. To run ahead, it is worth saying that later the 40-year-old Anush, recognized as a leader of the criminal group, was convicted of 13 years' imprisonment. In court, Ani testified that she was working off the money that was spent on her travel costs; at least she was told this by the head of the house of prostitution. The girl could not express her discontent or protest as any such action was followed by an immediate beating. "Sometimes, if we did not agree to work, Anush beat us and did not give anything to eat. She would draw us up and beat us with her shoe. Once when I worked off my hours and complained that I did not receive money, she pushed me into a taxi, took me home and started to beat me with a metal switch,”- said Ani. She tried to escape several times, but failed every time. She was caught and returned by one of workers whose nickname was “the tail of the pony,” and he started beating her in the presence of the other victims. According to 35-year-old Milena, who was also one of the victims, Anush employed Ali to hold the girls in check. When a new girl arrived, Ali immediately visited her in order that the neophyte would know him. When any of the girls started creating problems, Ali would take her to the desert to beat and rape her, and later take her to the boss. By the way, Milena managed to get her passport back, but problems with tickets and her visa appeared later. She had to pay the fine since she stayed in Dubai illegally a year. In despair, she took a desperate but original step. "I went to a hotel where alcohol is forbidden, and ordered a beer and started to drink," - said Milena. “I put empty bottles on the table and called to the police. I was arrested and imprisoned for 2 months. As a result, on May 4 I was deported." According to Ms. Sukheil, the director of the Ewaa Shelter organization in Abu-Dhabi, which is involved in problems of women who became victims of trafficking, women in slavery need help and support. The majority of such women refuse to address the police because they are afraid of being arrested. Such things happen too, so the fear of the women in such a situation is easy to understand. Compiled from: Article in “The National” magazine, “Novoye Vremya” newspaper Prepared by: Jasmin Israelyan 19.05.09
A Resource Support Center for Combating Trafficking Opens in Yerevan
A Resource Support Center for combating trafficking opened in Yerevan on May 07, 2009. At the ceremony, representatives of OSCE Yerevan Office, as well as representatives of the Embassies of USA, Germany, and France were present. “The aim of the Resource center is to optimally combine the combat against trafficking, increase the rate of information availability, develop coordinated approaches on combating against this criminal action and protect victims of trafficking,” - stated Sergey Kapinos, Head of the OSCE Office in Yerevan, at the opening ceremony of the Center. He also mentioned that the OSCE Office in Yerevan has substantial experience in the field. The visit of Eva Biaudet, OSCE Special Representative, will promote the cooperation of civil society and all bodies engaged in combating trafficking. Mr. Kapinos also noted that Armenia has already ratified the EU Convention on combating against trafficking and has developed a National Mechanism to protect trafficking victims effectively. “The Center will become a place of developing joint programs, conducting trainings on combating trafficking, and creating a system of searching the most vulnerable spots,” said Kapinos. In her turn, Eva Biaudet, OSCE Special Representative, emphasized that the fight against trafficking has major significance in providing security for people. She also expressed her satisfaction that the project is supported by international financing. The resource Center will operate on the base of the RA Ministry of Labor and Social Issues. The establishment of the Center is being financed by the Governments of Sweden, France, Germany, and the USA. It will start operating based on the Memorandum from November, 2008, signed between the OSCE Office in Yerevan and the RA Ministry of Labor and Social Issues. News Armenia 07.05.2009 Unofficial translation
Government Does Not Provide Necessary Assistance to Trafficking Victims
An extract
The number of juvenile victims of trafficking and street prostitution is low in Armenia. “Hope and Help” NGO has specialized in the issues of street prostitution. According to Yenoq Shatvoryan, President of “Hope and Help” NGO, the total number of juvenile trafficking victims is less than 1 percent. There may be one or two cases when a juvenile becomes a trafficking victim. Eva Biaudet, OSCE special representative on combating trafficking in human beings, met with non-governmental organizations engaged in the trafficking field in Yerevan. She was interested in trafficking manifestations in Armenia as well as the legislative field and victims’ further destiny. Yenoq Shatvoryan, President of “Hope and Help” NGO, emphasized the role of NGOs engaged in the trafficking field by stating that, due to the influence of such NGOs, the police have started certain actions in the field. “So far, the police still have some difficulties in registering the fact of the existence of the trafficking problem in the country,” - mentioned Mr. Shatvoryan. Eva Biaudet was also interested in whether the majority of people engaged in trafficking, and the victims, are mainly women. Mr. Shatvoryan affirmed the statement that the great number of them are women, and that most of them got married in the countries where they developed their “business” of human trafficking. “The unemployment rate is high among the female population, that is the reason that a part of women are traffickers and the others – victims of trafficking,” - clarified Mr, Shatvoryan. The main activity of the“Audio-Visual” media organization is raising public awareness on trafficking. Arzuman Harutyunyan, the president of “Audio-Visual,” mentioned the hindrances that occurred during their work while trying to place a social advertisement through Mass Media. At the end of the meeting, Eva Biaudet told “Hetq” Online about this first meeting with non-governmental organizations in Armenia, and her conviction that there is an urgent need for a respective state program and certain steps to assist victims of trafficking. “Hetq” Online 06.05.2009 Unofficial translation For Armenian version, click here.
The Prosecutor Claimed 14 Years of Imprisonment for “Mother Trafficker”
An extract The case of Anush Martirosyan, a well-known trafficker in Dubai, was re-initiated. In the framework of the case, her sisters were also prosecuted: Sofia Martirosyan and Sonia Gabrielyan, as well as Mariam Martikyan. In the February 24 session, the court listened to the defendants Sofia Martirosyan and Mariam Martikyan. The latter refused her initial testimony, stating that she had realized that Nora and Milena (the latter’s name has been changed, she is Anush’s victim in the case) would be exploited in Dubai. Sonia Gabrielyan, the other defendant, accepted all accusations brought in against her and refused to give testimonials in the court. She is accused of “Promoting prostitution” and “Corruption for giving false testimonial.” It worth mentioning that Sonia has bribed Milena with 150 US dollars to take back the testimonials given against Anush. The court made public Sonia Gabrielyan’s testimonial given during the pre-investigation period, stating that she confessed to Anush’s involvement in trafficking in Dubai and that she was a kind of intermediary between them. In response to questions, Sonia said that the testimonials were false, and she considered herself guilty only of providing false testimonials. Having investigated all evidences and testimony, and after listening to the discussion, the prosecutor brought in his accusations. The prosecutor requested that the court sentence Sonia Gabrielyan to 1 year and 1 month imprisonment, Sofia Martirosyan and Mariam Martikyan – 6 years, Anush Martirosyan - considering her active participation in committing the criminal action – 14 years of imprisonment. Rubik Movsisyan, the lawyer for the defendant, asked the court to postpone the session and to organize a second one, claiming that after the prosecutor’s speech they need to re-edit their speech. The session will restart on March 18. Hetq Online Magazine 16.03.2009 Unofficial translation For Armenian version, click here.
US Ambassador to Armenia Marks Positive Work of Armenian Authorities in Combating Trafficking
Mary Yovanovich, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the USA, expressed her view of the positive work of Armenian authorities in combating trafficking during a meeting with Hovik Abrahamyan, Head of RA National Assembly. As mentioned in the press release, Ms. Yovanovich mentioned that Armenia is listed in the second group of countries liable to control according to the Annual US Department report on the given issue. Ms. Ambassador expressed her preparedness to assist Armenia to be withdrawn from the mentioned group. Compiled from: NewsArmenia Online Media For Armenian version, click here. 20.03.2009
OSCE Special Representative Meets Armenian Officials to Discuss Priorities in Fight Against Human Trafficking
The OSCE Special Representative for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, Eva Biaudet, welcomed today the Armenian authorities' efforts to combat trafficking in human beings and underscored the need to place human trafficking higher on the political agenda. In Yerevan on a three-day visit that ends today, Biaudet participated in the opening ceremony of the Anti-Trafficking Support and Resource Unit, which was established by the OSCE Office in Yerevan under the Ministry of Labour and Social Issues with the support of the Governments of France, Germany, Sweden and the United States. She expressed the hope that the Unit would help improve protection of victims and serve as a forum for discussion, training, gathering and analyzing information, and for developing feasible goals for combating human trafficking. In particular, Biaudet stressed the need for better victim identification: "Enhanced co-operation between NGOs providing assistance to victims and law enforcement agencies is a pre-requisite for better victim identification and I urge the Armenian authorities to put more effort into also investigating possible cases of internal trafficking among vulnerable populations." During her visit, Biaudet met Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Territorial Administration Armen Gevorgyan, who chairs the Inter-Ministerial Council on Trafficking Issues, as well as representatives of the National Assembly, the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Justice, Labour and Social Issues and Education, the police, the Office of the Prosecutor General and the Ombudsman. She also discussed co-operation and co-ordination in the field with representatives of civil society and international organizations. "I welcome the increased efforts of the Armenian authorities to bring traffickers to justice. However, I am concerned that the vast majority of convicted persons in recent years have been women. Some of these women are former victims, and I encourage efforts to be directed towards effective prosecution of all responsible persons, including the main profiteers," said Biaudet. The Head of the OSCE Office in Yerevan, Ambassador Sergey Kapinos, said his Office stands ready to continue providing support to all relevant Armenian actors: "The OSCE has always been an active international actor in anti-trafficking activities in Armenia. The Anti-Trafficking Support and Resource Unit will promote further effective co-operation between key national and international anti-trafficking actors in Armenia to provide for improved prevention, protection and referral mechanisms in the country." Compiled from: www.osce.org
08.05.09 For the Armenian version, click here.
Ex-Soviet Countries’ Women Trafficking Net Revealed
The “Echo Moskvi” radio station was involved in a women trafficking scheme from ex-Soviet countries. It was a wide net operating in Russia, Israel, Belarus, Moldova, Uzbekistan and Ukraine. In recent months, police managed to arrest 12 principal actors from the net. Among the arrested are also those who were mainly gathering women and those responsible for transportation. The Israeli net coordinator is also under arrest. On March 8th, Israeli police representatives announced the suppression of a wide net of criminals. During the press conference in Tel Aviv, police representatives presented in detail the result of their two years of activities, stating that the victims of the criminal net were mainly women from villages and small cities. The women were promised work as a waitress, dancer, or another job. Police representatives didn’t exclude the possibility that victims were forced to move to their countries. Women were brought to Israel through the Egyptian border and through Turkey. At first, the criminals transported women to Israel, and later to European states, including Belgium, Czech Republic, and Holland. At a later stage, women were sold and transported to Canada. Israeli police representatives also reported having cooperated with law-enforcement bodies of the above-mentioned countries. The criminals are waiting for their trial. It is expected that the heads of the net will be accused of the crime of human trafficking. According to Israeli laws, for such criminal cases the guilty will be imprisoned for 20 years. Police representatives have not mentioned any names and it is possible that there will be Armenians involved in this net. “Hetq” Online news 08.03.2009 Unofficial translation For Armenian version, click here.
Joyless Days Are Expected for “Night Butterflies”
The RA Government has approved the draft amendment in the RA Criminal Code to toughen liabilities for human traffic and prostitution work involvement during the regular session.Gevorg Danielyan, RA Minister of Justice, reported that the draft amendment had undergone discussion and was generally agreed upon. Article 132 (human traffic) and 132.1 (prostitution work involvement or sexual exploitation, enforced work, slavery or slavery-resembling situation) were amended. In particular, it was proposed to prolong the length of the sentence for human trafficking. Thus, for human trafficking intentionally organized by a group of people, sentences for underage trafficking will be for the period from 7 to 12 years with property confiscation or without, instead of the earlier penalty of 7 to 10 years. In a period of 10 months in 2008, the officers of organized crime administration detained 360 women. The detained were subjected to administrative disciplines – penalty equal to two minimal salary rates. Meanwhile, the Head of the Organized Crime Administration, Colonel U. Poghosyan, agreed that the issue of prostitution requires a combination of decision and action, as experienced in many countries around the world. He stated that last year in Erebuni and Shengavit Communities, four houses of prostitution operating as nightclubs were closed down. Combating against similar houses is still in process and the liquidation of more houses is expected in the near future. Each year many women are transported to different countries to be sexually exploited. In 2008, there were 15 cases involving women in prostitution and transporting people for labor exploitation. Ukraine Parliamentarians requested the imposition of a fine from 20 to 40 US dollars on the clients of the prostitutes, and the respective draft law has already been registered in the Ukraine Parliament. In case the law is put in force, the police officers will work with both prostitutes and their clients. In addition, the Ukraine draft also stated that before the crisis, the market of sexual services was valued at 700 million US dollars in Ukraine per year. According to experts of the Department of the Interior of Ukraine, during the crisis period this field will grow up to 1.5 billion US dollars per year. No figure is mentioned on the revenue for the Ukrainian Government from collecting fines from the clients of the prostitutes. Maybe Armenian Parliamentarians need to learn from their Ukrainian colleagues. However, the method of capturing these citizens has not been clarified yet. Marietta Malumyan “Novoye Vremya” Newspaper 07.03.2009 Unofficial translation
IOM Will Initiate a Project to Fight Trafficking in Persons in South Caucasus
Contributed by Lilit Verdyan, WRC International Organization for Migration (IOM) has started implementation of a two-year project on preventing trafficking in persons in Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia. The financial support of one million Swiss francs is provided by the Agency of Development and Cooperation of Switzerland. The aim of the IOM pilot project is an increase in awareness among the young generation about the dangers of modern forms of the slave trade. “Our efforts are mainly designed for young people of age 15-17 since the majority of them are inclined to find work abroad after finishing the school, ”- mentioned Vasiliy Yujanin, representative of IOM in Azerbaijan. He also added that unsolved conflicts and high level of unemployment in the region are the main reasons for migration among young people. In addition, many young people have no clear idea about trafficking in persons. IOM is to organize special training at schools of three states and to disseminate the knowledge and relevant materials among the pupils. In the framework of the given project, a national conference dedicated to the fight against traffic in persons has been held in Yerevan, Armenia. IOM has announced that South Caucasus is main provider and transit region of “white slavery.” Women are sold to Turkey and United Arab Emirates (UAE) with the aim of sexual exploitation, and men and boys are conveyed to Russia as a cheap labor force. Compiled from: http://www.un.org/russian/news/fullstorynews.asp?newsID=11180. 18.02.2009 Unofficial translation
Informing Schoolchildren of the Dangers of Trafficking
Contributed by Lilit Verdyan, WRC The first regional conference on “school education in Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan on how to prevent trafficking” took place on 17/02/09. Ilona Ter-Minasyan, the head of the UN Office in Armenia, said that the regional project is funded by the Government of Switzerland. It has been implemented since November of 2008. According to her, the mission of the project is to draft and spread educational materials raising the knowledge of trafficking dangers, and to inform pupils, their parents and the teachers on the prevention of trafficking in the Southern Caucasus. The Deputy Foreign Minister, Shavarsh Kocharyan, who was attending the conference, said that trafficking has been much spoken about in recent years by international society and that people are concerned about its dangers and aftermath. One of the most important ways to prevent trafficking is to inform people, said Kocharyan. Compiled from: Panorama.am 17/02/2009 For Armenian version, click here.
U.S. Envoy Sees Progress In Armenian Anti-Trafficking Drive
Armenia has stepped up its fight against human trafficking in the past year and may be removed from a blacklist of countries which the United States believes are not doing enough to address the problem, the U.S. ambassador in Yerevan, Marie Yovanovitch, said on Tuesday. Since 2005, the U.S. State Department has kept Armenia on the embarrassing “watch list” in its annual reports on cross-border transport and illegal exploitation of human beings around the world. The most recent of those reports, released in June 2008, said the Armenian government still “does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking” despite making “significant efforts to do so.” In an interview with RFE/RL, Yovanovitch said that the report covered trafficking-related developments in 2007 and that she believes Yerevan has done more to address U.S. concerns in 2008. “I think there is a continuum on the list, and obviously if the State Department decides that Armenia’s actions have improved, which I certainly believe that hey have, perhaps Armenia will graduate to a higher level,” she said. The Armenian government approved in late 2007 its second program of wide-ranging measures against the illegal practice and its most frequent manifestation: the recruitment and transport of women for sexual exploitation abroad. The status of an inter-agency government council coordinating those measures was recently upgraded. The council is now headed by the influential Deputy Prime Minister Armen Gevorgian. In accordance with the state budget for 2009, the government will for the first time allocate funding for anti-trafficking activities that have until now been financed by the U.S. and other Western governments as well as international organizations. Some of that funding will go to special shelters for trafficking victims opened by two non-governmental organizations in recent years. Yovanovitch praised these and other government efforts as “really positive” but said more needs to be done to combat what she considers a “terrible crime against humanity.” “The government of Armenia is doing some of the specific actions that they need to take, but … as long as any individual is trafficked from Armenia, whether it’s for labor or sex, clearly any government needs to do more,” she said. In its 2008 report, the State Department stressed that Yerevan should ensure that convicted traffickers “receive and serve adequate jail sentences.” U.S. officials have complained in the past that Armenian law-enforcement bodies and courts are too lenient toward such individuals. Yovanovitch noted with satisfaction that the Armenian authorities seem to have gotten tougher on them this year. “When you look at the law-enforcement side of things, I think there have been more convictions this year,” she said. “The sentences have been stronger, commensurate to the crime and they haven’t been suspended, which I think is really positive as well.” “But my understanding is that we are talking about three of four cases. We are not talking about hundreds of cases,” cautioned the ambassador. According to the Armenian police, 17 persons were prosecuted on trafficking charges during the first ten months of this year, up from ten such cases registered in 2007. The police say ten of those individuals have already been convicted and given prison sentences by local courts. None of them apparently worked in law-enforcement or other government bodies. Prosecution of state officials “complicit in trafficking” was another major State Department requirement. Yovanovitch noted in that regard that an indicted Uzbek trafficker managed to flee Armenia in 2006 without a passport and “perhaps with the complicity of government officials.” “That case is being reopened to take a look at who was involved and whether they should be charged with crimes,” she revealed. “And that’s very important as well because throughout the world, not just in Armenia, often trafficking happens because law-enforcement officials allow it to happen, because they profit from it as well.” The envoy suggested that despite the U.S.-backed government efforts there are few indications yet that the number of Armenians trafficked abroad for forced labor or sex has fallen in recent years. Accordingly, she expressed concern at a decrease in the number of trafficking cases registered by Armenian law-enforcement authorities in 2008.
“We think that probably it means that there is error in data or that law-enforcement officials are not reporting individuals who were trafficked,” she said. “Perhaps because they don’t identify them as people who were trafficked.”
The Armenian government approved earlier this month a “national referral mechanism” which it hopes will make it easier for the police and immigration bodies to identify trafficking victims and redirect them to NGOs dealing with their rehabilitation. One such group, the U.S.-based United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), is to organize training courses for 50 more law-enforcement officers. The UMCOR received a $90,000 U.S. government grant for that purpose on December 8.
