Torture in [Belarus] [other countries]Human Trafficking in [Belarus Street Children in [Belarus] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Belarus] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery In the early years
of the 21st Century gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Belarus.htm
Belarus is a source and
transit country for women, men, and children trafficked from Belarus and
neighboring countries to Russia, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic,
Lithuania, Latvia, Austria, the Netherlands, Israel, the United Arab Emirates
(UAE), Turkey, Egypt, Ukraine, and the Republic of Togo for the purposes of
commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. Authorities registered 591
trafficking victims of whom 458 were trafficked for sexual exploitation
(including 96 minors) and 133 for forced labor; 366 were female (including 42
minors) and 225 were male (including 61 minors). - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in
Persons Report, June, 2009 [full country report] |
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CAUTION: The following
links have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** 500 human trafficking crimes exposed in ITAR-TASS News Agency of Russia, -- Source:
http://www.tass.ru/eng/level2.html?NewsID=10926716&PageNum=0 www.data.minsk.by/belarusnews/102006/250.html [accessed 22 January 2011] Some 500 crimes of
human trafficking were exposed in According to
Belarussian representatives, the problem of recruiting citizens for sexual or
labor exploitation abroad remains quite acute. According to an analysis of
criminal cases, Byelorussians are taken to 30 countries of the world for
sexual or labor exploitation The problem of
labor exploitation of Belarussians at construction sites in Russia has also
became topical recently. They are promised high pay, but, upon arriving at
the point of destination, Russian employers take away their passports and
force them to work 12 to 14 hours a day, using physical violence on those who
resist. ***
ARCHIVES *** Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61638.htm [accessed 22 January 2011] CHILDREN - Trafficking of
children was a problem. TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS
– NGO sources estimated that 10 thousand citizens became victims of
trafficking annually, primarily for sexual exploitation in other countries.
The country was both a country of origin and transit for women and girls
trafficked to the EU (particularly Traffickers used
force, fraud, and coercion to traffic persons, mostly from economically
depressed areas, for sexual exploitation or for physical or menial labor.
Traffickers used offers of foreign employment or marriage and travel agencies
to recruit victims. More than half of the women trafficked were promised jobs
as dancers or entertainers without any mention of prostitution or sex work.
Traffickers often withheld victims' documents and used physical and emotional
abuse to control them. Employment agencies
particularly travel and modeling agencies and persons with connections
overseas were primarily responsible for trafficking. Some traffickers
reportedly had links to organized crime and drug trafficking. Concluding Observations Of The Committee On
The Rights Of The Child (CRC) UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 7
June 2002 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/belarus2002.html [accessed 22 January 2011] [51] The Committee
is concerned about the information that Preventing, Fighting and Addressing the
Social Consequences of Trafficking in Human Beings in the European Union, the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF),
2009 www.trafik.by/en/about_the_project/general_information/ [accessed 22 January 2011] The joint project of
the European Union, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the
United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF) “Preventing, Fighting
and Addressing the Social Consequences of Trafficking in Human Beings in the
Republic of Belarus seeks to enhance the national capacities of Belarus in
fighting trafficking in human beings with preventive measures and better
protection and rehabilitation of victims of trafficking. In particular, the
project aims to:
Government of The National Legal Internet Portal of the news.belta.by/en/news/politics/?id=167181 [accessed 18 April 2012] The government of “The idea to open
the centre attests to the desire of the Belarusian government to share its
rich experience and best practices in the fight against trade in people and
illegal migration with specialists from all countries,” Mr. Brunson McKinley
said. 500 human trafficking crimes exposed in ITAR-TASS News Agency of Russia, -- Source:
http://www.tass.ru/eng/level2.html?NewsID=10926716&PageNum=0 www.data.minsk.by/belarusnews/102006/250.html [accessed 22 January 2011] Some 500 crimes of
human trafficking were exposed in According to
Belarussian representatives, the problem of recruiting citizens for sexual or
labor exploitation abroad remains quite acute. According to an analysis of
criminal cases, Byelorussians are taken to 30 countries of the world for
sexual or labor exploitation The problem of
labor exploitation of Belarussians at construction sites in Russia has also
became topical recently. They are promised high pay, but, upon arriving at
the point of destination, Russian employers take away their passports and
force them to work 12 to 14 hours a day, using physical violence on those who
resist. IOM appraises The National Legal Internet Portal of the news.belta.by/en/news/politics/?id=117769 [accessed 28 August 2012] The International
Organization for Migration /IOM/ appraises Belarus’ efforts aimed to counteract
human trafficking, head of the counter-trafficking department of the IOM
headquarters in Geneva Richard Danziger told a press conference in Minsk on
October 25. He has noted that
the work of the government of Belarus in the field of fight against human
trafficking meets the world standards and is very efficient. According to
Richard Danziger, Belarus has forged “a comprehensive regulatory framework”,
which takes into account the IOM recommendations and international
experience. Slavery and Anna Volk, Tech Central Station TCS Daily,,
08/23/2005 – Source: www.techcentralstation.com/082305D.html www.data.minsk.by/belarusnews/082005/100.html [accessed 22 January 2011] Early in 2004,
during a trip from his presidential palace to his residence, the Belarusian
president, Alexander Lukashenko, decided there were too many faces of foreign
women and girls on billboards. As a "preventive" step against human
trafficking, he signed a decree that requires companies to use only
Belarusian faces in their advertising. This is supposed to help more young
Belarusian women get more modeling jobs in the country, instead of going
abroad, where they may suffer an increased risk of being "trafficked". Committee On
Elimination Of Racial Discrimination Considers Report Of United Nations Press Release www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/0/A16CB9C482F83315C1256EE80056DDF2?opendocument [accessed 22 January 2011] In connection with human trafficking, an Expert asked
what was being done to improve the situation of women and girls who were
forced into prostitution. The delegation said measures had been taken to
ensure that such activities were punished, as well as child prostitution.
