Anti- human trafficking initiatives within Tajikistan; Central Asia

Written by Saadia Haq

Human trafficking exists in countries all over the world and is an underground, illegal activity, many times connected to organized crime having connections to state parties. According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), Central Asia is a growing region of origin for human trafficking. The region’s suffers from weak and corrupt governance and this is evident in the appalling human rights records. Due to dearth of reliable data, estimating numbers of those trafficked out of Central Asia is difficult.

However, regional observers stress that up to 10,000 people, mainly young women for the sex trade, are taken from the region against their will or under false pretences every year. Further IOM says that there is trafficking of women, mainly to the Gulf States, but also to South Korea, Turkey, Greece, Western Europe, and Southeast Asia, like Thailand, Malaysia. Although Uzbekistan remains the main country of origin is Uzbekistan, at this stage. This is normal, as it has the largest population, followed by Tajikistan and Kygyzstan, and then less so as a country of origin, Kazakhstan.

Tajikistan where sex trafficking is illegal and punishable by fine or five years of imprisonment, has seen a record rise of nearly 30% in the reported cases of trafficked people in and out of the country. 

Nodira Abdulloeva, coordinator of the Human Rights Centre’s migration programme, says that as the Tajik economy has slumped, unemployment and other social problems make women more vulnerable to exploitation. The victims are often offered ostensibly legitimate work abroad that turns out to be sexual slavery or forced labor.

In previous months, a Tajik delegation led by Colonel Abdullah Zoda Ahtam, Head of Tajikistan’s Defence and Law Enforcement Department, and Inter-agency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking visited the Ministry of Labor in Dubai to gain a deeper insight into the ministry’s plans to streamline the job market and its control policies to combat human trafficking. The two country delegates held meetings to promote and strengthen cooperation and relations between the two countries, with a focus on issues related to the labor market, and share expertise in this field.

On the other hand, IOM is working within four corners of Tajikistan, on combating trafficking in persons through its education prevention and awareness project. This project is aimed to increase the anti-trafficking awareness and preventive capacity of different stake holders in undertaking advocacy and information based campaigns for the protection of vulnerable and also provides support and protection to the trafficked victim returnees.

One of the key achievements of this project has been the development of the trainers manual “IOM Myths and Realities of Jobs Abroad”, which came after the successful round table meetings held with teaching faculty of educational institutions from Khujand (Sogd oblast), Kurgan Tube (Khatlon oblast) and Dushanbe.

Further more, IOM partners trained more than 500 volunteers all over Tajikistan and through it, “Youth Movement of Volunteers of Tajikistan” was created successfully. The volunteers are spreading awareness and disseminating informative packs in form of brochures, fliers and posters in local dialects.

While Tajikistan has a long w ay to go in terms of achieving the eradiation of trafficking menace, the local population is getting equipped with useful information that can help people from not falling into the hands of traffickers. Through the efforts of IOM, a regional counter trafficking network was organized between seventeen local partners, non-governmental organizations.

Overall, the country has demonstrated limited prevention efforts, although in recent years local government officials have started collaborating in the trafficking prevention and awareness campaigns with civil society organizations like IOM. But one thing remains constant – the Tajik government has to tackle wide spread poverty and corruption in order to minimize the economic hardship and desperation of its people.

References:

1. IOM Tajikistan
2. Department of Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking, Tajikistan