By Emil Danielyan
December 30, 2008 (Photolur photo) Compiled from: www.armenialiberty.org
Armenia Still on U.S. Trafficking 'Watch List' Despite Government Efforts
Armenia remains on an unflattering “watch list” of countries which the United States believes are a major source of human trafficking more than six years after its government acknowledged the problem and began combating it in earnest. The Armenian authorities claim to have made considerable progress in cracking down on the practice and its most common manifestation: the transport of women for sexual exploitation abroad. Officials cite a wide range of measures such as the adoption of two government programs, establishment of special anti-trafficking bodies, and a sharp increase in criminal cases against individuals involved in transnational sex trade. Victims of the prostitution rings can now count on some government assistance and find refuge in special shelters operated by non-governmental organizations as part of anti-trafficking assistance provided to Armenia by international donors. That assistance has also been used for training Armenian law-enforcement officials to prevent, detect and investigate trafficking cases. Whether these and other measures have actually reduced the number of Armenian women trafficked abroad and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in particular is an open question, however. According to the U.S. State Department, Armenian law-enforcement bodies and courts have so far been quite lenient toward traffickers and corrupt government officials helping them. “In the past several years the authorities have taken steps to address the problem,” said Marina Solakhian, coordinator of an anti-trafficking project launched by the United Nations Development Program in 2004. “Of course, a lot still needs to be done. But you can’t eradicate the problem overnight. More time is needed for achieving and seeing results.” The problem came to light in 2002 when the U.S. State Department included Armenia into its so-called Tier 3 group of nations which it thinks were doing little to stop human trafficking and could therefore be stripped of U.S. economic assistance. Armenia was removed from the blacklist and upgraded to the Tier 2 category the next year after what the State Department described as “significant efforts” taken by its government. However, the department downgraded the country to a Tier 2 “watch list” in 2005, citing the Armenian authorities’ “failure to show evidence of increasing efforts to combat trafficking over the past year.” Yerevan swiftly responded to the criticism by setting up in late 2002 an inter-agency commission tasked with coordinating a government crackdown on trafficking. In November 2007 then Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian upgraded the commission’s status and approved a second program of relevant government actions. In 2003, the Armenian parliament passed a government-drafted amendment to the country’s penal code criminalizing “trade in human beings.” The clause was amended in 2006 to toughen punishment for the cross-border transport of persons for sexual exploitation and forced labor. They can now be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison. Also, special anti-trafficking units have been formed within Armenia’s police and the Office of the Prosecutor-General. The two law-enforcement agencies have reported a drastic increase in trafficking-related criminal cases opened by them in recent years. Colonel Hunan Poghosian, head of a powerful police department tasked with combating organized crime, announced on December 5 that law-enforcement authorities have prosecuted 17 persons on trafficking charges during the first ten months of this year, up from ten such cases registered in 2007. He said ten of those individuals have already been convicted and given prison sentences by local courts. The police reported only three such convictions in 2007. Poghosian did not specify the length of those jail terms or say whether there were any government or law-enforcement officials among the convicted individuals. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe concluded in an April 2007 report that only a small number of convicted Armenian traffickers receive serious sentences. This seems a key reason why the U.S. State Department is keeping Armenia on the “watch list” for a fourth consecutive year. “The Government of Armenia does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so,” the department said in its most recent report on human trafficking around the world released in June. It said the government should ensure that convicted traffickers “receive and serve adequate jail sentences” and prosecute “officials complicit in trafficking.” “Unfortunately, we still don’t have a full enforcement of the law,” Dziunik Aghajanian, a senior Armenian Foreign Ministry official involved in the anti-trafficking drive, admitted at a recent seminar in Yerevan. While putting a greater emphasis on the enforcement of laws, the government’s current anti-trafficking program contains no specific instructions for law-enforcement bodies to broaden and toughen punishments for the practice. The State Department report also found no “tangible progress” in government efforts to identify and protect trafficking victims. According to Poghosian, the number of Armenians recognized by the police as victims of human trafficking soared from 12 in 2007 to 37 in January-October 2008. The police official said 20 women have been sent this year to two rehabilitation centers in Yerevan run by the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) and an Armenian NGO called Hope and Belief. The UMCOR shelter was opened in an undisclosed location in Yerevan in 2004 as part of a broader anti-trafficking project launched by the U.S.-based charity. According to Viktoria Avakova, the project coordinator, it has hosted up to 25 women each year, giving them medical, psychological and legal assistance and helping to reintegrate them into what is still a conservative society rarely sympathetic to their suffering. She said many shelter residents are ostracized by their families or are too traumatized to tell the latter about their whereabouts. “People surrounding them often don’t understand what they have gone through, the trauma suffered by them,” Avakova told RFE/RL. “And so they see no way out of this vicious circle.” “These women were forced into sex slavery,” she said. “They didn’t decide how many clients a day they could have. Very often they were not even allowed to leave their rooms. They were deprived of practically all human rights.”
As well as ensuring victims’ physical and mental rehabilitation, the UMCOR organizes retraining courses for the mostly unskilled and uneducated victims to make it easier for them to find new jobs in Armenia. With unemployment in the country and especially its rural areas remaining widespread, that is a difficult task. The government’s anti-trafficking program also envisages retraining courses and “socioeconomic” programs for the victims. But evidence of their implementation by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and other government agencies has so far been scant. The government for the first time set aside targeted funding for anti-trafficking activities only in its budget for next year approved by parliament last month. “So far the state has done little to reintegrate victims into society,” the UNDP’s Solakhian told RFE/RL. “It is non-governmental organizations that mainly work with victims.” “Besides, there are not many jobs, and employers often refuse to hire women or men recognized as trafficking victims,” she said. International and local non-governmental organizations funded by Western donors also seem to have been more active than the government in raising public awareness of the problem and even training law-enforcement officers dealing with it. The UMCOR office in Armenia, for example, has a telephone hotline for Armenians planning to work abroad and needing legal counseling. “Our experts explain the dangers involved and how to avoid them,” said Avakova. The UMCOR received on December 8 a $90,000 U.S. government grant to train 50 more law-enforcement officers to better manage trafficking cases and identify their victims. “Up to 15 police officers will be provided with a follow-up training on recent developments in the anti-trafficking area,” the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan said in a statement.
Experts believe that ultimately the success of these efforts hinges not only on the Armenian government’s commitment to combating human trafficking but also the elimination of its underlying socioeconomic causes. “The root causes of the problem -- poverty and unemployment -- are still there,” said Avakova. “As long as they are not addressed, people will believe in false promises of better life.” By Emil Danielyan December 24, 2008 Compiled from:www.armenialiberty.org
Armenia: Anti-Trafficking Grant
New hope has arrived for people who are forced into human trafficking in Armenia. A $90,000 grant was awarded to UMCOR’s non-governmental organization (UMCOR-NGO) to help strengthen their response to trafficking throughout Armenia. The funds will help train law enforcement officials in protecting and detecting trafficked individuals, as well as help treat them in compliance with international standards. The grant was issued by the State Department’s Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs and was recently presented to the head of UMCOR-NGO's Armenia office, Gohar Grigorian. UMCOR Armenia’s Anti-Human Trafficking Program assists trafficked survivors by helping them reintegrate into society. The program also provides medical services, psychosocial support, vocational training and legal counseling. December 16, 2008 Compiled from: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/fromthefield/219158/122946229869.htm Official translation
Be Careful Not to be Entrapped into Trafficking
“Armenia considers being a trafficking born country. Girls and women are taken to Turkey and Arabic United Emirates where they are entrapped into prostitution,” said Marina Solakhyan, the coordinator of Struggle against Trafficking UNDP project. According to Solakhyan, there exists another type of trafficking among us – working trafficking, which main direction is in Russia.
One of the reasons of the trafficking is that in transitional countries and in countries that lack stable economy people are looking for ways to find good jobs, she said. According to her people don’t verify the information they receive from their friends, neighbors, etc. In order to escape from such situation, M. Solakhyan said that a job found abroad should be well verified, a written contract or at least written agreement should be made, and the legislation of certain country should be studied. It is important to make copies of documents and to leave one example with relatives, as when abroad in case of trafficking people are taken off their documents just from the airport. 02.12.2008 Compiled from: Panorama.am Official translation
Armenian Police Report Surge In Trafficking Convictions
| | The number of individuals imprisoned in Armenia for human trafficking and officially identified as victims of the illegal practice has more than doubled this year, a senior police official said on Friday.
According to Colonel Hunan Poghosian, head of a feared police department tasked with combating organized crime, Armenian law-enforcement authorities have prosecuted 17 persons on relevant charges during the first ten months of this year, up from ten such cases registered in last year. He said ten of those individuals have already been convicted and given prison sentences by local courts. The police reported only three such convictions in 2007.
Poghosian portrayed the police statistics as further proof of the toughening of the Armenian government’s fight against human trafficking. The government launched a new three-year plan of anti-trafficking actions late last year. The Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian also formed a special inter-agency body coordinating the crackdown.
The Armenian authorities began tackling the problem in 2004 under pressure from the United States which has repeatedly described Armenia has a major source of
illegal transport of women for sexual exploitation abroad. But despite recent years’ government efforts, Armenia remains on a special “watch list” of nations which the U.S. State Department says are not doing enough to combat trafficking.
The police data show the number of mainly female Armenians officially recognized as victims of human trafficking soaring from 12 in 2007 to 37 in January-October 2008. Poghosian said 20 women have been sent this year to special rehabilitation centers run by two non-governmental organizations. One woman was repatriated from the United Arab Emirates, the main destination of trafficking victims, with the help of the Armenian Foreign Ministry, he said.
Poghosian also told reporters that the Armenian police have registered ten trafficking cases, virtually all of them involving sex trade, in the past ten months. Eight of them have already been solved, he said without elaboration.
By: Hovannes Shoghikian, 5 December 2008Compiled from: http://www.armenialiberty.org/armeniareport/report/en/2008/12/21C94656-DD1A-4DF6-9E3E-145575DF79DE.ASP#go |
Victims of Trafficking
Despite the growing efforts in the combat against trafficking, tangible results have not yet been achieved. Traffickers try to recruit vulnerable women with financial problems and send them to Dubai, United Arab Emirates or other places on business affairs. In 2003-2005, Susanna Nikoghosyan and Gayane Melkonyan were convicted two times for their dirty job, but soon after their release they continued their business. Lusine H.met them in 2007 and the tragedy repeated. However, this girl succeeded to get rid of them. Another girl, resident of the city Gyumri Gayane Gh. had the same regretful destiny. Gayane had been a victim of these three women since 2003. Gayane Melkoynan is also from Gyumri. Knowing about Gayane Gh.’s intentions to earn a lot of money and readiness to do any job, anywhere, Gayane Melkonyan proposed to her to leave for India and get a highly paid job in the shop of her acquaintance: the shop owner would cover the travel expenses, and later the girl could return the money. While Gayane was happy with her forthcoming visit to India, Susanna Nikoghosyan informed her that there was no direct flight to India, and she bought a transit ticket from Moscow to India. The girl would be met in Moscow airport to be sent to India. So when Gayane appeared in Moscow airport, two Armenian men, Sevak Simonyan and Avetik Khachatryan, met these naive girls, and prepared all of the necessary documents for sending them to the Emirates or Turkey. They rented an apartment in Moscow, where the girls were kept until their movement to their final destination. Gayane also lived here for a few days, and then Sevak and Avetik provided her with a false passport of Russia and sent her to Dubai. In Dubai, the girl was met by Amalya Matulyan, the head of this criminal chain. This woman, also known as “Nano from Bangladesh,” has a criminal record for trafficking. The police of the Republic of Armenia have been searching for her for a long time. “Nano from Bangladesh”–Amalya- received Gayane Gh. in Dubai. Threatening that they would be beaten and raped by Arabs, Amalya forced her to endure sexual abuse. The girl escaped from this horrible situation by chance. She was arrested by the police and then was removed from the country. Two members of the criminal chain, Gayane Melkonyan and Susanna Nikoghosyan, were found and taken to the police. They were accused of the serious crime, and their case was sent to the court. Two guilty women, who had been sending Armenian women to other countries and forcing them into sexual abuse, will be strictly punished. Of course, this is a promising way to tackle the problem, but unfortunately, the number of victims is not decreasing. Hasmik Podosyan “02” weekly, 31.10.2008, N 42 (891), www.police,am Unofficial translation from Armenian For Armenian version, click here.
Trafficking Victims Will Be Taught to Bake and Cut Hair
Apparently, in the fate of trafficking victims things have eventually started moving. The 2009 state budget envisages an allocation for fighting against this evil, and law-enforcement agencies have prepared amendments to the Criminal code with the aim of toughening penalties for the mentioned crime. Unfortunately, so far the Government has mainly relied on NGO activities in the fight against slave trade. At least, the Annual Report of US State Department comes to such a conclusion. Nevertheless, NGO forces, operating on international grants, are obviously insufficient. The situation will hardly shift with propaganda only. The above-mentioned can be well-illustrated by the example of the NGO “Hope and Help.” Some time ago, the NGO organized a semi-closed shelter for women who were saved from sex slavery. It is a stationary refuge. According to Yenok Shatvoryan, the NGO director, 78 people have applied to them since 2003. For the victims a suitable apartment is chosen, but unfortunately, the charitable lodging is provided only for a month. During this month, the women get psychological, social, and medical assistance. In addition, the organizers of the Shelter provide them with professional training. Depending on their abilities, they can become hairdressers, cooks etc. Appropriate tools are given to them: i.e. hairdryers, scissors, tools for the required activity. It is necessary to note that such tools are provided temporarily with an obligation to return them two years later. As a rental fee for the tools, the victims of trafficking are obliged to serve poor people, e.g. old people from alms-houses. When the month ends, the trained people are settled in various dormitories. There is no exact statistics on the victims of sex slavery. The fact is that after they escape they try to avoid any possible contact with law enforcement agencies. The only conditions which allow them to apply to NGOs are anonymity and confidentiality. The reason is the same as always: lengthy trials and immense psychological trauma for victims of sex slavery. With the aim of finding required people for “Hope and Help,” the NGO has its special staff-- two specialists work in the cities of Vanadzor and Gyumri. There are some methods worked out for tracing necessary people, - says Y. Shatvoryan. “The organization has a Hot Line service (08 008 0801) for that. One can receive information on migration, visa issues, and employment abroad. Some people apply to us to look for their relatives abroad who haven’t contacted with them for a long period of time." Those who like or search for easy money, swallow the bait from various advertisements announcing a vacancy for 20-36 year old women. Certainly, employment seekers are well informed about traps setted by procurers. Nevertheless, they hope to bypass the menace. Based on statistics, many victims are divorced women on the margins of society. Going abroad is the only chance to escape poverty for them. Marietta Malumyan “Novoye Vremya”, 28.10.2008, www.nv.am Unofficial translation from Armenian For Armenian version, click here.
16 Individuals Suspected of Human Trafficking are Sought by Police
In comparison to years past, the number of criminal court cases dealing with human trafficking has gone down dramatically. In other words, either such criminal cases have decreased, or law enforcement officials are finding it harder to expose such incidents. To get to the bottom of the matter “Hetq” has been making inquiries at the Police Department’s Information Division for the past several weeks. We have been trying to make contact with any responsible official at the Police Anti-Trafficking Unit in order to conduct an interview. Officials we have spoken to at the Information Division have remained steadfast in their demand that, “all such inquiries should be sent in writing and afterwards we will provide exhaustive answers in detail.”
The Public Information Division at the Police Department has not seen fit to organize an interview on the matter and only responded to our written inquiry 21 days later. In their response there was no answer to our question as to why there has been such a decrease in trafficking criminal cases in the courts. S. Shirinyan stated that as of September 24th of this year, only 8 criminal cases of trafficking have been initiated according to Article 132 of the Criminal Code (trafficking). According to our sources, a group of Russian women who were subject to trafficking was uncovered in Armenia this year. We requested to receive details on the matter: “Female resident “Y” of the Russian town of Volgograd, along with her husband “V” and their daughter “A”, posing as an employment agency, collected and sent to Armenia a group of Russian women under false pretenses. They took advantage of the women’s helpless situation and under threat forced them to work as nude dancers at several Yerevan night clubs. Both “Y” and “A” have been arrested,” the Police informed us. In response to our queries as to who is being pursued and when did the investigation begin, the Police informed us that, "Presently, the Police Department of Armenia is in pusuit of 16 individuals in accordance with Article 132 of the ROA Criminal Code." We initiated the inquiry because according to information at our disposal, one of the individuals is in Armenia. However, during our telephone conversation, Mr. Sayat Shirinyan stated that he couldn’t divulge the names of the individuals being pursued since this was classified information. This, of course, is a bit strange, since not only are the full names published when an investigation is announced, but photos as well. It is quite possible that these individuals are continuing to operate in Armenia today. We also requested demographic information from the Police as to what countries Armenian women are being trafficked to. Mr. Shirinyan gave the following terse answer: "The main countries where Armenian women are subject to abuse are the United Arab Emirates and Turkey." Russia must also be added to this list since there has been a court case there involving three Armenians who were the victims of trafficking.
Compiled from: Hetq, October 20, 2008
www.hetq.am
Unofficial translation from Armenian
Representatives of Armenian Priesthood Discussed the Issue of Combating Trafficking
Within the framework of the “Priesthood against trafficking” project, a training entitled “Let us work together to combat trafficking,” dedicated to the problems of HIV/AIDS and trafficking, was held in the Armenian resort town of Tsakhkadzor, with the blessing of Catholicos of all Armenians Garegin II.
Priests from Armenian and Artsakh eparchies, representatives of different structures of the Holy Echmiadzin, and seminarians of Gevorgyan and Vazgenyan theological seminaries, as well as representatives of Armenian Catholic Church participated in the training.
The special speaker on slavery issues of the UN Council of Human Rights, Gyulnara Shahinyan, also took part in the event with a lecture. She tackled issues of revealing individuals who have become victims of trafficking and raising their awareness, and emphasized the importance of joint action of civil society and the Armenian Church.
Hasmik Edilyan (“Democracy Today” NGO) spoke about methods of revelation of trafficking victims and their integration into society, particularly pointing out the role of the priesthood in the solution of the named problem.
Victoria Avakova, a representative of “UMCOR” international organization, in her turn, mentioned how important it is to protect victims of trafficking in human beings and to show them assistance.
In the course of the three-day training, discussions evolved in groups, outlining forms and directions which could help the priesthood in their work with victims of trafficking.
All participants of the event once again acknowledged the necessity of the participation of the Armenian priesthood in the combat against trafficking.
Joint programs aimed at prevention of the crime, the solution of psychological and spiritual problems of victims and assistance in their reintegration were also discussed during the training.
The training was organized by the Armenian round-table of the World Council of Churches charity fund in cooperation with "UMCOR" international organization and "Democracy Today" NGO.
Compiled from: http://www.newsarmenia.ru/arm1/20081010/41963975.html
Unofficial translation from Russian
2008-10-13
“Armenia Intends to Toughen Its Struggle Against Trafficking” – Vice Prime Minister
"Armenia intends to toughen its combat against trafficking," – stated Armen Gevorgyan, minister of territorial administration, Vice Prime Minister of Armenia, during his meeting with US Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Armenia, Marie L. Yovanovitch.
During the meeting that took place a day before Gevorgyan made the statement, the “Novosti-Armenia” agency was informed by the Ministry press service that the state budget for 2009 envisages the financial means for combating trafficking, and that law enforcement agencies have prepared amendments to the Criminal Code aiming at toughening punitive measures for this type of crime.
Mrs. Yovanovitch, in her turn, mentioned the positive reaction of donor organizations to the activity of the Armenian Anti-trafficking Council.
Compiled from: http://www.newsarmenia.ru/arm1/41961962.html
2008-10-10
Unofficial translation from Russian
Trafficking, Distant and Close: An Extract
The Central Department for Combating Organized Crime of the RA Police takes regular steps in combating trafficking, involvement into and promotion of prostitution, and, in general, in uncovering crimes against freedom, honor and the dignity of the individual. It is important to mention that recently, the working attitude of law enforcement has been changed, and cooperation between the Police, General Prosecutor’s Office, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, international and non-governmental organizations dealing with issues of trafficking got a new impulse. Due to effective cooperation in 2007, criminal proceedings were initiated against 31 individuals (articles 132, 261 and 262 of the RA Criminal code). 147 became victims of the mentioned crimes, including 3 men (victims of labor trafficking). Criminal proceedings were initiated against 10 individuals (under the same articles) during the first semester of 2008, and the police are searching for 19 individuals now. According to the operative information, numerous Armenian women, deceived by promises of high salary from some “employers” with shadowy biographies, have been subjected to sexual exploitation, particularly in Turkey. Women who have voluntarily become “production" are mercilessly subjected to sexual exploitation, receiving (or not) nothing but a dime against disparagement and humiliation. The world currently combats trafficking quite consistently, but new breeding grounds and bursts of crime do not decrease at all, as the number of victims of trafficking is in direct proportion to the efforts aimed against that crime. Hasmik Podosyan “02” weekly, Unofficial translation from Armenian. www.police.am
A Training on Problems of Trafficking
A two-day training entitled “Trafficking in humans,” organized within the framework of the “Complex program of combating trafficking in Armenia” was attended by judges and officials from the Prosecutor’s offices of the RA Marzes (provinces). As the program manager, Nver Sargsyan, informed “HH”, the training was conducted with assistance of the International Labor Organization, OSCE and the Center of International Policy Development. “The training, aimed at raising awareness of trafficking and the ways to combat it, was attended by 10 judges and 10 prosecutors. During the two-day training, the participants discussed the methodology of how to investigate the cases of trafficking (sexual and labor exploitation), identify victims and improve protection of witnesses,”- said Nver Sargsyan, adding that in the process of the training, national and international mechanisms of trafficking in humans and labor exploitation, as well as national mechanisms of combating trafficking, were also discussed. It is worth mentioning that similar trainings were conducted for the RA Police and employees of State Labor Inspection. During the training, which was conducted by experts of CIPS and UNDP, it was mentioned that impunity of perpetrators is one of the reasons behind trafficking and forced labor.
"Effective prosecution of perpetrators is an important preventive factor,"- said UN Chief Technical Advisor Jolt Dudash.
Mr. Dudash also noted that prosecutors and judges should be aware of the victim’s right to be protected when investigating and hearing cases of trafficking.
According to Mr. N. Sargsyan, this initiative is aimed at assisting the RA Government to consolidate forces for prevention of trafficking and forced labor.