Efforts were also taken to ensure that the victims were re-integrated into
society. A number of seminars had been conducted in both The Protection Project - The www.protectionproject.org/human_rights_reports/report_documents/belarus.doc [accessed 2009] FORMS OF TRAFFICKING - Women and girls
are trafficked from According to data
from the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, the average unemployed
Belarusian is a woman under the age of 30 with a general secondary
education. Belarusian women are lured
by newspaper advertisements that promise legitimate work abroad; however, the
women often end up in prostitution and are kept against their will by threats
of violence. Several investigations
abroad have uncovered trafficking rings involving Belarusian women or girls.
In April 2004, police in Luxembourg raided a nightclub, smashing a ring that
had trafficked approximately 150 women, most of them from Belarus, Russia,
and Ukraine, to Luxembourg for forced prostitution. In May 2004, the gendarmerie of Upper Austria
reported that 150 young Belarusian women had been forced into prostitution in
that province after being lured there with false promises of jobs in
restaurants, bars, and nightclubs. There are no direct
or indirect statistics on trafficking in children from Belarus. Experts from
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) know of individual cases and facts,
however, and they have confirmed that trafficking in children from Belarus
does exist. Those most at risk for child trafficking are children between the
ages of 11 to 18 who are from single-parent or dysfunctional families in
villages and small towns. Girls are more likely to be victims than boys.
Traffickers recruit children from youth clubs, at pubs, and in student
hostels with false promises of good earnings, though sometimes the victims
know they are being recruited for the sex industry. A widespread method is
for the trafficker to pretend that he has fallen in love with a girl in order
to gain her trust and then to sell her. Girls are used to provide sexual
services and for the production of pornography. Boys have been trafficked to
Russia for pornographic video production. Freedom House
Country Report - Political Rights: 7 Civil Liberties: 6 Status: Not Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2009/belarus [accessed 26 June 2012] Human Rights
Overview Human Rights Watch www.hrw.org/europecentral-asia/belarus [accessed 22 January 2011] Stop Violence Against Women – Country Page [accessed 22 January 2011] Library of Congress Call Number DK507.23
.B45 1995 lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/bytoc.html [accessed 22 January 2011] Human Rights in Foreign Affairs, At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 4 September 2011] BACKGROUND - Lukashenko
continues to repress those who are critical of the President and his
administration. Several prominent figures critical of the President have
disappeared including former Interior Minister Yury Zakharanka, opposition
leader Viktar Hanchar, businessman Anatol Krasousky, and Dmitry Zavadsky, a
caeranman with Russia's ORT television. Professor Yury Bandazhevsky, a fierce
critic of the Belarusian authorities' reaction to the Chernobyl nuclear
disaster, remains imprisoned and is in poor health. However, journalists
Viktor Ivashkevich, Pavel Mazheyka, and Mikola Markevich, who had previously
been arrested and sentenced to hard labour for slander, were freed in 2003. Belarus was
classified as the only "not free" country in Europe in a recent
survey by New York based NGO Freedom House. Efforts of the Government of www.belarusembassy.org/humanitarian/trafficking2.htm [access date unavailable] Currently there are
five projects against human trafficking being implemented in Out of 555 crimes
registered during 11 months of 2004 17 are qualified as human trade, 72 –
recruiting people for sexual exploitation, 307 – keeping brothels and pimping
(including 91 for trafficking people abroad), 27 – dissemination of
pornographic materials, 128 – inducing youngsters into asocial behavior
(including 78 involving prostitution), and 4 – kidnapping with trafficking
abroad. In all, 184 crimes related to trafficking people abroad were
uncovered. About 400 women were identified as victims of trafficking. Action to End Modern-day Slavery - 2004 TIP
Release Press Statement Embassy of the United States of America,
Minsk, Belarus, 2004 TIP Release Press Statement, June 14, 2004 At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 4 September 2011] "Criminals and
criminal networks are targeting some of the most vulnerable people in Some 10,000 Belarusians victims of human
trafficking annually www.charter97.org/eng/news/2004/03/02/some [accessed 22 January 2011] At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly also be accessible [here] Some 10,000
Belarusians become victims of human trafficking annually, according to Raman
Pawlyuchenka of the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The total
number of Belarusian victims may have reached 50,000, Mr Pawlyuchenka said at
a three-day workshop last week. A typical
Belarusian victim is a woman from a low-income problem family resident in a
small provincial town, IOM experts say. They suggest that instruction in
measures against sex slavery should be incorporated in Belarusian school
curricula. Bosnia: The United Nations, human
trafficking and prostitution Tony Robson, World Socialist Web Site, 21
August 2002 www.wsws.org/articles/2002/aug2002/bosn-a21.shtml [accessed 22 January 2011] According to the
International Organisation for Migration (IOM) between 6,000 and 10,000
foreign women have been coerced into prostitution in Many are lured by
promises of finding work in the West as waitresses or nannies. Once isolated
from their families, the sex traffickers take their passports and sell the
women to pimps for between $500 and $1,500. At some venues, like the
nightclubs in Brcko, near the Bosnia-Serbia border, women are auctioned like
cattle to brothel owners. All
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Torture in [Belarus] [other countries]Human Trafficking in [Belarus Street Children in [Belarus] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Belarus] [other countries]