By J. Dana Stuster on Wednesday, June 19, 2013—
“China, Russia, and Uzbekistan are simply not committed to addressing human trafficking. That’s the takeaway from the State Department’s new 2013 Trafficking in Persons Report, out Wednesday afternoon. After nine years each for China and Russia, and six years for Uzbekistan, on the State Department’s watch list, the status of the three countries was downgraded this year to “Tier 3,” the lowest rank, which includes “countries whose governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards [to address human trafficking] and are not making significant efforts to do so.” Guinea-Bissau and Mauritania were also downgraded to Tier 3, joining the ranks of North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, among others.
According to the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST), Russia “ranks among the top 10 countries of origin for trafficked individuals,” with as many as “130,000 sex trafficking victims … in Moscow alone.” The State Department report notes that while several Russian law enforcement and judicial bodies conduct “periodic training” on trafficking issues, the government does not investigate reported abuses. This includes the forced labor, documented by Human Rights Watch, being used to construct facilities for the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Workers have had their passports and other documentation seized, pay withheld, and contracts violated.
The State Department report also includes a case study of 12 migrant laborers from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Trapped in Russia, they “were held captive for 10 years in a supermarket after being promised employment in Russia.” The owners of the supermarket held their documents and “used threats of violence, beatings, and sexual violence to demand subservience.” A brief investigation was closed after Russian “prosecutors claimed there was no evidence of a crime.””
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