According to training participants, the seminar will facilitate better understanding of the issue and help judicial authorities to improve their skills in combating the crime of trafficking more effectively.
In speaking about the recent amendments to the RA Criminal Code, N. Sargsyan stated that relevant articles on trafficking have not yet been fully functioning in our country. “Despite the recent changes in the law, there is a need for qualification. Identification of trafficking cases is an extremely complicated issue: Often, the majority of these cases are qualified as prostitution, because there are no proofs and the witnesses often refuse to testify, being scared or fearing publicity,”- said N.Sargsyan, adding that the state is also taking steps to improve the legislative field by means of familiarizing it with international conventions. We would add here that in 2007, from 15 to 18 cases of trafficking were found in Armenia.
Galust Nanyan “Hayastani Hanrapetutjun” N 187, 25-09-2008 Unofficial translation from Armenian www.hhpress.am
“Trafficking in Human Beings” Class Kicks Off in Yerevan
Yerevan, September 24, Armenpress: A two-day class on “Trafficking in Human Beings” with the participation of judges and prosecutors, kicked off today in Yerevan conducted by the International Labor Organization (ILO).
The chief technical consultant of ILO, Jolt Dudash, said that the class will promote a deeper understanding by the judges and prosecutors on the issue and will help the judicial bodies to strengthen their skills for fighting effectively against trafficking. Trafficking is a crime of international nature, and international experience and cooperation with the relevant establishments of other countries are important for fighting against it.
“Effective prosecution of the violators of law is an important preventive factor and promotes the prevention of trafficking and forced labor,” he said. Relevant work must be carried out in that direction in Armenia and, according to J. Dudash, it is necessary to improve the current legislation of the country. He also underscored the steps directed towards the support of the victims of trafficking.
During the two-day class, the participants will discuss trafficking in human beings, methodology of investigation, and improvement of the defense of witnesses of trafficking. Reports will be presented on international mechanisms of fighting against trafficking in human beings and forced labor.
The class is being held within the framework of “Comprehensive Program on Fighting Against Trafficking in Armenia,” financed by the EU.
Source: www.armenpress.am
Armenia and UAE are Planning a Cooperation Agreement in the Field of Combating Trafficking
Armenia and United Arab Emirates (UAE) are planning to sign a cooperation agreement in the field of combating trafficking, reported the Head of the Migration Department of RA Ministry Territorial Administration, Gagik Yeganyan. According to his words, issues related to signing of the document within the framework of “Safe journey” migration agency program were discussed during the visit of Armenian delegation to UAE about a month ago. “The aim of the program is to prevent trafficking by different means, starting from providing citizens with necessary information. Particularly, we are trying to find out if the employer firm for labor migrants really exists,” said Mr. Yeganyan during a press conference on Friday (20.06.08), adding that main stream of trafficking from Armenia is headed towards United Arab Emirates. According to Mr. Yeganyan, they also plan to organize a search for labor migrants abroad about whom family members have received no news for a long time, as well as to assist Armenian citizens in obtaining official work permits. “We had quite an effective discussion, and the authorities of Emirates also expressed interest in cooperation. The draft agreement has been elaborated and forwarded to UAE,” Mr. Yeganyan said. He also stated that a visit of a delegation to Russian Federation is planned for July to discuss of questions of labor trafficking. Apart from that, according to Mr. Yeganyan, significant work is being done for the establishment of cooperation in the field with Turkey. http://www.newsarmenia.ru/arm1/20080620/41900661.html 2008-06-23
A Meeting of Anti-Trafficking Council Took Place
A Meeting of Anti-trafficking Council Took Place The first meeting of the Anti-trafficking Council took place in the office of Armen Gevorgyan, Vice Prime Minister of RA and Minister of Territorial Administration. According to the Public Relations Department of the Ministry of Territorial Administration, presented first were activities of different departments aimed at combating trafficking, implemented during 2008. Further, the part of US State Dept. report on trafficking which concerned Armenia was discussed. The Council suggested that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs analyze the existing legislation on prevention and combating trafficking in order to fill the gaps and better organize relevant activities. This shall become one of the points on the agenda for the next meeting of the Council, which is to take place in September. The Council approved mechanisms of national tracking of victims of trafficking, presented by Dzjunik Aghajanyan, head of the working group. In order to make it a working paper and not just a good intention, Vice Prime Minister gave a commission the job to prepare legal framework for the latter and present it for the approval of the Government in one month's time.
After that, participants discussed the financial provisions necessary for each department to implement activities envisaged by the implementation schedule of the Anti-trafficking National Action Plan for 2009.
The agreement was reached to provide funding for activities of 2008 from the budgetary means of each Ministry. Departments received an assignment to clarify once again the amount of funds necessary for implementation of their part of the activities.
“International organizations have serious expectations related to the work of the Anti-trafficking Council. They give particular importance to the participation of state agencies and allocation of state funds. During next 10 days, within the framework of meetings with donor organizations, further joint projects shall be discussed,”- said Armen Gevorgyan, Vice Prime Minister of RA and Minister of Territorial Administration. “Hayastani Hanrapetutjyn” newspaper, www.hhpress.am., unofficial translation from Armenian 27-06-2008 N 124 (4431)
Routes of Trafficking are Expanding
Women and Girls from Armenia mostly become victims of trafficking and are subjected to sexual exploitation in UAE and Turkey. This was stated in US State Department annual report “Trafficking in Human Beings - 2008” (http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2008/). The report says that Armenian citizens of both sexes also become victims of labor trafficking in Turkey and Russia. Potential victims leave for UAE from Yerevan or Moscow. Turkey is reached by bus via Georgia. According to information provided by the Prosecutor’s office in 2007, 29 cases of trafficking were registered in Armenia: 17 in regions (7 cases in Lori, 5 – in Shirak, 2 – in Kotayk, 2- in Armavir and 1 – in Ararat) and 12 in Yerevan. As a result, the investigating agencies had 35 cases, 33 of which – in Investigation Department of the General Prosecutor’s Office and 2 in Regional (Lori and Shirak districts) Police Investigation Departments. In 18 of 33 accused criminal cases sent to courts, arrest was chosen as a preventive punishment. According to cases investigated by the Prosecutor’s office, 143 persons were subjected to sexual exploitation, 77 of them in Armenia, 66 – abroad, particularly in Turkey and UAE. Territories of Russian Federation and Georgia are mostly used for their transportation abroad. In this way 16 women were transferred to UAE through Moscow and 29 – through Batumi to Turkey. Marietta Malumyan “Novoe Vremya”, N 1620, 12.06.2008, unofficial translation from Russian
35 Cases of Trafficking in 2007
35 Cases of Trafficking in 2007 “In 2007, 35 criminal cases were filed in Armenia on trafficking,” – stated the Minister of Labor and Social Issues, Aghvan Vardanyan. Speaking at the meeting of the Commission of External Affairs of the National Parliament of RA, the Minister noted that 3 or 4 years ago very few such criminal cases were filed annually. "Novoye Vremya" 15.03.2008 Unofficial translation from Russian
The Council of Europe Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings Enters Into Force on 1 February 2008
The Council of Europe’s Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (CETS # 197) enters into force on 1 February 2008. The Convention aims to prevent trafficking, protect the human rights of victims and prosecute traffickers. It applies to all victims of trafficking: women, men and children alike; to all forms of exploitation: sexual exploitation, forced labor, servitude, removal of organs etc; and it covers all forms of trafficking: national and transnational, related or not related to organized crime. The treaty enters into force on 1 February 2008 with regard to the first ten countries which ratified the Convention: Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Georgia, Moldova, Romania and Slovakia. It will enter into force with regard to Bosnia and Herzegovina, France and Norway on 1 May 2008. The Convention, which was opened for signature in Warsaw in May 2005 at the 3rd Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Council of Europe, has been signed, but not yet ratified, by 24 other member states: Andorra, Armenia, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Montenegro, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, San Marino, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden, “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. Ten member states – Azerbaijan, Czech Republic, Estonia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Monaco, Russia, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey - have not yet signed it. Non-member states and the European Community can also become Party to the Convention. This main features of the new Convention, the first European treaty in this field, include: • Awareness-raising for persons vulnerable to trafficking and actions aimed at discouraging "consumers" to prevent trafficking in human beings. • Victims of trafficking must be recognized as such in order to avoid police and public authorities treating them as illegal migrants or criminals. • Victims of trafficking will be granted physical and psychological assistance and support for their reintegration into society. Medical treatment, counseling and information as well as appropriate accommodation are all among the measures provided. Victims are also entitled to receive compensation. • Victims are entitled to a minimum of 30 days to recover and escape from the influence of the traffickers and to take a decision regarding their possible cooperation with the authorities. A renewable residence permit may be granted if their personal situation so requires or if they need to stay in order to cooperate in a criminal investigation. • Trafficking will be considered as a criminal offence: traffickers and their accomplices will therefore be prosecuted. • The private life and the safety of victims of trafficking will be protected throughout the course of judicial proceedings. The possibility exists to prosecute those who use the services of a victim if they are aware that the person is a victim of trafficking in human beings. The Convention provides the possibility of not imposing penalties on victims for their involvement in unlawful activities, if they were compelled to do so by their situation. The Convention provides for the establishment of an independent monitoring body capable of controlling its obligations. To this end, within one year of the entry into force, the Council of Europe will set up the Group of Experts on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA), consisting of ten to fifteen experts. Trafficking in human beings is a worldwide phenomenon often linked to organized crime. According to the International Labour Organisation, up to 2.45 million people throughout the world are victims of human trafficking every year. The illicit profits of this trade amount to 33 billion dollars annually, making it the third most profitable criminal activity after illegal drugs and arms trafficking. http://www.coe.int/t/dc/press/noteRedac2008/20080104_traite_en.asp 2008-01-04 ginsc
Presentation on Regional Project on Combating Trafficking Will Take Place in Yerevan
On Tuesday, the UN Office in Yerevan informed “Novosti-Armenia” that the presentation of the Regional Project to Combat Trafficking will take place in Yerevan on 22 November, 2008. Within the framework of cooperation on the Regional Project, decreasing trafficking in Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan will be discussed as part of the issue of strengthening the national project in these three Transcaucasian countries. Issues in combating trafficking will also be discussed. Dzunik Aghajanyan, Representative of the Inter-Departmental Commission on Trafficking, Araik Petrosyan, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs of RA, Roger Plant, Representative of the Extra Actions to Combat Forced Labor Project, Consuelo Vidal, UNDP Resident Representative in Armenia, and Sergei Kapinos, Chief of OSCE Yerevan office will participate in the presentation. The presentation is organized by EU, OSCE Yerevan office, and the International Center of Migration Policy Development. GINSC 30.11.2007
Annual Income Received from Trafficking is 32 Million Dollars
Annual Income Received from Trafficking is 32 Million Dollars 1,875,000 Euros to Combat Trafficking Every year about 12.5 million trafficking cases are registered all over the world. According to statistics of the International Labor Organization, every year about 53,000 children under 17 years old are killed worldwide. About 5,700,000 children are doing forced labor and 1,200,000 children become victims of trafficking. The yearly income of this criminal activity is more than 32 million dollars. In the field of the organized crime, trafficking is the second major area, after illegal drug circulation, in which mostly young people are involved. The problem is currently quite real in the Republic of Armenia. Countries such as Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are export countries in labor migration and trafficking. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a high outflow of labor migrants took place from the South Caucasian countries with the purpose of finding legal as well as illegal employment. A huge number of migrants are employed abroad illegally. Countries such as Russian Federation, United Arab Emirates, Greece, Italy, Lebanon and Czech Republic are, for the most part, receiving countries for the migrants of the above-mentioned region. Remittances from migrants working abroad are a mainstay as income for family members. Due to the high level of unemployment, as well as the lack of vacancies for respectable employment, employees are interested in the high salaries of receiving countries. The lack of awareness about the employment conditions in foreign countries, as well as limited possibilities for legal migration, lead to the vulnerability of the migrants. In addition to the above-mentioned circumstances, the smugglers promise well-paid employment abroad, which is almost never true and even far from reality. From this exploitation of illegal migrants the unfair employers receive a high income. Meanwhile, the illegal migrants are completely unaware of their rights, or they are afraid of exposing their exploiter. It is often hard to distinguish between labor trafficking and job conditions which do not comply with accepted standards. The mechanisms of exploitation and keeping people in subordination are well known, such as hiding identification documents, threatening the illegal migrants with deportation or violence, or keeping them in detention. To prevent trafficking, the International Labor Organization has initiated a program on combating trafficking in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Reforms in legislation are needed to resolve issues which will arise in the near future. This program aims to decrease the number of trafficking cases in these countries. In addition, the objective of the program is to raise awareness among the possible victims of trafficking and to include the trade unions and employers in preventive activities. All of these steps will strengthen the mechanisms of identification, assistance, protection and support of the victims of sexual and labor trafficking. The program is funded by the European Commission and will be implemented within 2 years. The budget for the program is 1 million 875 thousand Euro. Due to the investigative activities of the Police of the RA, from January to September in 2007 27 cases of trafficking were found. Three criminal cases were opened this year for recruiting, exploitation, detention, or accepting of people in comparison with 8 cases in the previous year. Four criminal cases were opened for different types of involvement in sexual exploitation and slavery in comparison with one case opened in the previous year. Two criminal cases were initiated on involving a person in sexual exploitation. For encouragement of prostitution, 18 cases were opened, in comparison with 21 cases of pimping out of the country. During this period, 4 victims of trafficking were returned to Armenia. Lilit Grigoryan “Iravunk” 23-26.11 N91 (1515) Unofficial translation from Armenian
Extract From "Most of the Pimps are Former Prostitutes"
Extract from "Most of the pimps are former prostitutes"Trafficking in Numbers and Facts At the end of last year, the RA General Prosecutor’s Office analyzed the 2007 situation on trafficking and the investigation of cases connected with this crime. The work of the Division on Anti-trafficking and Illegal Migration in Human Beings of the Investigative Department of the RA General Prosecutor’s Office was summarized. The Division was created in June 2005 and ceased its existence on December 01, 2007. Within the framework of judicial reform, the task of combating that kind of crime is forwarded to RA Police. It is impossible to combat this calamity with the efforts of only one institution – a complex approach is necessary. In this connection, at the end of last year a 2007-2009 National Action Plan to Combat Trafficking was elaborated by several institutions (including the police) and presented to the RA Government. According to the RA General Prosecutor’s Office, 29 cases of trafficking were registered in 2007: 17 – in marzes (7 cases in Lori, 5 – in Shirak, 2 – in Armavir, 2 – in Kotayk and 1 in Ararat) and 12 in Yerevan. 2 criminal cases were “inherited” from 2006; another 4 were resumed due to detection of wanted persons. As a result, during the year investigating bodies processed 35 criminal cases. 33 of them were processed by the Investigative Department of the RA General Prosecutor’s Office, 2 – by investigating bodies of Lori and Shirak marzes. All legal proceedings were instituted under four articles of the Criminal Code of RA: 132 (trafficking), 132 prime (recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labor, by means of the threat or use of force, of fraud, of using dependence, of blackmail, of threat of destruction or damage to property), 261 (involvement in prostitution) and 262 (maintaining dens of prostitution or pimping). 18 of the 33 accused were put under restraint by arrest, 2 were released on bail, and 13 were given a written warning not to leave their place of residence. 28 of the 33 were women, 6 of whom had criminal records. None of these criminal cases were dismissed and one was forwarded to the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation. According to the cases processed by the prosecution, 143 persons (all women) were subjected to sexual exploitation: 77 of them - inside Armenia, 66 – abroad, particularly in UAE and Turkey. Territories of Georgia or Russian Federation are usually used for transit. Thus, 16 women were transported to UAE via Moscow, and 29 – via Batumi to Turkey. 16 women who were subjected to sexual exploitation passed a rehabilitation course at assistance and recreation centers. Other victims didn’t express any desire to do so. Information from the General Prosecutor’s Office about the social status of women involved in trafficking is especially interesting. Their research showed that the majority of pimps are former prostitutes. Victims of trafficking are usually widows or women whose husbands went off to Russia in search of a job and stayed there, leaving their families to the mercy of fate. These women find themselves in hard social conditions. They become the only bread-winners, and, having no other means of subsistence, become prostitutes; some of them later even become "brigadiers" or "Mama Rosas". Prostitutes transported abroad – victims of pleaded criminal cases- prefer to return home anonymously. They apply neither to law enforcement agencies nor courts or NGOs. They are afraid to be condemned by the public and misunderstood in their families. They are also afraid that undesirable details will come to light. As a matter of fact, victims are not obliged to testify and cooperate with law enforcement agencies. ****** "GA" has addressed the problem of trafficking quite often. Let's remember a couple of typical examples, investigation of which was completed by the General Prosecutor's Office last year. The people accused in this case are close relatives who organized a business connected with sending women for prostitution from Armenia to UAE. By the way, none of the women were deceived- their decisions were taken knowingly. Within the period of 2005-2006, 7 women were transported to Dubai. This case is remarkable, because one of the victims, who was delivered to the spot in the guise of a bride on a honeymoon, had a quarrel with her employer. After that she went to law enforcement and honestly "handed over" the entire group. Valentina and Nelli G. – mother and daughter – have also been arrested in this case and some others were declared wanted. In second case, trafficking victim Alla was deceived. The charged offender in this case, Karine P in 2001 in Turkey got acquainted with a woman named Susanna, and with her help became engaged in prositution in that country. Soon after that she married a Turk, but divorced after a couple of years. In 2006, already in Armenia, Karine offered Alla the chance to accompany her to Turkey to help find a babysitting job. Yet, after arrival in Turkey, Alla was told that she could earn money only by prostitution. The girl had to obey. Together with other girls from CIS countries she was accommodated in a rented flat, but clients gave the money not to her, but to Susanna or Karine. After several months the girl got lucky: she was arrested for violation of visa regulations and deported from the country. Public numbers and facts show that the problem of trafficking in our country is more then real. In this connection, it is important to mention the notable achievements of the Division on Anti-trafficking and Illegal Migration in Human Beings, which functioned for 1.5 years and as such was the pioneer in combating this kind of crime. The question is will the police be able to at least hold to this level of achievement? Especially since Prosecution research results show that the root of this evil are often linked to social need and the unprotectedness of certain sections of the population. Written by Lusine Mikoyan "Golos Armenii" N 9 (19659), 2008-02-08 Unofficial translation from Russian
UN Development Program Will Assist Armenia to Combat Trafficking
The UNDP and the Migration Agency of the RA Ministry of Territorial Administration will sign a Memorandum of Understanding in Yerevan. “The aim of the memorandum, which has a preventive nature, is to create a network which will allow necessary research to be conducted and thus decrease opportunities for exploitation of labor migrants and trafficking” – this information was given to “Novosti-Armenia” agency in the press center of the UN Yerevan office. The paper envisages consultative assistance during the investigation of cases of missing people who are victims of trafficking. Compiled from: http://www.newsarmenia.ru/arm1/20071106/41765254.html 2007-11-07 This article was taken from www.ginsc.net Unofficial translation from Russian
"27 Cases of Trafficking Revealed in Armenia During the First Nine Months of 2007"
Nazaret Mnacakanyan, Police Colonel and the head of the Department of Struggle Against Illegal Drug Circulation and Trafficking at the Main Department of Struggle Against Organized Crime of the RA Police (MDSAOC), stated at a press-conference on 06 November 2007 that during the first 9 months of 2007, 27 cases of trafficking were revealed in Armenia. “Within the period of January – September 2007, 27 cases that stipulate responsibility for trafficking in accordance with 4 articles of the Criminal Code were revealed”,- he said. According to the Head of the Department, during the aforementioned period, three legal proceedings were instituted under article 132 of RA Criminal Code (Trafficking) against 8 cases, filed during a similar period of 2006, and 4 legal proceedings - under article 132.1 (Recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labor…) against 1 in 2006. Mnatsakanyan reported that during the period of January – September 2007 two criminal cases were filed under the article 261 of RA Criminal Code (Involvement into prostitution) against 3 in 2006, and under Article 262 of the RA Criminal Code (Maintaining dens of prostitution or pimping) – 18 cases in 2007 against 21 in 2006. “10 of the 20 cases, filed under the latter articles are related to outgoing pimping”,- added Mnatsakanyan. At the same time he mentioned that the department is actively cooperating with the Prosecutor General’s Office, Frontier troops, National Security Service (NSS), RA Ministry of Foreign Affairs and NGOs. Trafficking victims, revealed by the MDSAOC, as the colonel reported, are sent to non-governmental organizations for further psychological rehabilitation. “Apart from that we take active measures to detect people who are wanted within the framework of investigation of these crimes. The National Bureau of Interpol, in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and NSS, revealed 7 persons wanted by these accusations, and due to cooperation with MFA, 4 trafficking victims were returned to Armenia." Compiled from: http://www.newsarmenia.ru/arm1/20071106/41765298.html 2007-11-07 This information was taken from www.ginsc.net. Unofficial translation.
