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Human trafficking and prostitution rife in Tajikstan
July 11, 2003
Some 16 transnational criminal rings involved in human trafficking are
functioning in Tajikistan, journalist Salimakhon Vahobzoda has said, quoting
the Tajik Interior Ministry's operational data. Over 80 Tajik women are
involved in prostitution in the United Arab Emirates alone, the author said,
quoting the law-enforcement agencies. The article also gave an update on the
number of HIV-carriers in Tajikistan: 92, with one case of full-blown AIDS. It
warned, however, that the number was severely underestimated. The following is
an excerpt from the article, which was published in the Vecherniy Dushanbe
newspaper on
Romantic liaisons cost less in [the northern town of] Khujand and [southern
town of] Qurghonteppa than in [the capital] Dushanbe, but in the capital there
are fewer HIV-carriers than in the other two administrative centres.
Tajikistan had ratified a number of international conventions and treaties on
abolishment of all kinds of discriminations of women, prohibiting the purchase
and sale of people, and on children's rights.
Routes of human trafficking
The Tajik law-enforcement agencies reported two cases of kidnapping, two cases
of the purchase and sale of children, one case of inveigling into prostitution
and 113 cases of organizing and maintaining brothels in 2002, the senior
prosecutor of the department on supervision over preliminary investigation at
the Tajik Prosecutor-General's Office, Dilafruz Tolibova, has said. And 28
brothels and one case of kidnapping were reported in the first months of this
year.
According to the Tajik Interior Ministry's operational data, presently 16
transnational organized criminal rings are functioning in the country,
inveigling young girls and women, especially from poor families in the
[northern] Soghd Region and Dushanbe's surroundings, for their further
transporting to the Middle East - to the [United Arab] Emirates, Turkey,
Israel, and also to Russia and Spain where they are being sold.
According to the informational data of the law-enforcement agencies, over 80
Tajik young women and girls, who had been variously conveyed there, are
involved in prostitution in the United Arab Emirates alone. This country's
law-enforcement agencies have detained 15 of them and put them in prison. Over
300 women from Tajikistan were involved in prostitution in the Emirates, [a
source from] the Internet has reported.
The data also shows that criminal rings exported their goods - women, girls and
children - via Tursunzoda checkpoint to Soghd Region, and then by surface
transported them to neighbouring republics - the Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and
[further] abroad from there. An analysis shows that a majority of the exported
women and girls had used forged documents.
HIV-carriers statistics
"Currently, 92 HIV-carriers, two of them who have died due to a drug overdose,
and one case of AIDS have been reported in Tajikistan," the deputy head of the
Tajik centre for preventing and fighting AIDS/HIV, a epidemiologist of the
first category Bozorali Akramov has said. But, according to Akramov, this
number is underestimated by almost 10 times. Out of 92 cases of HIV-carriers,
67 are men and 25 are women. Fortunately, there no cases of children being
infected. Nevertheless, age statistics demonstrate that infection is mainly
among young men and girls from 20 to 29 years old and young labour migrants
from 30 to 39 years old.
Soghd Region tops the league of HIV-carriers in Tajikistan - 75 people have
been reported there. Most of them are in the towns of Chkalovsk - 13 - and
Qayroqqum - 21 cases. Akramov also said that 85 per cent of the HIV-carriers
are drug addicts and prostitutes.
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