Human Trafficking in [Kyrgyz Republic Street Children in [Kyrgyz Republic] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Kyrgyz Republic] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Kyrgyz Republic (Kyrgyzstan) [ Country-by-Country
Reports ] The The Kyrgyz Republic is a source, transit, and to a lesser
extent a destination country for men and women trafficked from Uzbekistan,
Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan for purposes of forced labor and commercial
sexual exploitation. Men and women are trafficked to Kazakhstan for forced
agricultural labor—mainly in tobacco fields—to Russia for forced construction
work, and to China for bonded labor. Kyrgyz and foreign women are trafficked
to the U.A.E., China, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Italy, Turkey, Greece, Cyprus,
Thailand, Germany, and Syria for sexual exploitation. - U.S. State
Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2008 [full country
report] |
|
CAUTION: The following links have been
culled from the web to illuminate the situation in the ***
FEATURED ARTICLES *** Kyrgyzstan
- The Kidnapped Bride When the bride does arrive, she is
dragged into the groom's house, struggling and crying. Her name is Norkuz,
and it turns out she has been kidnapped from her home about a mile away. As the women of the groom's family
surround Norkuz and hold down both of her hands, they are at once forceful
and comforting, informing her that they, too, were kidnapped. The kidnappers
insist that they negotiated the abduction with Norkuz's brother, but her
sister, a lawyer from Osh, arrives to protest that her sister is being forced
to marry a stranger. Ideally in Kyrgyz circles, a bride's family gets a price
for their daughter, but Norkuz is 25 -- considered late to marry -- and the
women remind her she is lucky she was kidnapped at all. Preventing Human Trafficking in Kyrgyzstan Project [DOC] V. CONCLUSIONS - The use of human beings as
collateral in trade deals is a specific type of human trafficking that exists
in the Naryn region of ***
ARCHIVES *** U.S.
Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Children are reported to work as prostitutes in urban areas
throughout the country. The Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS – Groups
targeted by traffickers included young women unable to earn an adequate
living. Poor economic conditions, high unemployment--particularly in the
south--and gender inequality made young women and poor workers vulnerable to
traffickers who offered lucrative jobs or marriage offers to rich men abroad.
The IOM estimated approximately 70 percent of trafficking victims were from
the south. Often women were lured abroad via newspaper advertisements or even
announcements over loudspeakers in local bazaars. Women responding to job
offers for waitresses, au pairs, or dancers, or to marriage agencies could
find themselves abroad without documents or money for return tickets and
forced to work for their traffickers. Traffickers were often persons who
previously operated local prostitution networks. Relatives or close family
friends were also reportedly used to recruit trafficking victims. Tour agents,
restaurants, and nightclubs supplemented their activities by trafficking
young women to foreign prostitution rings. Traffickers of persons for sexual
exploitation included organized crime rings that often used former
trafficking victims as recruiters. In some cases traffickers provided
escorts, usually an older woman, to accompany victims and facilitate border
crossings into countries such as the UAE, where young women were generally
not allowed to enter alone. Labor trafficking was much less organized and
often involved self-employed recruiters who simply loaded persons onto buses
and transported them to the country for work on farms, as well as labor
recruitment firms Concluding Observations
of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2004 [61] The
Committee is concerned that the recommendations made upon consideration of
the State party’s initial report with regard to the involvement of children
in sexual exploitation have not been fully implemented. The Committee is also
concerned about the health risks posed to children who are sexually exploited
and/or trafficked. Kyrgyz Police Halt Flight To U.A.E. On Trafficking Suspicion One, a resident of Samarkand, said
that she was traveling to work in a restaurant in Dubai. But another woman, a
17-year-old from Ferghana, said that she was going to the U.A.E. to work as a
prostitute. The woman cited a lack of alternative employment opportunities in
Uzbekistan as the reasons for her decision. Freedom
House Country Report - Political Rights: 5 Civil Liberties: 4 Status: Partly Free Human Rights Overview by Human
Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide Stop Violence
Against Women
– Country Page U.S. Library of Congress
- Country Study Kyrgyzstan
struggles to stop slave trade Seventeen-year-old Olga only
wanted a job. Instead, lured to China with the promise of work in a
restaurant, this Kyrgyzstani teenager found herself sold into a prostitution
ring. "If we refused to work as
prostitutes, the owner threatened to punish us," Olga said. With no
money and no passports, Olga and five other girls from Kyrgyzstan were held
in bondage for a month. In the end, alerted by concerned parents, a joint
Interpol operation with officers from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and China located
the girls and set them free. Kyrgyzstan
- The Kidnapped Bride When the bride does arrive, she is
dragged into the groom's house, struggling and crying. Her name is Norkuz,
and it turns out she has been kidnapped from her home about a mile away. As the women of the groom's family
surround Norkuz and hold down both of her hands, they are at once forceful
and comforting, informing her that they, too, were kidnapped. The kidnappers
insist that they negotiated the abduction with Norkuz's brother, but her