"27 cases"
A seminar on the problem of trafficking started yesterday in the UN Armenian representation. Illegal exploitation and deprivation of liberty (with the purpose of sexual exploitation) are serious problems for the region and 1.785 mln. € were allotted to the countries of the region to combat them. During the last 10 months, 27 cases of trafficking were officially registered in Armenia. “Aravot” correspondent. “Aravot” daily, 23/11/2007, 226 /3092/, unofficial translation.
Trafficking and Circumstances in the Center of Attention of Prosecutor General’s Office
On the agenda of the meeting of the Coordinating Committee of Prosecutors of CIS member states there were around ten issues, including cooperation between countries – members of this international structure in the sphere of combating trafficking. The situation in Armenia was described by the Prosecutor General of RA, Aghvan Hovsepyan. The situation, so to speak, isn’t optimistic. According to the annual report of the US State Department, the Armenian Government in its combat against trafficking is relying on NGOs rather than on its own strength. Yankees are scolding us for “failing to investigate vigorously ongoing allegations of corruption and to prosecute officials for complicity in trafficking.” Though certain pings of the Americans are hard to disagree with, nevertheless the accusation turned out to be unsubstantiated. Intensive conversations about trafficking started in Armenia 3-4 years ago. Apparently it happened because of special grants, which flooded Armenian NGOs. With one purpose – to protect rights of swindled citizens, particularly – female citizens. After the lapse of years one can state that the number of combatants against trafficking is threatening to exceed the number of victims they have revealed. The main hitch in the process of detection of “subjects” – is the unwillingness of victims themselves to blow their cover. The reason is fear of public reprimand and revenge of the magnates of this business. The business itself, to all appearances, is organized in a big way. And for the long run. Last year the income of illegal sexual trade in Turkey alone was 3.6 billion dollars, and it keeps growing. These statistics were made public in the report of the Migration Committee of this country. This business brings income of about 150$ for each client. Per day prostitutes get 15 “units” per capita. This is not difficult arithmetic – when converting it into 365 days per year, profits grow up to billions. By the way the women themselves don’t get a dime from it. The average age of the workers is 18-24. They have children, many are divorced or married to men inclined to violence. Each victim of violence has her own story. The only thing they have in common is poverty and overwhelming misery in their homeland. They are being brought to Turkey with promises of employment as waitresses or dancers. But once they are there, their passports are taken away; they get beaten, raped and forced into prostitution. The Bondswomen must have a slavish attitude. One of the pimps splashed boiling oil on the legs and genitals of a prostitute who refused to served a customer. As regarding international cooperation with law enforcement agencies of other countries, A. Hovsepyan mentioned that with CIS countries, multilateral and bilateral agreements are being realized. Relations have also been established with UAE. Only Turkey is still a problem, because Armenia has no diplomatic relationswith it. Officially Turkey and Emirates closed borders for women under the age of 31, particularly for those who are trying to enter the country not accompanied by husbands. In reality the matters stand otherwise and the track is thoroughly beaten by both the magnates of the business from there and Armenian servants. It is well known that our compatriots get to Turkey via Georgia, to UAE – via Russia. After all, it would seem that the Muslim world, which is so strict about morals, should be interested in extermination of the evil. However, in reality it is not so. Furthermore, the sexual business is being “roofed” on the level of state. Nobody here is going to voluntarily give up sex dollars that flow like a river. A department of combating trafficking in persons and illegal migration under the supervision of Marsel Matevosyan was created two years ago in the investigation sector of the Prosecutor General’s Office. According to the information, only in the first quarter of this year 8 precedents of trafficking and related crimes were registered in Armenia. The leaders are the Lori and Shirak regions. Out of 42 registered cases registered last year, 15 were from Shirak. The obstacle in detecting the wayward “sisters” is as follows – “the location of the offender is not determined”. Whereas professionals are working through the variants of “mama Rosas” and their victims, NGOs took concrete action. They published books of enlightening character and booklets. One of the anti-trafficking methods is drama. A theatrical performance called “Burning Candles,” that describes a bitter fate of Armenian woman who found herself in the paws of trafficking, is the idea of the chairman of Yerevan mission of International Organization of Migration (UN) – Hrachya Kojoyan. While the troupe is traveling around Armenia with its unusual performance, the relatives of missing sisters and daughters are raising noise. By Marietta Malumyan “Novoe Vremya” newspaper,11.10.2007, #1528
Trainings for Law Enforcement Professionals to Counteract Trafficking
Within the framework of the regional program “Organizations of Civil Society and Law Enforcement Professionals in South Caucasus Improve Cooperation to Counteract Trafficking,” with the support of CRS Europe/Middle East, “Hope and Help” NGO successfully implemented trainings for law enforcement professionals in March-September 2007. 88 representatives of the police, prosecution, frontier troops from 5 regions of Armenia (in particular – Armavir, Shirak, Lori, Kotayk marzes and cities Yerevan, Gyumri, Vanadzor, Hrazdan, Armavir) took part in trainings “Law Enforcement Professionals Raise Awareness about the Problem of Trafficking.” 4 participants of the training took part in the final conference in Kobuleti and participated in elaboration of unified training modules for law enforcement professionals of three countries of South Caucasus together with colleagues from Georgia. This information was provided by NGO “Hope and Help”
Commissioner Hammarberg Visits Armenia to Assess Respect for Human Rights
05.10.2007 – Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, started on Sunday 7 October a 5-day high-level official visit to Armenia to assess the human rights situation in the country.At the centre of Mr Hammarberg’s agenda there was a broad range of human rights issues, including the functioning of the judiciary, conditions of detention, prohibition of torture and ill-treatment, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, minorities’ rights, conscientious objectors, rights of refugees, social and economic rights. The visit also focused on trafficking in human beings and vulnerable groups. Commissioner Hammarberg visited various police stations, detention centres, shelters and psychiatric institutions in Yerevan and Gyumri. During the visit, the Commissioner held meetings with the highest authorities of the State. He also met parliamentarians, the Presidents of the Constitutional Court and the Cassation Court, the Ombudsman, local authorities, the Head of the Armenian Church, as well as representatives of the civil society. On the afternoon of Thursday 11 October, Mr Hammarberg held a press conference to present the first findings. This visit falls within an ongoing series of the Commissioner’s country missions to all Council of Europe member States. An assessment report containing concrete recommendations will be officially presented towards the end of the year. Press release of Council of Europe Press Division
Armenian Women are Subjected to Sexual Exploitation in Italy
During check-ups at night clubs the Italian police found out that hundreds of women newly arrived to Italy, including Armenians, were forcibly involved in prostitution. According to Associated Press, 18 people were arrested upon suspicion of trafficking. During the press conference held on Saturday in Florence, representatives of the law enforcement body investigating the case, reported that agencies that had been dealing with preparation of documents assisted to hundreds of young women, mainly from Ukraine, Armenia and Kazakhstan, to enter Italy “to work in the sphere of performance” according to the exact wording. Their travel expenses and accommodation in Italy were paid and then they were forced into prostitution at night clubs or private apartments in Toscana or in other areas of Northern and Central Italy. Suspects were arrested with charges of organization of illegal immigration in criminal ways, exploitation of women and instigating them to prostitution. Prostitution is not illegal in Italy, but exploitation of women is a subject of criminal penalty. The Police reported that 8 night clubs were closed as a result of the check-ups. Armenpress This article was published in «Hayastani Hanrapetutjun» newspaper, 19.09.2007, 169 /4265/
“An Engagement in Dubai, a Wedding in Cyprus”
Contributed by Nathalie Saghiyan, Women's Rights Center In order to lure young girls to Dubai, I. Galstyan had to ask them for their hand in marriage. The poor girls found out that the groom wasn’t real only when they had been sold as sexual slaves.
The play was performed by the entire family. I. Galstyan made his acquaintance with young ladies (choosing simple ones), and proposed to them, having introduced them to his sisters beforehand. Usually the girls were told that the engagement would take place in Dubai and the wedding – not elsewhere, but in Cyprus. As a rule, young girls, inspired by the perspective, didn’t think twice about agreeing to travel to the UAE with their future husband immediately.
However, to tell the truth, the right of the first and all following nights belonged not to the groom, but to some local “sheikh”, who usually paid big money for innocent girls. Just one of the “brides” – A. Torosyan – brought Galstyan a couple of thousands US$.
Nelly and Nona Galstyan, though, didn’t limit their activity only to brides. They successfully recruited girls to "work as a waitress” in Dubai. Once there, they would take away the victims’ passports and send them to the street to work as prostitutes. Julietta Galoyan suffered this fate. Today she is a witness for the prosecution. On the other hand, J. Galoyan was accused of providing false evidence, as she at some point agreed (in exchange for 3000 offered by Nona Galstyan) to testify that the Galstyan sisters were not involved. She even testified against poor A. Torosyan and her mother. The latter spared no effort to snatch her daughter out of the souteneurs’ hands and bring the girl home. A legal proceeding was instituted by the Office of Public Prosecutor of RA.
“Novoe vremja” 1504, 21/07/2007 (Unofficial translation)
A Turkish “Tour”
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center A Turkish “tour” At the end of March, the Division on Anti-trafficking and Illegal Migration of People at the Investigation Department of the Prosecutor General’s Office finished the investigation of the criminal case of Karine P. from Gyumri. In 2001 in Turkey the latter met her compatriot RA citizen Susanna, with the assistance and under the patronage of whom she was engaged in prostitution with other girls. After that remarkable acquaintance Karine visited Turkey from time to time “to make money” and then came back home “on vacation.” In 2001 she met a Turk named Mustafa, and they allegedly got married. They visited Armenia many times. In 2005 their relationship finished.
In April of 2006, Karine offered her friend Alla, who was in very hard social conditions, to leave for Turkey together, where “good-hearted” Karine promised to find a nanny job with a monthly salary of $300. In the presence of Alla the “benefactress” called Susanna and the latter gave her consent to accept the woman. On 11 May Karine and Alla departed for Turkish town Nazili on bus. Upon arrival they explained to Alla that she can earn money only by means of prostitution. And she would not be able to return to Armenia without money, so she was forced to give in. Together with Karine they went to a rented flat, where some other girls from the CIS countries lived. But Alla’s clients paid Karine or Susanna and nobody gave money to her. Finally, Alla was lucky to be arrested by the Turkish police for violation of the passport regime in June of 2006. She was deported to her motherland.
According to the materials of the verdict and evidences, Karine was engaged in prostitution in Turkey in 2001, 2005 and 2006. In 2006, it was another friend Lousine’s turn to accompany Karine in the “tour.” On their way to the destination town they had spent three days at a hotel of the town of Trabzon. With the aim of getting money Karine and Lousine were engaged in prostitution, while Alla earned her money by working as a maid at the hotel. The same happened in Koushadase town. Finally, the “inviting” party in the person of Sousanna sent the women some money and they reached their destination point – the town of Nazili. At first Sousanna did not demand from Alla to do prostitution with others, but her Turk husband returned from prison and Alla was sent to the others. The same Sousanna supplied the girls with clients. Each of the girls had 3-4 clients a day, who would pay $10-20 for a visit. Several days later Arpine, Sousanna’s relative, joined the “team” and worked by the same conditions as the others.
Then Turkish policemen entered their rented flat. The girls whose documents were correct were set free, while Alla and Arpine were arrested. A policeman informed Sousanna that in order to avoid problems the two women should be deported. Sousanna decided not to object and bought the girls tickets; the next day they were deported from Turkey. Before the deportation Sousanna gave Alla $150; several days later Karine came to Armenia with $800.
When Alla knew about it, she started quarreling with Karine, saying that the latter had let her down. Her testimony is almost identical to Karine’s. 32-year-old Karine who had never been convicted before is charged with trafficking in persons, according to article 132 of the RA Criminal Code. The criminal case has been sent to the First Instance Court of Shirak marz (province).
If only several years ago one might think have thought that the problem of trafficking in Armenia is somewhat imaginary, and now it is obvious that the problem exists. Investigation materials on similar cases allow stating that the situation on illegal migration (and not only with the aim of prostitution, there are plenty of labor migration cases as well) becomes more and more urgent and difficult to control.
“Golos Armenii” has published several times the facts about Armenian women in the Turkish market of “intimate services.” There are many examples of this in the Division on Anti-Trafficking and Illegal Migration of People. Our women start learning Turkish (for example, Sousanna and Karine know that language), establish necessary connections and even willingly marry Turks. All this proves that combating trafficking should not be only the responsibility of law-enforcement agencies. The problem slowly exceeds the limits of the law-enforcement field, growing up into something bigger and, therefore, reflecting the crisis of the national self-consciousness. We should not forget that the partners of Armenian citizens in this specific business are representatives of the people, who 92 years ago committed the Genocide of Armenians. And the fact itself is a reason for very serious thinking.
It is obvious that arrests and repressions without improvement of the social situation of the population will not help to tackle the problem (especially in the provinces, where uneducated and socially insecure girls almost always find themselves in such situations). Trafficking is a potential threat to national security, and only a complex approach would help us to solve the problem.
Lana Mshetsyan Published in: “Golos Armenii”, 28 April 2007, 46 (19555), (Unofficial translation)
“Took the Bait” Without Thinking Long
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center “Took the bait” without thinking long 20-year-old S.T. had been subjected to sexual exploitation in Dubai for more that 9 months. She was sent to the UAE by her compatriots – L.Kocharyan and A.Gasparyan.
A classic trafficking scenario: two pimps promised her a high-income waitress job at one of the best Dubai restaurants. S.T. “took the bait” without thinking long. Just at place Kocharyan demanded to pay for the trip, knowing well that she had no money. Deprived of her rights in the foreign country, the woman was forced to prostitution. She succeeded in getting back to the Motherland only nine months later. Here S.T., unlike many other victims, applied to the police. That was how her torturers appeared on the dock. The trial of the pimps will take place at the First Instance Court of Kentron and Nork-Marash communities.
Published in: “Novoye Vremya”, 1464, 10 April 2007 (Unofficial translation)
The Sex-Slave Punished the Pimp
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center The Sex-Slave Punished the Pimp S.S., a citizen of Armenia, has spent about 10 months in sexual slavery in the Turkish town of Nazeli.
The scenario of trafficking is well-known. Two pimps – N.Nikoyan, RA citizen, and K.Panosyan, temporarily residing in Turkey, promised S.S. a high-income job in Nazeli. But upon arrival K.Panosyan, using the insecure situation of S.S., forced her to sexual exploitation. Based on the evidence collected during the investigation, K.Panosyan was charged with trafficking. A part of the case, related to N.Nikoyan, has been separated for a special trial, and she is wanted now.
Published in: “Novoye Vremya”, 1465, 12 April 2007 (Unofficial translation)
For Sexual Exploitation
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center For Sexual Exploitation According to the data of criminal cases now in the process of investigation, 75 female RA citizens were subjected to sexual or labor exploitation in the first quarter of 2007. This is what Head of the Division on Anti-Trafficking and illegal Miigration of People at the Investigation Department of RA Prosecutor General’s Office Marcel Matevosyan stated.
According to him, all the victims are adult women. 73 of them have been subjected to sexual exploitation, 2 – to labor exploitation in Turkey. 43 of the women have been subjected to exploitation in the RA, 32 – abroad, including 25 in the UAE and 7 in Turkey. Russian Federation and Georgia were transit countries for transportation of the victims.
According to M. Matevosyan, up to now the law enforcement bodies have registered only two cases where Armenia was a destination country and one case where it was a transit country.
Published in: “Golos Armenii”, 45 (19554), 26 April 2007 (Unofficial translation)
Recruited and Transported to Trabzon
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center Recruited and Transported to Trabzon The Division on Anti-Trafficking and Illegal Migration of Human Beings of the Investigation Department of the RA General Prosecutor’s Office has found two partners of S. Yeranosyan, engaged in pimping in the town of Trabzon, Turkey. S. Soghomonyan’s partners recruited girls for him from different marzes (provinces) of Armenia.
The investigation enabled finding out and proving that S. Zhamharyan, resident of the town of Vanadzor, in self-interest, agreed to S. Yeranosyan’s offer to engage other people in prostitution. S. Zhamharyan, who was occupied with pimping in Turkey, had a prior agreement with S. Yeranosyan and recruited G. D. in Vanadzor and transported her to Trapizon. S. Yeranosyan had been engaging G. D. in prostitution for more than 7 months. And I. Karapetyan, resident of Gyumri, in self-interest, being engaged in prostitution under Yeranosyan’s control, had got a preliminary agreement with S. Yeranosyan, according to which in October 2005 she recruited her sister, A. H., and transported her to Trabzon. S. Yeranosyan had been engaging A.H. in prostitution for about 3 months.
Based upon available evidence, S. Zhamharyan and I. Karapetyan were charged under Clause 1 Section 2 of Article 261 of the RA Criminal Code.
On September 6, 2006 the case was sent to the First Instance Court of Lori marz (province) for further examination.
Published in: The official web site of the RA General Prosecutor’s Office (www.genproc.am ),
Armenian version available at: http://www.genproc.am/main/am/16/1217/
September 8, 2006 (Unofficial translation)
Café as a Den of Prostitution
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center Café as a Den of Prostitution The Division on Anti-Trafficking and Illegal Migration of Human Beings of the Investigation Department of the RA General Prosecutor’s Office has finished the preliminary investigation of the criminal case No. 62207606.
The investigation allowed officials to find out that G. Ghoukasyan, being a de facto manager of the shop, belonging to “Azniv Davtyan” private enterprise, had come to a prior agreement with the sales-assistant G. Nazaryan and with the aim of deriving some profit assisted H. H., A. A., G. Gh. and others to be engaged in prostitution from January till July 2006, periodically giving them a room in the café under his ownership.
Based upon available evidence G. Ghukasyan and G. Nazaryan were charged under Clause 1 Section 2 of Article 262 of the RA Criminal Code.
On August 29 2006 the criminal case was sent to the First Instance Court of Shengavit community for further examination.
Published in: The official web site of the RA General Prosecutor's Office (www.genproc.am, Armenian version available at http://www.genproc.am/main/am/16/1213/) September 8, 2006 (Unofficial translation)
A Pimp Exploited Prostitutes
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center A Pimp Exploited Prostitutes Three days ago the policemen of the town of Gyumri detained Vardanoush H., born in 1957. She had left part of her dwelling at the disposal of Karine B., Armine M., Vaduhi S. and Noune A. Each of the above-mentioned prostitute girls paid Vardanoush 500 Armenian Drams. Published in: Aravot daily, (www.aravot.am) # 172/2791 September 12, 2006 (Unofficial translation)
Famous Pimps Arrested in Dubai
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center Famous Pimps Arrested in Dubai
If they are deported to Armenia, most probably they will be set free again As we have already written, famous pimps Amalya Mnatsakanyan (Nano) and Marietta Mousayelyan transferred new groups of women to the United Arab Emirates in November 2006.
Amalya Mnatsakanyan was wanted by Interpol and on 10 March 2004, the UAE police arrested her and deported her from the country. According to the UAE laws, A.Mnatsakanyan cannot enter that country anymore. Her pupil was also registered in the computer of the UAE Migration service as an undesired person. So how did Amalya Mnatsakanyan manage to appear in Dubai in 2006 again? It is simple: her colleagues in the Emirates bribed the staff of the Migration Service and they deleted data on Amalya’s pupil from the database. In Yerevan she registered a false marriage and changed her surname, which is now Matoulyan. She left for Dubai via Moscow – under the following name and surname: Amalya Matoulyan.
Last year the two pimps continued sexually exploiting Armenian women in Dubai. Three women, who were under their control, managed to escape – Armine from Hoktemberyan, Arpine from Ejmiadzin and Dinoulik, a refugee, living in Yerevan. One of them was sold to Nano for $800 by her own mother, who knew where her daughter would be taken. One of the women sent us a letter for help with the assistance of one of our sources in Dubai. A. wrote in the letter: “We, captives, hostages and slaves of Nano and Marietta in Dubai, are appealing to law-enforcement, security agencies, Prosecutor’s Office and editors of all newspapers, organizations dealing with anti-trafficking and others, begging to free us from those two cruel butchers and get us out of this swamp, so that we, deceived women, could return back home.”
The woman also tells in her letter how she was deceitfully taken to Dubai and how those two women and the Arabs, who served them, tortured her.
In the beginning of January the sexually exploited women surrendered to the police, saying that their passports were with the pimps. On January 4 the Dubai police arrested Amalya Mnatsakanyan and Marietta Mousayelyan.
