Success story of Armenia in trafficking prevention can be a good example for other countries

Success story of Armenia in trafficking prevention can be a good example for other countries

On 8th of April Special Meeting of RA Human Trafficking Committee adjacent Working Group on Combating Trafficking took place in the framework of United Nations 13th Congress on Crime prevention and Criminal justice in Yerevan National Library.

The greeting speech of the Head of International Organizations Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Head of anti-trafficking Working group Vahram Kazhoyan launched the meeting expressing the gratitude to UN for support.

V.Kazhoyan also announced that from April 12 to 19 the United Nations 13th Congress of Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice will take place, in Doha, where Armenia will be presented by representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Justice.

UN Resident Representative in Armenia Bradley Busetto also welcomed the participants with his greeting speech and highlighted the success of Armenia in combating trafficking.

According to Busetto, Armenian Government made a great job in cooperation with international and local organizations for the purpose of trafficking prevention.

«Success story of Armenia can be a good example in trafficking prevention for other countries», – said Bradley Busetto

In his speech, Robert Grigoryan told the journalists that Armenia continues to be an origin-country of trafficking.

According to Grigoryan’s words sexual trafficking origin country is still Turkey and Arab Emirates. Forced labor continues to be an issue of crucial importance in Russia.

In addition, the colonel mentioned that Armenia has few cases of inner trafficking and such an exceptional case lately has been the sexual exploitation of Chinese women trafficked from China to Armenia.

The case is still under investigation. Chinese women were living in Armenia and were being subjected to sexual trafficking as massage salon workers.

During the meeting, also interesting statistics in the field of child protection has been presented by United Nations representative. According to the presented data, the number of child-victims is growing in the world– one of three children are victims of trafficking, most of them are girls.

According to the data 70 percent of victims of trafficking from all around the world are women.

According to Human Trafficking Global Report published by UNODC in 2014 year there are 152 nationalities among victims in 124 countries of the world. From 2010-2012, from each 10 country, only in 4 countries registered were 10 or more convictions,

Although 146 countries have already adopted legislation criminalizing Human trafficking, 18 countries-private legislation, the impunity still remains a problem. From 2010-2012 from each 10th country, only in 4 countries, cases of 10 or more conviction with trafficking crime have been registered, and in 15 percent of the countries no conviction has been registered.

According to UN data 53 percent of identified victims in 2011 year subjected to sexual trafficking, 40 percent were subjected to forced labor, been exploited in cruel conditions in agriculture, horticulture, construction, catering, hotel and restaurant businesses.

In addition to the mentioned formats and types of trafficking and human exploitation, recently there have been found cases of forced marriage, organs removal, and illegal child adoption.

All photos are available by following link: Special Meeting of RA Human Trafficking Committee adjacent Working Group on Combating Trafficking