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Progressive News & Views (since 1982)
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It IS a from of terrorism.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Hank Roth" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2006 12:22 PM
Subject: [pnews-news] Human Trafficking - Russian White Slavery
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> http://pnews.org/
> Progressive News & Views (since 1982)
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>
>
> Thousands of Russian women sold to slavery abroad
> 22.03.2006 Source: Pravda
>
> The Russian Assembly of NGOs has announced that the level of human
> trafficking within the country and out of the country is so high that it
> threatens national security and the country's gene pool. Two thousand
> cases of human trafficking were brought before the courts last year alone.
> Official statistics show that no less than 500 000 cases of women being
> sold have taken place in Russia.
>
>
> Experts are convinced that the worrying figures that Human Rights
> organizations speak of are only the tip of the iceberg. According to the
> UN, 800 000 women are traded each year. Russia's role in this process is
> simply pitiable. Independent sources say that Russia makes up 60 000 of
> this staggering number.
>
> The first thing that comes into people's minds when they hear the
> statistics is that it could probably be happening in Chechnya. However,
> the Caucasian factor does not account for the statistics.
>
> Who could believe fifteen years ago that in the Moscow suburbs a criminal
> group would be on trial for having taken young girls from Voronezh and
> placed them in a Moscow brothel? The girls were promised work as shop
> assistants. The men took the girls to the building, threatened them, took
> away their documents and then forced them into the sex trade.
>
> An Omsk farmer was recently sentenced for violently beating four
> unfortunate girls, whom he treated like his cattle, over a number of
> years.
>
> There are other similar stories; it is just that in the past Russia
> preferred not to use the unpleasant word 'slavery'. In 1954 the Soviet
> Union joined the International Convention against People Trafficking.
> However, when signing the document Moscow did not fail to say, 'There is
> not trafficking in the USSR and there cannot be since we have certain
> social conditions in place.'
>
> Half a century has passed since then and Russia has completely changed as
> a country. Those, who before would have thought it sinful to engage in
> people trafficking, are the ones who are taking part in this vicious
> business. Scandals in the Astrakhan and Volgograd regions have roused much
> attention. Local policemen came up with a scheme to take illegal migrants
> from arriving transit trains from Central Asia and sell the women into
> Russia has for a long time been sending its 'Natashas' abroad. The plot to
> turn Russians to the slave trade has been worked out to the very last
> detail. At first women are offered 'highly-paid' work abroad. They are
> helped in attaining visas, crossing the border and they are given a roof
> over their head. Soon all becomes clear and the girls are told that all
> the jobs as waitresses, models, au-pairs and shop assistants have been
> taken. The girls are then offered the opportunity to make money in a
> brothel. Very few girls manage to avoid working in the sex trade.
>
>
> The State Deputy of the USA called Russia 'one of the leading sources of
> the international trafficking of women'. One must consider whether it is
> threatening national security and Russia's very existence. 90% of the
> women who are transported to brothels are under 25 years old.
>
> The countries where the slave trade is prospering ought to ask themselves
> harsh questions such as who has allowed it to take place and what
> immediate steps should be taken.
>
> However the answers to these questions are not simple. International
> observers say that out of five million people arriving in Russia a maximum
> of one million are forced into hard labour, which in the civilized world
> is classed as one form of slave trade.
>
> Human Rights organizations have for a long time been commenting on the
> fact that no new legislation has been created relating to the slave trade.
> Articles were published in 2003 in the penal code which condemned people
> trafficking. Up until then the authorities had not taken an interest in
> the issue. The police have stated that 'Russian law forbids both human
> trafficking and the slave trade'.
>
> Will Russia remain as the leader in human trafficking for long? A
> representative of the State Duma, one of the coordinators of the Russian
> NGOs against human trafficking Elena Mizulina said, 'Besides articles
> being included in the penal code, a law has been made for the protection
> of people who have suffered from the slave trade. A treaty against the
> crime has been ratified. However, in the main the situation in Russia
> remains as worrying as before. As yet there is no body which can
> coordinate all the departments which are working on the issue. What is
> important is that not everyone has noted that human trafficking is no less
> an evil than terrorism.'
>
> Trud
>
> Translated by Michael Simpson
> http://english.pravda.ru/
>
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