The UAE police will either sentence them to imprisonment or deport them from the country. As for Armenia, here, those pimps, who have been convicted several times, will naturally be set free.
Edik Baghdasaryan Published in: “Aravot” Daily (http://www.aravot.am), 2/2868, 10 January 2007 (Unofficial translation)
Pimps Continue Their Activity After Serving Their Sentence
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center Pimps Continue Their Activity After Serving Their Sentence According to our sources in Dubai, the well-known pimps Amalia Mnatsakanyan and Marietta Mousayelyan have transported a new group of women to Dubai. These two pimps have been convicted several times in Armenia for similar activity during recent years. Both of them have been wanted by Interpol for many years. When convicting both of them, the court has always taken into consideration mitigating circumstances and sentenced them to short terms. Both of them were released before the end of their sentences.
43-year-old Amalia Mnatsakanyan is known by the nickname of “Nano.” For her “achievements” she is called “mother pimp” by the police. On 16 August 2006 Nano was given a suspended sentence for pimping. During the two years’ probation period and after its expiry she continued pimping. Amalia Mnatsakanyan has been wanted by police since September of 2002. In 2003 the two criminal cases were combined due to the fact that the recruited women were sexually exploited by Amalia Mnatsakanyan.
The investigation found that in 2002-2003 Nano also “forged and used official documents, instigated and assisted people in crossing the RA state border.”
Police of the United Arab Emirates have satisfied the request of our law-enforcement bodies, and on 10 March 2004 Amalia Mnatsakanyan was arrested and transported to Armenia.
The hearings on the above-mentioned case took place on 2 June - 25 August, 2004, at the First Instance Court of Kentron and Nork-Marash communities. M.Vardanyan, one of Nano’s victims, wrote in her testimony: “It is impossible to describe how I and others like me were tortured. They forced us to do any perverse things. And all this was headed by Nano, she was our “boss”. She did not feel pity for anyone; she even forced us to serve customers when we were ill to get money. It is necessary to annihilate such people as she is.” And during the testimony at the court she said: “They took my passport and forced me to do things you can’t imagine. I stayed in Dubai for 21 days, not getting a penny. Whatever I earned was to be given Nano. But I could not get used to all that. The police caught me and then I was deported. I came to Armenia in a terrible state, now I am a disabled of the third category.”
During the investigation it became known that in the period of 2000-2003 A.Mnatsakanyan recruited and transported to the Emirates more than 40 women. According to the verdict, in that period she earned $221.000. Nano refused to give testimony at the court, but pleaded guilty.
Taking into consideration the fact that the crimes were committed in the period of 1998-2003, the court was guided by the previous Criminal Code when deciding the sentence. However, the previous Criminal Code did not contain any article on trafficking, and Nano was sentenced to two years of imprisonment under article 262 (pimping) of the RA Criminal Code. Nano stayed in prison for only two months. After her release she continued her activity.
According to our information, Nano was patronized by generals, that’s why she was released so soon and continued her activity without any fear.
Now about Marietta Mousayelyan. The court has always set light penalties for Marietta Mousayelyan, who was convicted three times. In May of 2005, she was released before the expiry of her sentence by the court’s decision. This time she personally recruited women. There were seven women in the first group; most of them were from provincial regions. In late November, Marietta Mousayelyan transported a group of women to Dubai via Moscow. She was accompanied by her friend Serozh. Nano took three women to Dubai via Moscow.
Our source of information met Nano in Dubai and asked: “How did you come here, aren’t you afraid?” She answered: “My security is guaranteed by everybody, why should I be afraid? It’s all up to money.” We managed to find out that Nano bought all Yerevan-Moscow-Dubai tickets at “Delta Armenia” agency and departed in the period of 18-25 November.
“Nano bought several girls from Ano, living at the hostel of Erebouni district. Marin’s daughter, Ano’s relative, was also among the girls. Sousan from Shengavit district sold a girl from Gyumri. Now Sousan is in the prison of Abovyan town,” - this is what an acquaintance of Marietta Mousayelyan told us during her visit to “Hetq’s” editorial office. Marietta also took a relative of the latter to Dubai. When we advised her to apply to the law-enforcement bodies, she said that she is afraid of long procedures.
Edik Baghdasaryan Published in: “Aravot” Daily (http://www.aravot.am), 237/2856, 14 December 2006 (Unofficial translation)
Testimony of a Prostitute
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center Testimony of a prostitute The investigation of the criminal case instituted against Gayane Melkonyan, Sousanna Nikoghosyan, Rouzan Baghdasaryan and Mayranoush Haroutyunyan, who have been charged with pimping, continued at the Shengavit First Instance Court, headed by Souren Kostanyan. Naira Sahradyan, a Gyumri city resident who, according to the prosecution, is a victim of sexual exploitation, appeared in the court. She recognized only Gayane Melkonyan. Yesterday Naira claimed at the court that she was a student at the Mkhitar Heratsi Collage of Gyumri and ten days after the start of the courses she met her acquaintance Anoush Hartanyan. When Naira said that she was in a bad social condition, as her father divorced her mother 10 years ago and her education was paid for by her grandmother, Anoush took Naira to her friend Gayane Melkonyan, saying that the latter could help her to find job. At Gayane’s they met Meline Gevorgyan (nickname of “Sevan”), a woman named Vika and another one nicknamed “Chakhkal Gayane” (Blue-eyed Gayane, Translator’s note). Naira talked to Meline, who offered her a waitress’s job in Turkey. Last year on September 20 Gayane Melkonyan sent the victim to Yerevan from the bus station of Gyumri. In Aydnoushadas town of Turkey she, Meline and Nelly Minasyan (she has recently died in Gyumri) were met by Mouzhdat, a Kurd who was Meline’s husband. The first day they stayed at a hotel. The victim said that the next day Meline told her and Nelly that there was no waitress’s job and they would be engaged in prostitution. At that moment the victim had no money with her, it was the first time she was abroad and she did not speak Turkish at all. Meline said that everybody was doing it (prostitution). “This is not Armenia and prostitutes are not treated badly,”- said Naira Sahradyan in her testimony yesterday. She stayed in Turkey for four months, and was engaged in prostitution for three months. Yesterday N.Sahradyan also said that she divided the earned money between her and Meline, as, according to the latter, she had already spent $460 on her. 1 hour with a client cost $50. When Gourgen Grigoryan, Gayane Melkonyan’s lawyer, asked whether it had been possible to refuse to do prostitution, the victim answered that Mouzhdat threatened that he would sell them to pimps of Antalia or Istanbul. According to the victim, the Kurd was “Meline’s rear.” The accused Gayane Melkonyan asked the victim why she did not complain of anything when they lived at the hotel in Turkey; the victim, however, could not find an answer to that. When contradictions were found between yesterday’s testimony given at the court and that given during the inquest, it was disclosed that that Gayane Melkonyan sold N.Sahradyan to Meline for $250. “I did not tell about that as I was embarrassed by other people’s presence,”- Gayane said yesterday at the court.
Naira said during the proceedings that she earned a big sum of money in two days, which enabled her to pay off her “debt.” “A human is not a tractor to work all time,” – the victim said, describing the hardships of her work in Turkey. All she claimed at the court was moral compensation, as she was cheated and told she would work as a waitress. Isajanyan, an 80-year-old lawyer of the defendants, asked if the victim was a virgin before leaving for Turkey. Although the question was rejected by the court, during the inquest Naira said that in 2004, before entering the collage, she had a boy-friend, with whom she had intimate relations.
Rouzan Minasyan Published in: “Aravot” Daily (http://www.aravot.am), 233/2852, 7 December 2006 (Unofficial translation)
Government Agencies Help Convicted Trafficker Escape
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center Government Agencies Help Convicted Trafficker Escape In February 2006, Anush Zakharyants, who was serving time at the Abovyan criminal detention center after being convicted of trafficking, “escaped” with collective help from the Ministry of Justice and the Prosecutor General's office. Border guards helped Zakharyants leave Armenia. It does not matter how much money she paid at the border in order to buy her escape. What matters is that it is possible to buy your way across our borders, even when your passport is expired. Zakharyants' escape was accomplished in three steps:
The first step consisted of freeing her from the detention center. This was done by the Ministry of Justice. The second step involved obtaining her passport from the Prosecutor's Office. This was done jointly by the Prosecutor's Office and the Ministry of Justice.
The third step was crossing the Armenian border. This was done by the National Security Service. At each step, these official organs did all that was in their power to help Anush escape from Armenia.
It is difficult to say whether these different organs collaborated with each other, but there is no official body left in Armenia that is authorized to investigate this issue. How can the Ministry of Justice, the Prosecutor General's office or the National Security Service – under whom the border guards operate - file a case against themselves?
Statement
Anush Zakharyants, a citizen of Uzbekistan, was first convicted of human trafficking (article 132 of the Armenian Criminal Code) in Armenia and sentenced to a four-and-a-half year prison term on May 28, 2004. She had brought nine women from Uzbekistan to Armenia and had subjected them to sexual exploitation. Anush had confiscated their passports and forced them to make money for her through prostitution. All this was proven in court, Anush was convicted, and the victims were repatriated to Uzbekistan. Step One
The convict was released from the detention center
Anush was serving her term at the Abovyan prison, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice. In February of this year, Anush left the center and did not return. Ashot Martirosyan, the Head of the Criminal Supervision Department answered to question we had directed at Minister of Justice Davit Harutyunyan as follows.
“…In accordance with Article 80 of the Armenian Criminal Code, the head of the Abovyan criminal detention center had allowed convict A. Zakharyants a short leave of absence from 01.02.06 to 05.02.06 with the aim of social rehabilitation. However, the convict did not return within the given period to continue serving her sentence. The Abovyan criminal detention center informed the Prosecutor's office of the situation, where a criminal case was then filed against A. Zakharyants.”
As part of the first step, papers were prepared at the prison to allow Zakharyants a short leave of absence. Our source at the Criminal Supervision Department informed us that the order for her absence had been issued by former Head of Department Samvel Hovhannisyan (he was removed from his post four months ago, but the reason for his dismissal reportedly had nothing to do with organizing Anush Zakharyants' escape).
“On January 31, 2006, convict A. Zakharyants went to the head of the medical service at the detention center, Dr. H. Muradyan, regarding some health problems. The latter recommended a specialized diagnostic examination and this recommendation was attached to the convict's personal file.” - This was the reply we managed to elicit, with the help of Anahit Voskanyan, Press Secretary for the Ministry of Justice, from Arsen Afrikyan, head of the Abovyan Criminal Detention Center.
After that, Zakharyants received a five-day leave of absence from the prison. Zakharyants' passport was not among her personal belongings at the Abovyan Criminal Detention Center. By law, it should have been sent to the Justice Ministry facility after she was sentenced, but it was not among her personal belongings.
“The Court of First Instance for the Kentron and Nork-Marash municipalities of Yerevan informed us, replying to our written query, that the convict's passport was missing from her criminal file as well. Therefore, the convict did not have a passport at the time the leave of absence was granted,” stated Arsen Afrikyan .
Afrikyan also said that their search operations had yielded no results, and that they had gone to the Kotayk Marz Prosecutor on February 28, requesting an investigation into the case of A. Zakharyants. Zakharyants was supposed to return to the detention center on February 6. The administration at the Abovyan facility waited 22 days before informing the Kotayk Marz Prosecutor of Zakharyants' disappearance. In all likelihood, this was Samvel Hovhannisyan's initiative as well. He may have been waiting for Anush to reach Uzbekistan and inform him of her safe arrival.
Step Two
Samvel Hovhannisyan gave the convict her passport
Anush Zakharyants left the Abovyan Criminal Detention Center without her passport. In January 2004, her passport was in her criminal file at the Prosecutor's Office. The file was sent to court without the passport, which is against the law. The passport had been removed from the file and kept at the Prosecutor's Office. We tried to find out from the Prosecutor General if the passport was still at the office today, or whether it had been returned to Anush Zakharyants.
Sona Truzyan, Press Secretary for the Prosecutor General's office stated, “ On the basis of an official statement by the former head of the Ministry of Justice Criminal Supervision Department, an inspector returned Anush Zakharyants her passport and received a statement of receipt on January 12, 2006.”
The official statement, as clarified by the press secretary, had been a verbal command by which the former Head of the Criminal Supervision Department Samvel Hovhannisyan obtained the passport from inspector Aristakes Yeremyan. But the passport never entered the criminal detention center. It remained “in Hovhannisyan's pocket” and was handed to Zakharyants in early February, when she was outside the center during her leave of absence. It is not clear what remuneration Hovhannisyan received against the passport.
As soon as she received her passport, Anush Zakharyants left Armenia.
Step Three
Armenian border guards got Zakharyants across to Georgia, even though her passport had expired
Hetq wrote two letters to Gorik Hakobyan, head of the National Security Service, to try and find out whether Zakharyants had crossed the Armenia border and how, with which passport, she had done so. We received no reply.
Anush Zakharyants held a Republic of Uzbekistan passport which expired in 2005, which meant that she was not allowed to cross the Armenian border. But that did not keep her from bribing the Armenian border guards and getting across.
But the Georgian guards on the other side of the border noticed that her passport had expired and detained Zakharyants. She pleaded for political asylum with Border Department officials at the Georgian Internal Affairs Ministry. Her application was processed by the Ministry for Refugee Issues in Georgia. The border guards handed Anush over to officials at the Department for Constitutional Security within the Ministry for Internal Affairs.
Our source within the Georgian law enforcement agencies informed us that Anush Zakharyants made a deal with the Georgians and gave them information about Georgians dealing in human trafficking. In return, she was allowed to go to the Embassy of Uzbekistan and receive a certificate of repatriation. For some reason, officials from the Ministry for National Security arranged for Anush's stay in Tbilisi with an organization that provides help to women victims of domestic violence. Anush left for Uzbekistan a week later.
We find ourselves forced to ask the following questions of the agencies that helped Anush Zakharyants to escape once again, in public this time. We would like to ask Minister of Justice Davit Harutyunyan the same question we asked a year ago - How is it that everyone convicted under the trafficking article have all managed to leave prison early? Why are the structures under his jurisdiction so solicitous of convicts of this type? Why were they so considerate this time around in organizing Anush Zakharyants' escape?
We would like to ask Prosecutor General Aghvan Hovsepyan – Why was Anush Zakharyants' passport kept for two years at the Office of the Prosecutor General? Why and how was it returned to Samvel Hovhannisyan? Does the Prosecutor General's office keep the passports of other convicts as well?
We would like to receive a reply to this question from Gorik Hakobyan, Head of the National Security Service – How did the convict cross the Armenian border holding an expired passport?
Edik Baghdasaryan Published in: Official website of “Investigative Journalists of Armenia” (http://www.hetq.am/eng/society/0611-trafficking.html), 13 November 2006
Notorious Pimp Changes Name
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center Notorious Pimp Changes Name As we have reported earlier, Amalya Mnatsakayan (Nano) and Marieta Musayelyan – both notorious pimps – took new groups of women to the United Arab Emirates in November 2006 (See also: When They Get Out of Jail, the Pimps Go Back to Work).
Amalya Mnatsakanyan is wanted by Interpol and had been arrested by UAE police on March 10, 2004 and deported. According to UAE law, Amalya Mnatsakanyan could no longer gain entry to the country. Her retina scan was stored in the computer database of the UAE Migration Service under persona non grata.
So how did Amalya Mnatsakanyan return to Dubai?
Her partners in Dubai bribed workers at the UAE Migration Service, who then deleted her retina scan from the computer database. She falsely registered a marriage in Yerevan and changed her last name to Matulyan. She then left for Dubai from Moscow, under the name Marieta Matulyan.
The two pimps continue to subject Armenian women to sexual exploitation in Dubai. Three women managed to escape from their clutches there – Armine from Hoktemberyan, Arpine from Etchmiatsin, and Dinulik, a refugee living in Yerevan. The mother of one of these women had handed her over to Nano for a sum of 800 dollars, even though she knew the fate that awaited her daughter. One of the women had sent us a note through one of our sources in Dubai, seeking help. In her letter, A wrote, “We, the slaves, hostages and servants who work under Nano and Marieta in Dubai, request and beseech all law enforcement bodies as well as persecutors' offices, security organs, newspaper editorial boards, officials in the fight against trafficking and other organizations, to save us from these two cruel executioners and to rescue us from this swamp so that we, who have been tricked, can come back home.”
The author of the letter also wrote about how she had been tricked and taken to Dubai and about the suffering that she had been subjected to at the hands of the two women and the Arabs serving them.
P.S. Since Hetq has been banned by the UAE government (See: Hetq.am Banned in the Emirates) we have had to send this article and pictures to the police in Dubai by email.
Respect for their country's law must obligate the UAE police to arrest and convict the women, sentencing them to either imprisonment or deportation.
P.P.S. In the first days of January the women who escaped from the pimps turned to the Police Department of Dubai and reported that their passports had been taken by the pimps. On January 4, the Dubai police has arrested Amalia Matulyan and Marieta Musayelyan.
In UAE they will either stand trial or will be deported to Armenia. But in Armenia these pimps who have been convicted several times before will most likely be set free.
Edik Baghdasaryan Published in: Official website of “Investigative Journalists of Armenia” (http://www.hetq.am/eng/society/0701-dubai.html, Armenian version available at: http://www.hetq.am/arm/society/0701-dubay.html), 15 January 2007 (Official translation)
Pimp Sentenced to Five Years In Prison
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center Pimp Sentenced to Five Years In Prison On January 31st a four-month criminal trial involving pimping and human trafficking came to an end in the Court of First Instance of Yerevan's Shengavit district. In 2006 Mayranush Harutyunyan, Susanna Nikoghosyan, and Ruzanna Baghdasaryan were charged by prosecutors with violating the Article 261of the Criminal Code of the Republic Armenia. Gayane Melkonyan was charged for violating the Articles 261 and 132, on human trafficking.
An alleged victim, Hasmik (all the names in this article are fictitious) told the court that in 2005 her acquaintance Knarik Danielyan offered her a high-paying job as a waitress in Dubai. “Being in a dire state financially and having to take care of two young children, I agreed,” Hasmik recounted.
After some time, Knarik took Hasmik to Gayane Melkonyan's house. Melkonyan immediately called Irina Yenokyan in Dubai, and then told Hasmik that she should leave Gyumri for Yerevan the next day, and from there to Dubai. Knarik reassured the surprised Hasmik and told her that she had already informed Hasmik's mother that Hasmik had found a job in Yerevan.
As soon as Hasmik reached Dubai, Irina Yenokyan seized her passport and forced her into prostitution by repeatedly beating her. Hasmik was arrested by the police in December 2005 and deported in January 2006.
“I was living in very bad conditions, so I was looking for way to earn some money, “ recounted Nazik, another victim. “My mother wasn't working, and I was studying. My grandmother was paying my tuition, and sometimes my uncle would send money from Russia. Coming home from classes I ran into Anush Harutyunyan, an acquaintance of mine, and during our conversation I told her about my financial situation. Anush said that she knew a woman who could send me abroad to earn good money, Nazik went to see Gayane Melkonyan the same day. Gayane persuaded Nazik that she had connections in Turkey and could find a high-paying job for her. Knarik Ghandilyan and Lia Bagaryan were also present during the conversation and they confirmed Gayane's words. The next day Nazik again visited Gayane, who told her that her acquaintance Meline would be arriving soon from Turkey, and then returning shortly thereafter, so Nazik could go with her.
“They asked me what I could do. Then they told me that I could earn good money, have a nice apartment, and help my family. It was Meline who offered me a waitressing job. Gayane didn't promise anything. I don't even know if Meline paid Gayane anything for me.”
Several days later Nazik traveled with Meline Gevorgyan, Gayane, and Nelli Mnatastakanyan to Turkey, expecting to work as a waitress there. Meline paid the travel costs. But there were several surprises awaiting Nazik in Turkey. Meline told her that her travel costs were $400, and that she was not going to work as a waitress, but as a prostitute, because that work was better paid there. Meline was working in the city of Ushadas under the supervision of a Kurd named Mujhdat. Mujhdat threatened the girls that if they didn't work he would sell them to pimps in Antalya or Istanbul.
“At first we were afraid, since we were in a foreign city and didn't know the language. Afterwards we agreed. After all, the debt had to be repaid. Even though my passport was with me and I could leave the hotel, I didn't run away. For three months I shared my earnings with Meline. After that, I lived for some time with my boyfriend, and then came back to Armenia, “ Nazik told the court.
Nazik testified that she considered herself quits with the defendants, but at the same time she was a victim, because she had been tricked into going to Turkey on false pretences.