sister, a lawyer from Osh, arrives to protest that her sister is being forced
to marry a stranger. Ideally in Kyrgyz circles, a bride's family gets a price
for their daughter, but Norkuz is 25 -- considered late to marry -- and the
women remind her she is lucky she was kidnapped at all. WOMEN AND BRIDE KIDNAPPING IN
KYRGYZSTAN - Though
it remains illegal in the Kyrgyz Republic, the frequency of kidnappings
appears to have risen after independence and continues to be on the rise as
an element of the reclamation of Kyrgyz identity after Soviet rule. There is
little evidence that violations of the law against kidnapping are punished. Bride kidnappings reportedly range
from staged, consensual events that are planned after the bride and groom
have been dating to violent, nonconsensual events planned by the family of
the groom. It's been estimated that up
to a third of all ethnic Kyrgyz women in Kyrgyzstan may have been wedded in
nonconsensual bride kidnappings. Bride
Kidnapping: What Makes Women Stay RESULTS - On the basis of our interviews,
out of the six people interviewed, four of them had been divorced within the
first few years of their abduction. One committed suicide and only one is
still with her husband. In all of
these cases, the women were made to stay with their abductors due to
pressure from their families and the
fear of being ostracized from society if they returned, and not being able to
find a husband. In one case the woman said that when she was abducted her
first thought was that she was going to be killed, so when she found out that
instead she was going to be married she gladly accepted this ‘better option’ New passport to
help combat human trafficking The old Kyrgyz passport is not in
compliance with international standards, a fact the authorities feel could
contribute to human trafficking and terrorist activities, and threaten
national security. There have been some unconfirmed reports that human
traffickers fly their Uzbek and Tajik victims via the southern Kyrgyz city of
Osh to the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and other countries using forged
Kyrgyz passports, something deemed impossible with the use of new travel
documents, experts say. Preventing Human Trafficking in Kyrgyzstan Project [DOC] V. CONCLUSIONS - The use of human beings as
collateral in trade deals is a specific type of human trafficking that exists
in the Naryn region of Widespread
Human Rights Abuses Undermine Kyrgyz Mental Health Care At both Chim-Korgon and the
Republican Mental Health Clinic, forced labor occurs in violation of both the
Kyrgyz Constitution and international law. Neither hospital pays patients for
their work. At RMHC, patients take part in so-called "labor
therapy" to improve hospital grounds. At Chim-Kogron, patients work the
hospital’s vegetable fields to diversify their diet. "If a patient
wishes to have a diet that consists of anything substantially more than
bread, pasta, or tea, he or she must work for this food," the report
states. Yet only patients who have demonstrated good behavior and a stable
psychiatric condition have access to the food. CENTRAL
ASIA: Special report on human trafficking GROWING PROBLEM - "We conducted some
research in the year 2000 in [the Kyrgyz capital] Bishkek, which concluded
that some 4,000 women a year were trafficked from the Kyrgyz Republic. But
this might include some women with a varying degree of consent. It might
include some women who are working in the sex industry, but not as
trafficking victims," Michael Tschanz, the IOM chief of mission in
Almaty, told IRIN. Winrock
International - Preventing Human Trafficking Project in Kyrgyzstan In fall 2003, Winrock
International began a two-year project to prevent human trafficking in
Kyrgyzstan with support from the US Agency for International Development
(USAID). The purpose of the “Preventing Human Trafficking Project” (PHT) is
to increase the ability of individuals and institutions in Kyrgyzstan to
combat human trafficking. Winrock’s
project has the following two objectives: - To contribute to the
prevention of human trafficking by strengthening the capacity of local NGOs
both to conduct public outreach and to provide relevant training on
legitimate alternatives to offers of work abroad; - To contribute
to the protection of victims of human trafficking through development of
appropriate victim assistance services. The UN Link - The United Nations System in Kyrgyzstan INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR
MIGRATION -
Poverty and lack of economic opportunities are the main core of smuggling of
and trafficking in human beings. These factors encourage women and men to
seek work abroad, in situations where perhaps they might not otherwise do so.
Methods of recruitment in the Kyrgyz Republic are similar to other parts of
the world. Newspaper advertisements, tourist firms, friends or acquaintances,
and the Internet are key instruments in the effective organized recruitment
of women, girls and, recently, young men into forced labor, and often into
sexual exploitation. The experience of the International Organization for
Migration shows that women from province are potential victims of
trafficking, since they have more limited access to information. A promise of
better life abroad attracts them to go there. Women are enticed by false promises
of highly paid work, nice housing and good labor conditions in the United
Arab Emirates or South Korea. Cultural factors and lack of relevant
legislation pose obstacles for female victims to pursue traffickers;
accountability within some government structures demand attention to the
legal environment for prosecution of traffickers. All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial,
nonprofit, and educational use |
Human Trafficking in [Kyrgyz Republic Street Children in [Kyrgyz Republic] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Kyrgyz Republic] [other countries]