Several other witnesses told the court that they had gone to Turkey with the help of the defendants, specifically to engage in prostitution. But none of them had any issues with the defendants because they went on their own initiative and of their own free will in order to make money as prostitutes.
Oddly, both the victims and the witnesses refuted the section of their preliminary statements where they mentioned Susanna Nikoghosyan as being involved in the crime as their recruiter. Susanna Nikoghosyan was a defendant in two similar cases, which were subsequently merged, a month ago that were subsequently merged.
Larisa, another victim, told the court that she was in dire straits financially and that her only source of income was her daughter's allowance and occasional money from her brother who lived abroad. She added that in very tough times she would also work as a prostitute. Larisa told her neighbor Gayane Melkonyan about her tough situation, and through Gayane, left in 2004 for Trabzon to work as a hairdresser. In Trabzon she was met by Gohar from Ijevan.
“Gohar told me that I wouldn't be able to make good money working as a hairdresser there and that in order to pay the travel debt back quickly I would have to work as a prostitute. I refused but they took away my passport and forced me out on the street. I worked for six months and gave all the money to Gohar. Only once did I send $100 back home. Later on, it was either May or June, they sold me for about $2,000 to another pimp called Ferman,” Larisa recounted. In the end the victim said that she had no complaint against Gayane Melkonyan as she hadn't tricked her and promised her a job.
In court, all the defendants with the exception of Gayane Melkonyan pled guilty and requested a lenient sentence. Judge Surik Kostanyan denied the request of Gayane Melkonyan's attorney Gurgen Grigoryan request to move the case back to the preliminary phase, and found Gayane Melkonyan guilty of violating two articles of the criminal code, sentencing her to five years in prison. Susana Hakobyan was sentenced to two years, and Mayranush Harutyunyan and Ruzanna Baghdasaryan each received one year of probation.
Varduhi Zakaryan Published in: Official website of “Investigative Journalists of Armenia”, (http://www.hetq.am/eng/court/0702-kavat.html), 12 February 2007 (Official translation)
A Wanted Man Has Been Discovered
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center A Wanted Man Has Been Discovered According to the official website of the RA Prosecutor General’s Office, the Division for Anti-Trafficking and Illegal Migration of People under the Investigation Department has finished the investigation of the criminal case instituted against RA citizen S.Yeranosyan for Engaging Persons in Prostitution by reaching a preliminary agreement with a group of people.
The investigation allowed the police to find out and prove that S.Yeranosyan, temporarily residing in Turkey with the purpose of gaining profit for engaging people in prostitution, reached a preliminary agreement with Susanna Zhamharyan, convicted in the same criminal case, and with her help, in June of 2002 recruited and transported G.D. to Trabzon, where she was engaged in prostitution for more than 7 months.
In addition, in August of 2005, S.Yeranosyan recruited Irina Karapetyan in the same way, and sent her to Trabzon to be engaged in prostitution for a long time. Then he reached a preliminary agreement with the latter and in October of 2005 recruited and transported A.H., I.Karapetyan’s sister, to Trabzon, where she was also engaged in prostitution for around 3 months.
As a result of measures taken by law enforcement agencies, S.Yeranosyan has been found out and, based on the evidence, charged with crimes under part 1 of Article 261 and part 2, point 2 of Article 261 of RA Criminal Code.
Published in: “Hayots Ashkharh”, 263/2299, 16 December 2006 (unofficial translation)
Criminal Cases Against 8 Persons Are Over
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center Criminal Cases Against 8 Persons Are Over According to the RA Prosecutor General’s Office, investigation of criminal cases instituted against 8 persons charged with involving others in prostitution and forging and using documents, is over. In particular, L.Stepanyan, being deported from Turkey, prepared forged passports for prostitutes, who had been deported from the country, which made possible the sending of the prostitutes to Trabzon.
On 8 January, the criminal cases of 8 persons were sent to the First Instance Court of Malatia-Sebiastia communities.
Published in: “Aravot” Daily, 6/2872, 16 January, 2007 (unofficial translation)
Are Strip Dancers Victims of Trafficking?
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center Are Strip Dancers Victims of Trafficking? “Four Ukrainian women have been subjected to trafficking in Armenia. The women came to our country allegedly to work, but as soon as they entered the country pimps took their documents and 'made' them strip dancers. When the Ukrainian police informed us about their disappeared women, we applied to our police and found the Ukrainian women,” said Yenoq Shatvoryan, President of “Hope and Help” organization, summarizing the project on the struggle against trafficking yesterday in the UN House in Armenia.
The anti-trafficking project has been implemented in Armenia for several years. According to the representative of the NGO, during this period they substantially supported victims of trafficking, providing them with clothes, temporary dwelling, and medical, psychological and legal assistance. For these activities the organization, with the financial support of the US Embassy in Armenia, has spent around $250.000. Within the framework of the anti-trafficking project realized by the organization, Hotline 0-800-80-801 operated, with the help of which victims were able to share their problems with professionals and obtain assistance. To date, the Hotline has registered 25 applications.
Published in: “Aravot “Daily, 246/2865, 27 December 2007 (unofficial translation)
34 Criminal Cases Have Been Investigated
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center 34 Criminal Cases Have Been Investigated During 9 months of 2006, 34 criminal cases on Articles 132, 231 and 262 of the RA Criminal Code (Recruitment, Transportation of Persons for the Purpose of Sexual Exploitation or Forced Labor, Involvement into Prostitution, Maintaining Dens of Prostitution) have been investigated by Armenian law enforcement bodies. 29 cases have been investigated by the Investigation Department of the RA Prosecutor General’s Office, 3 – by the Investigation Division of the Police Department of Shirak marz (province), and 2 - by that of Lori marz Police Department.
20 of the investigated cases against 30 persons have been sent to the court. 16 of the above-mentioned cases against 24 persons have been sent to the court by the Investigation Department of the RA Prosecutor General’s Office, 3 cases against 5 persons – by the Investigation Division of the Shirak marz Police Department, 1 case against 1 person – by the Lori marz Police Department.
According to the cases which were investigated during 9 months of 2006, 121 persons have been subjected to sexual exploitation, 118 of whom were women and 3 were men. In the same period, 64 persons were called to administrative liability for Engagement in Prostitution by Article 179 of the RA Administrative Code.
During 9 months of 2006, the courts sentenced 26 persons in 20 criminal cases in accordance with Articles 132 and 262 of the RA Criminal Code.
The courts have not returned cases on the above-mentioned crimes for additional investigation, nor given any acquittals; defendants have not rejected the charges.
The investigation of 5 criminal cases is still in process, 4 criminal cases have been merged, 1 criminal case has been terminated by the Investigation Division of the Lori marz Police Department, 4 criminal cases against 7 persons have been suspended because the accused avoided investigation; they are the subject of a search now.
Published in: Official website of the RA Prosecutor General’s Office (http://www.genproc.am, Armenian version available at http://www.genproc.am/main/am/49/1501/), 15 November 2006 (Unofficial translation)
They Tried to Humiliate the Victim in Court
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center They Tried to Humiliate the Victim in Court Investigation of the criminal case against Gayane Melkonyan, Sousanna Nikoghosyan, Qnarik Ghandilyan and Rouzanna Baghdasaryan continued in the Shengavit community First Instance Court, headed by Sourik Kostanyan. Before “Aravot” Daily’s appearance at the court, a closed hearing session had been already summoned. Defendants were charged with deceitfully sending Hermine Zaqaryan, a Gyumri city resident, to Dubai and forcing her to prostitute. Yesterday Hermine Zaqaryan, the victim, gave evidence in the court. She said that she was divorced 6 years ago and had two underage children. Last year on September 10 she accidentally met Knarik Ghandilyan, who, knowing that Hermine was unemployed, offered her to come to Dubai to work as a waitress. Hermine said nothing at home, and the reason, as she explained at the court, was that she had already been once deceitfully taken to Turkey. As she had already been cheated once, she wanted some guarantees from Knarik. The latter visited Hermine’s place and assured her that she would help her in finding a job in Yerevan later. The next day Gayane, another pimp, sent Hermine to Yerevan, where she stayed at “Golden Father” – Mr. Nver’s flat, which was, according to Hermine, on the way to the cemetery. Nver and his wife Lousik took Hermine to the airport. In Dubai Hermine was met by Irina Yenokyan – “Ikoush”.
Hermine said that in the flat, rented by Irina, she found out that Gayane, Knarik and Liana (who has been already sentenced) sold her to Irina Yenokyan for $2500+300. “Irina said that I had to prostitute,” - said the victim at the court.
Hermine Zaqaryan also said that she refused to obey Irina’s demand and that Irina beat her every day for that. By the way, “Aravot” has taken pictures of Hermine’s injuries. Irina and her boy-friend Yenok constantly put out cigarettes on Hermine’s back, legs, stomach, hit her with a knife several times and broke her nose. “When they were drunk they would pour vodka on me, and hit me with a knife; my whole body is in that condition,” - cried the victim. In the flat in Dubai were Anna and Shoghik from Ejmiadzin, and Gohar and Voski from Yerevan, as well as Hripsime, so-called assistant to “Ikoush.”
Hermine stayed in Dubai from 14 September 2005 till 25 January 2006, and she knew neither English nor Arabic.
Irina Yenokyan seized her passport and got a false visa. According to Hermine, the main reason she was beaten was that Gayane and Knar informed Irina that Hermine’s mother had applied to the police. Once she called her mother and in Irina’s presence told her: “If you apply to the police, my situation will get worse.”
When Hermine’s interrogation began, the defender of the pimps almost with irony asked about the Hermine’s staying in Turkey. The victim’s lawyer Hovik Arsenyan objected to actions of his colleague, saying that he was trying to humiliate Hermine, and was putting the victim under moral and psychological pressure. The lawyer of the defendant mentioned that, according to the victim, her brother and sister were employed, but the verdict said that she was taken to Dubai because of hard social conditions. He said: “If you want to find out whether it was trafficking, let the victim answer, if she had been cheated or threatened by weapons. Let us not forget – all of them are Armenian women.”
Rouzan Minasyan Published in: “Aravot” Daily (http://www.aravot.am), # 226 (2845), 28 November 2006 (Unofficial translation)
Transportation of an Underage Person to Turkey
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center Transportation of an Underage Person to Turkey The Division for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings and Their Illegal Migration of the Investigative Department of the RA Prosecutor General’s Office has finished the investigation of a criminal case, instituted by the fact of deceitfully recruiting Q.M. and underage R.S. by A.Melkoumyan and sending them to Turkey for sexual exploitation in April of 2005.
As was discovered by a preliminary agreement with G.Kirakosyan, an RA citizen temporarily living in Turkey and who has been wanted by the RA since 2003, in April, 2005, with the aim of gaining a profit from the sexual exploitation of other people, and using a search for a job of waitress as a pretext, A.Melkoumyan deceitfully recruited and sent Q.M. and underage R.S. by bus to Trabzon. The victims were met in Trabzon by G.Kirakosyan, who took them to a rented flat, took their passports, and forced them to prostitution.
Based on the evidence, A.Melkoumyan was charged according to point 1 of the second part of Article 132 (Trafficking – translator’s note) and points 1 and 2 of part 3 of Article 132 of the RA Criminal Code.
In 2005 A.Melkoumyan was convicted for actions prescribed by Article 132 – for sending people to Dubai for sexual exploitation, and now is serving his sentence.
Published in: “Hayots Ashkharh” newspaper (http://www.armworld.am), #199/2262, 26 December 2006 (unofficial translation)
The Wanted Has Been Found
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center The Wanted Has Been Found The Division for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings and Their Illegal Migration of the Investigations Department of the RA Prosecutor General’s Office has finished investigating a criminal case on the involvement of other people in prostitution by a preliminary agreement with a group of people, by the RA citizen S. Yeranosyan.
The investigation found and proved that S.Yeranosyan, temporarily residing in Turkey, with the aim of gaining profit by involving other people in prostitution, had come to a preliminary agreement with Sousanna Zhamharyan, a convict of the same criminal case. With the help of the latter, in June of 2002 he recruited and sent G.D. to Trabzon, where he involved her in prostitution for around seven months.
Additionally, in August 2005, S.Yeranosyan recruited Irina Karapetyan in the same way, sent her to Trabzon, and involved her in prostitution for a long time. Then, in October 2005, he came to a preliminary agreement with the latter, recruited her sister A.H., sent her to Trabzon and involved her in prostitution for about three months.
For the above-mentioned actions, and based on the evidence, the lawenforcement body charged S.Zhamharyan and S.Yeranosyan and sent the case to the First Instance Court of Lori marz (province) for further investigation on 6 September 2006.
Because S.Yeranosyan was not found, the part of the criminal case that concerned him was separated, and the law enforcement services were in search of him.
Due to measures taken by the police, S.Yeranosyan was found, and charged on the basis of evidence with part 1 of Article 261 (involvement into prostitution – translator’s note) and point 1 of the second part of Article 261 of the RA Criminal Code.
On 6 December 2006,, the Criminal Case was sent to the First Instance Court of Lori marz.
Published in: Official website of the RA Prosecutor General’s website (http://www.genproc.am), 11 December 2006 (Unofficial translation)
Preferred Pimping
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center Preferred Pimping The Division on Anti-Trafficking and Illegal Migration of Human Beings of the Investigation Department of the RA General Prosecutor’s Office has finished the investigation of a criminal case on recruitment of women and their transportation to Turkey for prostitution.
As was revealed and proven during the investigation, the RA citizen Mayranoush H. has temporarily lived in Turkey since 2002. First she was engaged in trade, then in hairdressing. During her work she met people engaged in organization of prostitution of women. Seeing that such work was profitable, she decided to transport prostitutes from the Republic of Armenia to Turkey and to earn money in such a way.
To realize her intention, Mayranoush H. returned to her homeland in 2005, and reached a preliminary agreement with Susanna N. and Gayane M. to engage other persons in prostitution with the aim of getting a profit. With the help of the above-mentioned persons, she recruited S.H. and, on 3 June 2005, transported her to Trabzon and involved her in prostitution for around two months.
At the end of June 2005, Mayranoush H., with the help of Gayane M., recruited and transported to Trabzon two more women the same way, She engaged them in prostitution for a long time. Based on the evidence, Mayranoush M. and Susanna N. were charged with the 1st point, part 2 of Article 261 of the RA Criminal Code.
On 27 September 2006, the criminal case was sent to the First Instance Court of Shengavit district for further examination.
Published in: Official website of the RA General Prosecutor’s Office (http://www.genproc.am, Armenian version available at: http://www.genproc.am/main/am/49/1309/) 2 October 2006
Recruited and Transported to Trabzon
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center Recruited and Transported to Trabzon The Division on Anti-Trafficking and Illegal Migration of Human Beings of the Investigation Department of the RA General Prosecutor’s Office has found two partners of S. Yeranosyan engaged in pimping in the town of Trabzon, Turkey. S. Soghomonyan’s partners recruited girls for him from different marzes (provinces) of Armenia.
The investigation revealed and proved that S. Zhamharyan, resident of the town of Vanadzor, in self-interest, agreed to S. Yeranosyan’s offer to engage other people in prostitution. S. Zhamharyan, who was occupied with pimping in Turkey, had a prior agreement with S. Yeranosyan and recruited G. D. in Vanadzor and transported her to Trapizon. S. Yeranosyan had been engaging G. D. in prostitution for more than 7 months. And I. Karapetyan, a resident of Gyumri, in self-interest, being engaged in prostitution under Yeranosyan’s control, had made a preliminary agreement with S. Yeranosyan, according to which in October 2005 she recruited her sister, A. H., and transported her to Trabzon. S. Yeranosyan had been engaging A.H. in prostitution for about 3 months.
Based upon available evidence, S. Zhamharyan and I. Karapetyan were charged under Clause 1 Section 2 of Article 261 of the RA Criminal Code.
On September 6, 2006 the case was sent to the First Instance Court of Lori marz (province) for further examination.
Published in: The official web site of the RA General Prosecutor’s Office (www.genproc.am, Armenian version available at: http://www.genproc.am/main/am/16/1217/), September 8, 2006 (Unofficial translation)
Café as a Den of Prostitution
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights CenterCafé as a Den of Prostitution The Division on Anti-Trafficking and Illegal Migration of Human Beings of the Investigation Department of the RA General Prosecutor’s Office has finished the preliminary investigation of the criminal case No. 62207606.
The investigation revealed that G. Ghoukasyan, being a de facto manager of the shop belonging to “Azniv Davtyan” private enterprise, had come to a prior agreement with the sales assistant G. Nazaryan, and with the aim of deriving some profit assisted H. H., A. A., G. Gh. and others to be engaged in prostitution from January till July 2006, periodically giving them a room in the café under his ownership.
Based upon available evidence G. Ghukasyan and G. Nazaryan were charged under Clause 1 Section 2 of Article 262 of the RA Criminal Code.
On August 29 2006 the criminal case was sent to the First Instance Court of Shengavit community for further examination.
Published in: The official web site of the RA General Prosecutor's Office (www.genproc.am, Armenian version available at http://www.genproc.am/main/am/16/1213/) September 8, 2006 (Unofficial translation)
Deceitfully Recruited and Sent to Dubai
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights CenterDeceitfully Recruited and Sent to Dubai The Division on Anti-Trafficking and Illegal Migration of Human Beings of the Investigative Department of the RA General Prosecutor’s office has found one of the members of the criminal group that had deceitfully recruited H. Z, sent her to Dubai and forced her to sexual exploitation.
The investigation revealed and proved that Q. Ghandilyan, having neither a permanent place of living nor job, lived in the apartment of his partner, G. Melkonyan, a resident of Gyumri, who was engaged in involving persons in prostitution or deceitfully recruiting young women with the aim of their sexual exploitation.
In the beginning of 2005, he met L. Bagaryan in the same apartment. Bagaryan, who is now a defendant on the same case, had previously been engaged in prostitution in Dubai and her involvement in prostitution had been organized by I. Yenokyan. During their conversation L. Bagaryan offered Ghandilyan to a chance to recruit divorced women as well as women who were in bad social conditions, and, falsely persuading them that they would be occupied in other work, send them to Dubai to I. Yenokyan. For such service Bagaryan promised either money or a well-paid job in Dubai. K. Ghandilyan was tempted by the offer and started to find this kind of women.
On September 7 2005, Q. Ghandilyan met H. Z., her acquaintance, in one of the streets of Gyumri and offered her work as a waitress in Dubai, promising her a high salary. Being in a socially bad condition, H.Z., an unemployed widow, gave her consent.
On September 9, 2005, with the aim of discussing certain questions related to Z. H.’s departure, Q. Ghandilyan took her to G. Melkonyan’s home and introduced her to L. Bagaryan. At their demand, H. Z. spent a night in G. M.’s home. The following morning she was accompanied to Yerevan and then - to Dubai.
In Dubai I. Yenokya n took her passport and forcibly engaged her in prostitution.
Based upon available evidence, K. Ghandilyan was charged under Clauses 1 and 2, Section 3 of Article 132 of the RA Criminal Code. On August 10, 2006 the criminal case was sent to the Court of first instance of Shirak marz (province) for further investigation.
Note: The criminal case filed against L. Bagaryan, one of the members of the criminal group, was sent to the court on July 28, 2006. Published in: The official web site of the RA General Prosecutor’s Office (http://www.genproc.am, Armenian version available at: http://www.genproc.am/main/am/49/1165/), (Unofficial translation)
A Pimp Exploited Prostitutes
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center A Pimp Exploited Prostitutes Three days ago the policemen of the town of Gyumri detained Vardanoush H., born in 1957. She had left part of her dwelling at the disposal of Karine B., Armine M., Vaduhi S. and Noune A. Each of the above-mentioned prostitute girls paid Vardanoush 500 Armenian Drams. Published in: “Aravot” daily (www.aravot.am), #172/2791, 12 September, 2006 (Unofficial translation)
Voluntarily Into Slavery and at Your Own Expense
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center Voluntarily Into Slavery and at Your Own Expense There are many people in Armenia, dreaming of job opportunities abroad, especially in Europe. So they would hardly miss such announcements as “Required for work in Canada, Germany, France…” Recently one of such “invitations” appeared on “Shant” TV and in “Gind” newspaper. “Novoye Vremya” newspaper correspondent visited an office at the mentioned address, 13 Kochar Street (near the “Bravo” restaurant). Although it was early in the morning, the office was already quite crowded by visitors. Young men and women, aged 25-35, were eager to know the terms of employment in Germany. A good-looking lady working in the office gave well-rehearsed answers to the questions of the visitors in a quiet and convincing voice. Potential clients should meet the following requirements: knowing spoken German or English, and being within the fixed age limits. “The better you know the language, the easier for you to get a job,” - she informed us, - “You can find work in the administration of a restaurant, hotel etc.” The starting salary is 1000 Euros per month. "This is the minimum,” – she added. To get into paradise beyond the borders of your country, you just have to copy your own, and your spouse’s and children’s (if any), passports, diploma and other documents.
If a visitor appears to fit all the parameters at first sight, they complete a form on him/her. To provide full information about yourself, you just need to pay 5000 Drams (Armenian national currency. - Translator's note). However the cost of transportation of the labor force to Deutschland does not end with this amount of money; it is just the beginning. The conclusion of an employment contract with German employers costs 100 US dollars. By the way, according to the Empowerist Tour & Tradement Agency, it is representatives of the Armenian Diaspora in Deutschland who have made the order to transfer Gastarbaiters from their historic motherland. The basic expenses are waiting for persons seeking job opportunities in Germany as soon as their employment visas are issued by the Embassy. The first portion of visas, as promised, will be granted to applicants by July 31. The agency announced that people wishing to leave must hurry to sign up by the end of this week: vacancies are expiring.
An applicant has to pay 700 US dollars for a round-trip ticket; the visa is issued for 6 months. If the visitor suits the employer, the contract may be renewed. As a fee for its services, the intermediary firm, i. e. Empowerist, asks for 50 per cent of the first hypothetical salary earned in Germany, i.e. 500 Euros. Visitors asked nothing about guarantees. Perhaps, the office environment, piles of glossy booklets (mostly in Arabic, with foreign flags etc.), inspired them with a positive mood. There was also a Xeroxed license, reminding one more of a useless scrap of paper. In short, it almost looked like as if you were in a foreign country, and you can imagine that all this hypnotizes visitors. Two young ladies were whispering near the entrance: “No, it seems a respectable firm …”
Is it so? None interviewed by the “Novoe Vremya” correspondent dared to give a definite answer to this question. Press-Secretary of the German Embassy Mary told us a few words by phone: “If it is an Armenian firm and there are no specific contracts with Germany, the German side takes no responsibility for anything.” Rouben Dovlatyan, Head of the Department for Struggle against Illegal Migration of the RA Police, said the following: “Unfortunately, there are a lot of such firms and they are out of control, as long as they are not required to have any license when they start their activities. The same is true for fashion houses, marriage and travel agencies. Conversations that it is necessary to establish control over them are underway on different levels, but, unfortunately, these are just conversations.
However, it is possible to use the Belarus experience. Thanks to a Presidential Decree, all organizations dealing with transportation of human beings are under control. Therefore, in case if anything happens, a firm may lose its license or be held accountable on more serious terms. When people are employed abroad, contracts are concluded with a detailed description of the rights and duties of both sides. We have nothing of that kind. So, we have to think over the problem and find a way out. And our people are too much trustful...”
Oh yes, it is impossible to be more trustful. Just say anything and take us warm. As for our records in trafficking, it is not bad at all – grants are flowing up to us like water...
Marietta Malumyan Published in: “Novoe Vremya” newspaper (http://www.nv.am), #1379/27, 27 July 2006 (Unofficial translation)
Not All that Glitters Is Gold
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center Not All that Glitters Is Gold Today, in the running lines of TV and in newspapers, we often see announcements with a brief content, so attractive for many people: “An organization invites individuals, aged 18-35, to work in the United States and Europe”.
As a rule, such announcements do not contain any requirement for a specific profession or work experience. Our preliminary study also showed that these two important aspects are of no particular significance, and jobs in multiple fields are allegedly awaiting for Armenian young people even in such countries as Germany or Holland. Meanwhile, in Armenia, even the job of a charwoman with a broom requires work experience, knowledge of a foreign language, a pretty appearance and slim legs.
The “Eurobusinesslines” company, for example, according to its announcement, can provide jobs for nurses, doctors, artists, teachers etc. As for another company, “Empowerist,” it promises positions in bar-restaurants and at construction sites. A nameless organization, situated on Kievyan Street, on one of the top floors of “Shant” TV company building, does not have any limits on employment opportunities either. The only requirement is the knowledge of spoken English.
We tried to clarify details of this preliminary information, pretending that we were interested in employment opportunities, and the first place we visited was “Eurobusinesslines.” Our conversation with Gagik, manager of the “office” located in a room of a flat, was brief and prompt. Our interlocutor did not clarify what young people, wishing to leave the country, could expect. The only exact information concerned the prices: one needs to have 2.5-3 thousand US dollars to leave for European countries and 4.5-5 thousand US dollars to leave for the United States. It is the price of the services provided by the company, including approval of the Embassy, while travel expenses and other matters are none of its business.
Gagik gave a brief answer to our question whether the company was interested in the fate of the persons it sent abroad, and whether there were any guarantees that these persons would not become trafficking victims: “Everything will be all right, many people have gone, very young girls, nothing has happened to them.” His evasive behavior and replies raised doubts, which we were unable to dissipate.
The “Empowerist” organization was also interested in young persons wishing to work in Germany. Special days and hours were fixed for meeting the manager and making exact clarifications, and appointments had to be fixed in advance. Visitors mainly receive the following answer: “Profession and education do not matter, we offer jobs in the service sector and in construction with a 6-months contract; travel expenses and visas are not our business.”
Here, you have to pay 5000 drams just for signing an invitation-contract, which, according to the company, is sent abroad to its partner organization, and the answer, negative or positive, is received 30-40 days later. If positive, the future worker is sent to the Embassy and, if the answer there is positive again, he/she should pay the company 100 Euros, purchase an air-ticket and - good luck. 40 per cent of the first salary has to come back to “Empowerist.”
As to the guarantees for security, the answer was the following: “We work with the Armenian community.” The nameless organization on Kievyan Street offered similar terms with only one exception: instead of the community they mentioned: “You deal with your employer.”
There are also other agencies promising work abroad, and they really keep their promise, providing individuals with jobs, sometimes covering their traveling expenses on the condition of reimbursement. However the list of positions they offer is mainly limited to nursing seriously ill people or working in oil mines or other places of that kind. However, there are many people who even agree to that.
Thus, labor migration continues to remain unregulated and is remembered only during seminars dedicated to human trafficking. They remember, discuss it, and then forget it.
Rouzan Arshakyan Published in: “Hayots Ashkharh” daily, #140/2203, 27 June, 2006 (Unofficial translation)
Assisted Sister’s Engagement in Prostitution
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center Assisted Sister’s Engagement in Prostitution The Division on Anti-Trafficking and Illegal Migration of Human Beings of the Investigation Department of the RA General Prosecutor’s Office has finished the inquest of the criminal case on using a public place as a den of prostitution.
The investigation discovered that I.Margaryan, administrator of the Edjmiadzin town “Sipan” bistro, assisted A. Petrosyan, her sister, N. Babayan, S. Vahanyan and one Zara, to engage in prostitution with the aim of getting a property benefit by using a public place as a den of prostitution and by giving them shelter in the same place from June to July 11, 2006.
Based on the evidence obtained in the process of the investigation, I. Margaryan was charged according to Section 1 of Article 262 of the RA Criminal Code.
On August 2, 2006, the criminal case was sent to the First Instance Court of Armavir region for further examination.
Published in: the Official web site of the RA General Prosecutor's Office (http://www.genproc.am, Armenian version available at http://www.genproc.am/main/am/49/1117/) (Unofficial translation)
Forced Into Sexual Exploitation
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights CenterForced Into Sexual Exploitation The Division on Anti-Trafficking and Illegal Migration of Human Beings of the Investigation Department of the RA General Prosecutor’s Office has detected one more group engaged in deceitfully recruiting women and subjecting them to sexual exploitation abroad.
The investigation of the Criminal Case No 62207506 discovered that, with the aim of gaining profit through subjecting other people to sexual exploitation, L. Bagaryan, resident of Gyumri city, had reached a prior agreement with I. Yenokyan, temporarily residing in the United Arab Emirates, and using Z. H.’s vulnerable situation, to deceitfully recruit her under the pretext of working as a waitress in one of the local cafes and in September 2005 sent her to I. Yenokyan. There Z. H. was forcibly subjected to sexual exploitation for more than 4 months.
Based upon the evidence obtained as a result of the investigation, L. Beglaryan was charged according to Clause 2 Section 3 of the RA Criminal Code.
On July 28, 2006, the case was sent to the First Instance Court of Shirak region for further detailed examination.
Published in: the Official web site of the RA General Prosecutor’s Office (http://www.genproc.am, Armenian version available at http://www.genproc.am/main/am/49/1113/) (Unofficial translation)
Sentenced to 10 Years of Imprisonment
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center Sentenced to 10 Years of Imprisonment The First Instance Court of Shirak marz (province) has found grounds for the charges against S. Zaqaryan for the murder of Gyulnara Hovhannisyan.
On the discovery of G. Hovhannisyan’s dismembered body, a criminal case was instituted by the Prosecutor’s Office of Shirak marz on July 8, 2006, under Section 1, Article 104 of the RA Criminal Code. Based on the evidence obtained as a result of the investigation, S. Zaqaryan was found guilty; he was charged with Sections 1 of Articles 104 and 177 and Clause 4 Section 2 of Article 177 of the RA Criminal Code.
On May 10, 2006, the case was sent to the First Instance Court of Shirak marz. After further examination of the case, the court found the charges brought against S. Zaqaryan justified and sentenced him to 10 years of imprisonment.
Published in: The Official Web site of the RA General Prosecutor’s Office (www.genproc.am,
Armenian version available at: http://www.genproc.am/main/am/49/1105/)
“Believe Me, I Am a Pimp”
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center“Believe Me, I Am a Pimp” Trafficking, or trade in human beings, is a pervasive, very dangerous crime, so it is in the focus of law enforcement bodies. Each country’s fundamental attitude to the issue and to the enforcement of the law in its all strength may somehow limit the “appetite” of persons, for whom trade in human beings, a crime that seems so absurd and at the same time so up-to-date for the 21st century, has become a kind of “craft.”
Arousyak and her female friend, knowing for sure that one Narine Khachatryan was occupied with sexual exploitation in the United Arab Emirates and paid well to those who sent new victims, cheated a woman and sent her to Narine. That woman was told that she would either nurse a child or work as a shop-assistant. Communicating with her neighbor, an Armenian from the Diaspora, the woman learned a little Arabic and English and felt ready for the job she had been offered. She gave her agreement. However, Narine took her passport in the Emirates and subjected the woman to sexual exploitation.
Having got back to Armenia with great difficulty, the woman filed in a complaint. Arousyak was charged with engagement in trafficking in human beings under Clause 1, Section 2 of Article 132 of the RA Criminal Code. The First Instance Court sentenced Arousyak to 4 years of imprisonment. The Appellate Court left the verdict unchanged. In her appeal Arousyak asked to change the sentence, insisting that her actions were defined incorrectly. According to Arousyak, her actions were in conformity with Article 262, “maintaining dens of prostitution or pimping.” Perhaps, Arousyak was really a pimp by her nature, but what she did this time was exactly trafficking in human beings, now considered a much graver crime. The Appellate Chamber has not accepted Arousyak’s claim and the verdict has entered into force.
G. K. Published in: “02” RA Police weekly, (www.police.am), # 29/778, 29 July, 2006 (Unofficial translation)
Sold for 6,000 US Dollars
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights CenterSold for 6,000 US Dollars The Division on Anti-trafficking and Illegal Migration in Human Beings of the Investigation Department of the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Armenia has finished its investigation of a criminal case, instituted on N. M.’s sexual exploitation.
As a result of the investigation, it was found out and proved that with the aim of profit, G. Grigoryan, resident of Vanadzor town, having a prior agreement with G. Arshakyan, his sister, temporarily residing in Turkey and dealing with trafficking in persons, deceptively recruited N. M., his neighbor, and sent her to Turkey in June 2005, under the pretext of working as a nurse. G. Arshakyan illegally kept her in the town of Kemer in Turkey, subjecting her to sexual exploitation and then sold her to some Turk Mesoud for 6,000 US Dollars.
Based upon the available evidence, G. Grigoryan was charged with Clause 1, section 2 of Article 132 of the RA Criminal Code.
On June 30, 2006 the criminal case was sent to the first instance court of Lori marz (province) for further examination.
Published in: Official Web site of the RA General Prosecutor’s Office, (http://www.genproc.am, Armenian version available at http://www.genproc.am/main/am/49/897/), 3 July 2006
(Unofficial translation)
Other People’s Involvement in Prostitution Organized in Dubai
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights CenterOther People’s Involvement in Prostitution Organized in Dubai The Division on Anti-trafficking and Illegal Migration in Human Beings of the Investigation Department of the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Armenia has finished investigation of the criminal case instituted on the involvement in prostitution of K. H. and one Anoushik in Dubai.
The investigation allowed to find out and prove that with the purpose of gaining profit, the Armenian citizen M. Karapetyan, now residing in the United Arab Emirates, had reached a prior agreement with V. Tigranyan, a former police officer defendant in the same case, recruited one Anushik and K. H., who had expressed willingness to be engaged in prostitution, sent them to Dubai in June-May, 2001 and organized their long-term involvement in the sex industry.
On the basis of the available evidence M. Karapetyan was charged with Section 1 of Article 262 of the RA Criminal Code.
On June 12, 2006 the criminal case was sent to the first instance court of Kotayk marz (province) for further investigation.
Published in: Official Web site of the RA General Prosecutor’s Office (http://www.genproc.am, Armenian version available at http://www.genproc.am/main/am/49/897/), 3 July 2006
(Unofficial translation)
K’s Story
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center K’s story K. is 31 years old; she is from Yerevan, education – incomplete secondary; she is divorced and has a 9-year-old son. K. lives in Yerevan with her parents and brother’s family. She used to work as a saleswoman, then as a singer at a night club in Yerevan.
K’s friend – G. (performer of eastern dances) offered her a chance to go to Dubai to earn money by singing at a night club. After long persuasions K. took the offer.
K. and a recruiter Marietta’s sole meeting took place at G.’s flat in April of 2005. Marietta offered K. work as a singer at a night club. According to the verbal agreement, Marietta had to cover travel expenses, and K. was to be paid monthly $2000 plus tips from the customers. In June 2005, a sister of the pimp Anoush rented a car and took K. to Yerevan “Zvartnots” airport. In Dubai (UAE) airport she was met by pimps Anoush (Alla) and Anahit Malkhasyan. Anoush took her passport and brought her to a flat, where there were 5 more women. Anoush said that work conditions would be the following: K. would be engaged in prostitution, working 6 months for a pimp who would give her a daily minimum of 500 Dirhems ($150) and after 6 months she would have 50% of the income. The rest of her expenses, related to the flat, food and clothes, would be covered by Anoush.
The women worked at “Inter City” café and “San George” night club. For around one month K. had 1-3 clients per day and then only one client – Sele, an Arab.
K. had twice tried to escape wanting to get back home – for the first time with Vera (one of the girls of the pimp Syuzi), but her friend G. betrayed them. The second time she applied to the police asking for help, but they ignored her.
On 13 October 2005 K. was arrested during a police raid in “Inter City” café. Taking into consideration the fact that K.’s entry visa was sent from Shorja town, she was sent to the local prison, where she was kept for 28 days. Anoush sent K.s passport with a ticket to the prison and on 11 November 2005 she was deported from the UAE. She came to Yerevan with her passport, without money and personal things.
When passing the Armenian border, K.’s passport was withdrawn by the National Security Service.
K. stayed in the UAE for 5 months and during 4 months of work she earned $18,000, out of which the pimp paid her only $100.
K. has been involved in the “Hope and Help” NGO’s project “Assistance service to victims of trafficking in human beings.”
Published in: “Hope and Help” NGO, 30 May 2006 (Unofficial translation)
Dubai: Center of the Sex Trade
Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights CenterDubai: Center of the Sex Trade The man in national dress pictured here works for the Criminal Investigation Department of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). On February 3, 2005, under his supervision, pimps of various nationalities were selling women right in front of the Inter City hotel in Dubai. Among the women were underage girls, including Armenians. (See also: Desert Nights).
The Police Department and the Migration Service are involved in the sex trade in Dubai. This is a hugely profitable business for the country. Indeed, it is the presence of these women that attracts so many businessmen from around the world, and Arab sheikhs and their sons, to Dubai. Policemen supervise the business in order to avoid troublesome situations, so as not to damage the country's prestige. The outside world shuts its eyes to hundreds of outrageous facts. The US State Department's 2006 Trafficking in Persons Report lists the United Arab Emirates and Armenia side-by-side. It may seem surprising to see a country where one can freely buy women in the streets listed on the same tier as Armenia, but the United States doesn't want to apply sanctions to the UAE, its partner.
A source in the Dubai Police Department told us that following the publication of the Trafficking in Persons Report, the police carried out a number of round-ups in various hotels, nightclubs, and discothèques, including the notorious Cyclone nightclub. Some 4,000 women who had violated UAE visa regulations were arrested. About 80 percent were from Russia and other former Soviet republics, including Armenia.
Hetq Online has reported extensively on one of the sex trade networks in the UAE, publishing photographs of various people engaged in the business as well. (The Armenian network in the Dubai sex trade, Dubai is Hell on Earth), The only reaction from the UAE government was to ban the Hetq Online Website in the country (Hetq.am Banned in the Emirates). The international organization Reporters Without Borders appealed in vain to the UAE government to lift the more than yearlong ban. (Reporters Without Borders calls for end to blocking of news website).
The fight against human trafficking is perfunctory The following story demonstrates how thoroughly the UAE Police and Migration Service are interlinked with the sex trade. It is also graphic evidence of just how perfunctory the activity of various international organizations fighting against trafficking is. These organizations have become bureaucratic structures concerned only with getting grants, and organizing conferences, seminars and round-tables. One classic example was a discussion organized recently in Yerevan, at which representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs regaled those present with stories of the Ministry's hard work in the campaign against trafficking in persons. The real story is very different.
Mike Trinidad is from Singapore and went to Dubai on a business trip. In e-mails to Hetq, he wrote: “Until recently I was unaware Dubai had such a bad name in this type of industry. 8 weeks ago on a previous trip through Dubai I met a lady called Lidia at the York International Hotel. I could see even at the beginning she was in some type of mental anguish. I made a point of looking for her again 2 weeks ago to find out what the full story was. She had been sent here for another job from Moldova then when arriving in Dubai her passport was taken from her and she was told she is now a prostitute. During her nearly 2 months here she had been paid nothing, they said they had extended her visa but had not.”
Troubled by her painful situation Mike suggested that Lidia escape and turn herself into the police. 24-year-old Lidia agreed . “She came to me with only the clothes on her back and I took her to see an Officer Khalid in the anti-human trafficking department at CID headquarters. Mr Khalid appeared sincerely concerned and said nothing to worry about and that on Saturday the 3rd he would get her passport back,” Mike continued.
On the morning of June 3 rd , Lidia received a phone call and was told that a girl would bring her passport to a restaurant near the hotel. Mike suspected that it might be a trap, but Lidia insisted that it couldn't be. And Mike had to accompany Lidia. “ The girl known to Lidia called again saying she was running late and to confirm Lidia was there. Shortly thereafter two men entered the restaurant and said they were taking the girl, I naturally told them rather impolitely 'no'! After some time which included threatening Lidia they identified themselves as police officers. I called Officer Khalid and told him of the situation and he told me not to let Lidia go with them. After another period of time of threats and intimidation a uniformed officer arrived. I again called Officer Khalid who spoke with the uniformed officer. At the completion of this call Officer Khalid said he knows these officers, everything will be OK, he would see her at 1pm and she would be out at 3pm. So at this point Lidia was taken by uniformed and non-uniformed UAE police,” his e-mail read.
At 3 p.m., Mike began calling and leaving messages for Khalid, but in vain. “At 8am Sunday morning I was messaged by Officer Khalid for some information at which point I wanted to know what was going on at which point I was told everything is ok and she is fine and that I would see her that day. I sent the required information which was telephone numbers etc from Lidia's phone then again another day goes by with no further information and no chance to see her. Today is Monday and repeated calls and messages have gone unanswered. We were told by Officer Khalid there would be no time spent in prison, she would get her passport and be allowed to leave as she is the victim,” Mike wrote.
Mike also informed Lidia's parents of the situation.
“Normally prisoners are allowed a phone call or visitations, or is the UAE different? At this point it appears a victim cannot go to the UAE police for assistance?” Mike said. On June 6 th he went to the jail to visit Lidia.
“I go back today at 9:30am and they ask me what I want. I tell them I was told to come back today to visit Lidia. After some time they bring Lidia to the door, she is not allowed to speak and they say is this she to which I reply yes. Then they close the door and say I cannot visit her because today is for female visitors only! Then I am taken to see the captain and he then tells me she will be allowed no visitors as she is a prostitute and the investigation is ongoing! When asked when she will be deported I got no answer,” - Mike wrote us on Monday – “At this point Lidia does not know what is going on and her parents have been told nothing by the UAE authorities. So bottom line if a trafficked woman goes to even the UAE police anti trafficking unit she will be the criminal and she will receive no compassion or assistance at all. To add insult to this her boss or handler is still free to roam the city.”
Meanwhile, Mike sent letters to various organizations and embassies, including the local UN office. None of them replied. “The Anti Human Trafficking Department inside the UAE police is either a farce or powerless. As you can see from the story we went there for help and were offered assurances. This is especially the case with countries that have no consular support in Dubai. At this point the Anti Human Trafficking Department still offered assurances but did nothing. There must be 100's of other trafficked people here I have seen with my own eyes alone who most likely want to go home,” Mike wrote.
Lidia's parents were unable to help their daughter from Moldova. They tried to find the woman who took their daughter to Dubai, and appealed to the law enforcement agencies to put a stop to the woman's activity.
The names and telephone numbers of Lidia's bosses are known. Mike informed police about them. But nothing has happened to them. They continue to live in Dubai and exploit hundreds girls like Lidia. The name and the telephone number of the person in Moldova who keeps Lidia's passport are also known. Our appeals to law enforcement agencies in Moldova have thus far gone unanswered. Mike has Lidia's cell phone and he keeps getting threatening phone calls from Moldova.
Fortunately, this story has a happy ending. Thanks to Mike's efforts, Lidia was saved. He bought her a ticket and she went back to Moldova. But there are thousands of stories like this in the United Arab Emirates, and not many of them have such a happy ending.
“I think this will be a subject I will be involved with for many years. We have isolated incidents in Australia with human trafficking and they are severely punished, just this week a Chinese woman got ten years jail, but it is rare. I had heard of the former soviet union trafficking and organized crimes,” Mike wrote, wondering at the fact that he received only a handful of responses to all his letters to different organizations and individuals seeking help for Lidia. “It's most surprisingly, that the Australian government made no comment at all and every UN person I contacted didn't want nothing to do with it. The UN has a site dedicated to this but isn't interested and when I went to the UN office in Bahrain they didn't even know they had a mandate on human trafficking,” Mike concluded.
Edik Baghdasaryan
Published in: Website of Investigative Journalists of Armenia (http://www.hetq.am/eng/society/0606-arab.html, Armenian version available at http://www.hetq.am/arm/society/0606-arab.html), 19 June 2006 (Official translation)
5 Accused Were Found Guilty According to Article 262
5 accused were found guilty according to Article 262 The Court of First Instance of Yerevan city’s Erebouni and Noubarashen communities found grounded the indictments of Z.Karapetyan, N.Aghamyan. T.Poghosyan. V.Abrahamyan and D.Pishnayan for involving G.A., N.P. and others in prostitution at the “Doustr Olya” Ltd. Hotel complex.
According to the verdict of the Court of 10 May 2006, the mentioned 5 persons were found guilty by part 1 of Article 262 (Maintaining dens of prostitution or pimping. Translator’s note) of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia. Published in: Official website of the RA General Prosecutor’s Office (http://www.genproc.am, Armenian version available at http://www.genproc.am/main/am/49/673/), 24 May 2006 (Official translation)
A Policeman Patronized Prostitution
A policeman patronized prostitution According to the official web site of the RA Public Prosecutor’s Office, Department for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings and Their Illegal Migration has finished investigation of the criminal case instituted against ex-policeman V.Tigranyan. The case has already been sent to the Court of First Instance of the Shengavit community. Tigranyan met a resident of Abovyan town M.Karapetyan, who was involved in organizing prostitution in Dubai. The latter promised him to pay concrete money for each prostitute. The policeman contacted prostitutes K.H. and her friend “Anjela” (the latter was even pregnant). Instead of the pregnant woman the policeman recruited some Anoushik, who was sent to Dubai for $500. Now the policeman is under arrest. Published in: “Aravot” Daily (http://www.aravot.am), #87/2706, 16 May 2006 (Unofficial translation)
An Extract From the Article "The Number of Violaters, Swindlers and Pimps Has Grown"
An Extract From the Article “The Number of Violators, Swindlers and Pimps Has Grown” Within the first quarter of the current year there has been registered an increase in number of rapes and rape attempts (3 cases in the first quarter of the current year compared to 4 cases in the same period of the last year). THE NUMBER OF CRIMES IN THE ACCOUNTING PERIOD, according to him, is 7,5 per 10.000 of the population. The highest rate of crime has been registered in Yerevan (8,8) and Shirak marz (8,4), and lowest rates are in the Aragatsotn marz (3,5), the Gegarkunik marz (4,1) and Vayots-Dzor marz (4,7). Source: “Golos Armenii”, 19 April, 2005
A Case Study of Trafficking in the Neighborhood of Kapan and Goris Cities in the Syunik Region of Armenia
A case study of trafficking in the neighborhood of Kapan and Goris cities in the Syunik region of Armenia Trafficking, or 21st-century-style suicide By Vahagn Vardumyan “Illegal trafficking and trade in human beings” – this phrase looks strange at first glance but is in fact just an attempt to pinpoint a phenomenon. Also known as ‘21st century slavery’, it became an issue worldwide only recently and has now reached Armenia. This study is about the Syunik region of Armenia. I started with the center of the region, Kapan city. KAPAN This small city in the south-east of Armenia, 350 km away from the capital Yerevan, near the border with former Azeri regions, Kapan used to have a population of 60,000 that dropped to 20,000 over the last decade. The city still has a face of its own. Locals have a very special attitude to life, no doubt affected by the huge beautiful mountains that surround the city. Many visitors have been impressed by the sincerity and hospitality of Kapan dwellers. Local shops open credits to customers. Locals can do hard work for years without getting so much as a cent. The city is struggling but doing its best to stop beggars appearing in the streets so as to keep the city’s head high… Huge holes in the walls of houses left from air raids and the carcass of a fallen helicopter in the long disused airport still remind of the Karabakh war. These are just details that make up the whole picture of life in post-Soviet post-war Kapan. Many things changed here with the fall of the Soviet rule. Free market relations reign everywhere, bribery practices spread beyond any control, local media are unanimously and conspicuously pro-government. None of this surprises the locals - not any more. Worst of all, they are getting used to this state of things and pay less and less attention to it. A significant part of the population of Kapan city and neighboring villages are unaware of civil society standards, the basics of civil activity and the existence of civil society organizations. For this very reason, the local NGO sector is extremely passive; there are around 30 NGOs of which only 5 or 6 are more or less active at least six months a year. The links between communities and authorities are just as weak; authorities are scarcely aware of what goes on in the communities, and vice versa. Kapan residents have a bitter joke that whatever new law is passed in Armenia, it is first put into practice in Kapan. International organizations, whatever the project they try to implement in Kapan, have to deal with vague, imprecise figures and data. This complicates all external attempts to address local problems. Yet without external assistance, the solution of local problems is totally unthinkable because of the local authorities’ indifferent and casual attitude. Of course, all this complicated the search for trafficking cases in Kapan and neighboring villages. At the employment agency in Kapan, in various bodies of the City Council and in the local hospital no one seemed to be able to name a single case when people were offered jobs abroad and then became trafficking victims. No one could remember something of this kind happening to a woman, man or child. I visited the five schools, two universities and ten NGOs of Kapan city, and did interviews in the streets with around one hundred persons aged 17 to 55. Only five of the 100 interviewees had heard the word ‘trafficking’, and of those only two could give an adequate definition. Six to eight per cent of interviewees knew about the Internet but only four per cent were aware of the dangers of internet-based trafficking. When asked what they would do if someone they have only met online offered them a job abroad, most young men and women in Kapan said: “I would try to find out if I can really trust this person.” However, when asked just how they were going to test the integrity and reliability of a job offer, and whether they were aware that a person’s passport is their property, the young people said “Well, I shall try to see if the person is deceiving me, then I shall see if their papers are genuine”. None of them could explain just how to tell between forged and authentic papers. What is most important, almost 100 per cent were deeply convinced that ‘Kapan is not the city from which someone would go to Dubai to do prostitution. This is highly improbable. Such people can easily do prostitution in Kapan, or else go to Russia, but why Dubai?” My search for cases or victims of trafficking was provoked by reports of international organizations about the alarming spread of trafficking in Kapan and in the Syunik region in general. After more than two weeks of futile efforts, I was almost ready to give up. Everyone I talked to insisted this practice did not exist in Kapan. Of course, a few people said that they had heard about men who went to Russia as migrant workers and came back empty-handed, totally depressed and frustrated. It is an interesting fact that people were reluctant to mention those stories and refused to give names, saying that ‘perhaps the rumors aren’t true, why should we create problems for people’. I also noticed that people have not hope in that authorities will help them. Even when news comes from Russia about another unexplained murder, people simply accept the sad reality. Meanwhile, trafficking might be the motive behind those murders. There is data, though unverified, that every year an average three murders are committed that are related to the trafficking industry. Yet the Head of the Employment Agency of Kapan city says that in his ten years of work he never ran upon a single case of trafficking from Kapan. He also said that most migrant workers from Kapan and neighboring villages are men and that men are less vulnerable to trafficking them women. He added that Syunik has the highest unemployment rates in Armenia and that this is a reason to expect labor migration to grow. At the City Council they were not very enthusiastic about answering my questions. “This is not our responsibility; this is not our job to deal with the issue”.
A teacher at one of the local schools was very upset when she heard the word ‘trafficking’. She said that only recently she got a phone call from an American organization, offering to pay her several hundred dollars for finding 300 cases of trafficking in Kapan. In her opinion, this was an attempt to humiliate the dignity of the residents of Kapan. She said that she needed the money badly but could not accept an offer to disgrace the name of her home city. The headmaster of the school repeated what other people said to me earlier, adding that it would have made more sense to identify the potential causes of trafficking and to fight against them, because the progress of technology, such as the internet with its huge information resources, is prone with great dangers, and it is time to launch a nation-wide campaign to prevent trafficking. He feels that web-based communication poses risks to young people, especially girls, in cities like Kapan where most people are unaware of the risks and not prepared to face them. I traveled to many villages around Kapan – Davidbek, Artsvanik, Chapni, Syunik, Gyodaklu, Khndrants, Kubatlu, Tatev. I got no information about trafficking cases but a good idea about the degree of awareness of the issue. I came to the conclusion that most people here have never heard about it. They only know that it is not always easy to find a job abroad, and that it often happens that people do not get the salary they were earlier promised. When asked what they would do if a total stranger offered them a job abroad, seven out of the fifty people that I interviewed in those villages said that they would accept the offer after checking its reliability. The rest said that however difficult life in their home village may be, they would never exchange it for a prospect of getting lost in a strange country. This idea was supported by most people. They said they would try to survive in Armenia especially if labor migration involves so much risk. In my endless travels from office to office, from street to street, from school to school, from village to village, I finally met a taxi driver from Goris city who told me about several women who had gone to Dubai to do prostitution and already returned to Goris. He refused to give their names ‘so as not to accept too much responsibility’. The cabman said that there are prostitutes in Goris who have been visiting the UAE (Dubai) and Turkey regularly for a year. He told the story reluctantly and would not help me find those women. Other locals, upon hearing about the prostitutes, tried to avoid the topic and did not give any names or addresses. People were afraid. From Goris I went back to Kapan, this time with the purpose of finding prostitutes and interviewing them. The problem was that this had to be done casually so they wouldn’t know I was interviewing them. The only way was to find agents who find clients for prostitutes. My first two attempts failed because, as I later learned from an unofficial source, the agent (I do not mention his name so as not to put him at risk) had recently been caught by police and was afraid to deal with strangers. Eventually I found a cabman who agreed to help me meet that agent. The third attempt also brought no results. The agent had his reasons to be very cautious. I had to look for another. Later another taxi driver told me about a group of girls who went to Dubai and just came back. One of them, he said, had been beaten their and came back without her passport. No one knew where she could be found. I asked him to arrange a meeting with one of those girls and said that I would pay for her services. The cabman got in touch with an agent. This time everything worked out very quickly and just an hour later a friend of the girl who had been beaten in Dubai was already waiting for me at a bus station. We went to my apartment to talk. I had never found myself in such a strange situation before. I was forced to use this ‘service’ so as to interview the girl without raising any suspicions. We ‘talked’ for several hours. All this time I tried to impersonate a young man with a doubtful past and asked all sorts of questions. When I saw she was not reacting to my unusual behavior, I said that I was well connected and could help her find a better job so she could forget about her present situation. I said that I have had this idea for a long time and that I wanted to make a film in which prostitutes would take part, just of my own accord and without any wish to humiliate them. I said I would never disclose their identities against their wishes. The girl told me about herself and about her friend who had left without telling anyone where she was going. I do not mention the girls’ names or ages for obvious reasons. The girl said it would take a while before she could trust me, that she did not want to take part in films or things like that, that she was fed up with her ‘job’ and that if nothing else comes up, she might just as well commit suicide. She also told me about drivers from Iran who are relatively ‘inoffensive’. She said she had never heard about any one of them hurting a girl. “It’s just that they are Turks, - she said. She believed that it was wrong for a Christian girl to sleep with Muslims, and was trying to justify the fact. She said that this was primarily the fault of the authorities who knew all those girls and ‘did not give a damn about them’. The girls had been deserted by their spouses, relatives, friends and enemies alike. They have to face the new world of slavery on their own, and if we want to help them, we should first try to understand what it is that makes them face uncertainty and take risks rather than sit and wait... There are many crushed dreams in those girls’ lives. Most people speak ill of them, they are condemned and exiled from the society. This is why they often prefer to go back to be abused by criminals rather than stay in their ‘own home’ and endless suffer the censure of the community. This article was written by journalist Vahagn Vardumyan in winter 2004, as a part of the research on trafficking in persons in Armenia. This research was organized by Caucasus Media Institute, US Embassy in Armenia, War, Peace and The News Media department of New York university, IOM and OSCE offices in Yerevan, in which groups of journalists and government officials took part. After the personal research that each of the journalists did in different regions of RA, they all wrote articles on this issue and published in Armenian mass media. The search for cases and facts of trafficking in Armenia is currently being continued by the mentioned group of journalists. There has also been created a website about trafficking in Armenia by the stuff of http://www.hetq.am, which is now available under http://www.antitrafficking.am address. Source: http://www.gateway.am (Official translation)
A Wife For Dessert
A Wife For Dessert Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center Nowadays it is not a problem to marry a foreigner. The point is not to become his victim. Our compatriot Gayane P. (the name is changed) has miraculously escaped her maniac husband and returned back home to Armenia. Gayane met her future husband, a successful businessman from Frankfurt, about two years ago in Moscow. After a month of nice attention and romantic dates, Gayane and Kurt registered their marriage and left for Germany. Almost immediately after arrival, Kurt decided to “dot all i’s.” “Spongers, regardless of their sex, are not welcomed here, in Germany”, he said with a nice smile. “Each spouse must take part in filling up the family budget. You will learn German, find a prestigious job, and for now I’ll fix you up with job, you’ll be a packer at a perfumery firm.”
The unexpected statement of her husband shocked the bride a little, but thinking that an immediate contact with Germans would help her in learning the language and adapting to a foreign country, she agreed. Packer’s duties, which seemed simple at first glance, turned out to be hard labor. Her feet and back were aching because of standing near the conveyor for hours. Unable to bear it, Gayane left the firm without letting her husband know about it. When Kurt found out about it, he made an unimaginable scandal, and then he calmed down and allowed his wife to stay home.
“But keep it in mind, you will have to work off the bread you eat. Soon you will know how.” A couple of days later he came home with a friend. After supper he took Gayane into their bedroom and openly said: “My friend liked you. Sleep with him and you will get 200 Euro, - and added with a grin, - "not bad work, is it?” Gayane could not believe her ears, she took her husbands word for a bad joke. But when he glared with his eyes furiously and said, “Wait here, I will kill you if you refuse,” the woman understood that “he could do anything.”
From that day on his friends and colleagues visited their home quite often. Sometime Gayane had to satisfy two men in one evening. “I was something like a dessert for my husband, if he can be named so", Gayane bitterly recalls. "I don’t know how I didn’t get mad.”
Fortunately, Gayane succeeded in escaping to Moscow; where she pawned her jewelry and bought a ticket.
P.S. Of course, one might say that the story could have a more tragic end for Gayane and she could lose much more, of course; but this does not take into account that the 25-year-old woman has to undergo a full course of psychological rehabilitation...
By the materials of Warrum Du
Prepared by Jasmen Israelyan Published in: “Novoye Vremya” newspaper (http://www.nv.am), #1325, 11 March 2006 (Unofficial translation)
The Inquest of Criminal Case #62203306 Is Over
The Inquest of Criminal Case #62203306 Is OverContributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center In the Department for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings and Their Illegal Migration, the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Armenia has finished the investigation of criminal case #62203306, instituted by the fact of recruitment of Q.A. and A.V. by A. Gyurjyan in July of 2006 with the aim of prostitution in Turkey.
Investigation found out that A. Gyurjyan met G. Kirakosyan in Vanadzor town in 2002. By the proposal of the latter in October of the same year A. Gyurjyan left for Trabzon, Turkey, where she was engaged in prostitution under G. Kirakosyan’s supervision. In December of the same year A. Gyurjyan returned to the motherland to undergo an operation and take care of her mother, who had an apoplexy. G. Kirakosyan offered A. Gyurjyan $100 for recruiting and sending young and pretty girls who would wish to do prostitution to Trabzon. A. Gyurjyan agreed.
In the summer of 2004, Q.A. and A.V., prostitutes from the marz (province) of Kotaik, asked her to send them to Turkey for prostitution. She did not reject them, and informed G. Kirakosyan about the request. After receiving an affirmative answer, she acquainted the above-mentioned girls with the conditions of prostitution, i.e. to divide the sum they would earn equally. According to the agreement, in the end of July of the same year, A. Gyurjyan sent Q.A. and A.V. to Turkey from the Yerevan bus station. In Turkey they were engaged in prostitution for a long time under G. Kirakosyan’s control.
Based on the evidence of the investigation, A. Gyurjyan, for committing the above-mentioned crime, was charged by the 1st part of Article 262 of the Criminal Case of the Republic of Armenia.
On 12 April 2006 the case was sent to the First Instance Court of Kotaik marz.
Published in: Official website of the RA Public Prosecutor’s Office (http://www.genproc.am, Armenian version available at http://www.genproc.am/main/am/49/405/), 14 April, 2006 (Unofficial translation)
Investigation of the Criminal Case #62202806 is Over
Investigation of the Criminal Case #62202806 is OverContributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center The Department for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings and Their Illegal Migration of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Armenia has finished the investigation of criminal case #62202806, instituted on the instigation of prostitution of G.A., N.P. and other persons at the hotel complex of “Doustr Olya” Ltd.
The investigation showed that in April 2004, Z. Karapetyan became an administrator in “Doustr Olya” Ltd., which had a night club, hotel complex and a concert hall. In November of 2005, residents of Yerevan G.A. and N.P. applied to Zoya Karapetyan to let them work as waitresses in the company. The latter introduced them to D. Pishnayan, Director. D. Pishnanyan accepted the women on the condition that the tips to be paid them by the clients would be their salary.
Because the money they earned was not sufficient, G.A. and N.P. decided to prostitute at the hotel of the company. They informed Z Karapetyan of their intention, and her colleague N. Aghamyan, as well as administrators working in other shifts - T. Poghosyan, V. Abrahamyan. The women asked the administrators to provide them with clients. So, the director was also aware of the plans of the waitresses. In order to increase the number of clients at the night club and hotel complex, intensify the trade and earn more money, D. Pishnayan did not object; furthermore, he provided the hotel rooms with some other things required for sexual relations. By a preliminary agreement, the above-mentioned administrators of the company, in the period since November 2005 to 21 March 2006, together with D. Pishnayan organized the prostitution of G.A. and N.P., regularly providing them with clients and rooms.
On the basis of the evidence collected during the investigation, Z. Karapetyan. N. Aghamyan, T. Poghosyan, V. Abrahamyan and D. Pishnanyan, for their criminal activity, were charged by part 1 of Article 262, the RA Criminal Code.
On 5 April 2006 the criminal case was sent to Court of first instance of the Erebouni and Noubarashen communities for further investigation.
Published in: RA Public Prosecutor’s Office official website (http://www.genproc.am, Armenian version available at http://www.genproc.am/main/am/49/385/), 6 April 2006 (Unofficial translation)
Against Slavery
Against Slavery Contributed by Eduard Grigoryan, Women's Rights Center Armenia has joined the Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings within the frameworks of the CoE 3rd Summit (May 2005, Warsaw) Prevention of trafficking |