Documentary Film Highlights Trafficking of Children from Armenia

Armenia

Documentary Film Highlights Trafficking of Children From Armenia

One World Blog

Lusine was just 16 years old when she was trafficked from Armenia to the United Arab Emirates. A year earlier she had married against the wishes of her parents, but found herself on the streets when she could no longer tolerate the beatings she received from her husband. When she left her native Gyumri for the Armenian capital, Yerevan, it wasn’t long before she was approached by a man interested in exploiting her predicament.

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http://www.childtrafficking.org/cgi-bin/ct/main.sql?ID=2333&file=view_document.sql

December 13, 2005

Documentary Film Highlights Trafficking of Children From Armenia

By Onnik Krikorian

“He said he could help me find work as a waitress in Germany,” says Lusine. “I jumped at the chance. I thought I could make some money abroad and get my life back on track.”

But because she was technically still a minor, Lusine didn’t have a passport. Her new ‘friend,” however, said he could supply her with one for $1,000. Then, in possession of travel documents stating that she was older than she actually was, she traveled to Tbilisi, capital of the neighboring Republic of Georgia, with seven other girls. From there, the girls traveled to Moscow, but rather than end up in Germany, they were instead was put on a plane to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Upon their arrival, the girls were then deprived of their passports and presented to an Arab who had paid $5,000 for Lusine and her companions, and who now had to work as sex workers servicing clients in Dubai, capital of the UAE. Now effectively in “debt” to her new “owner,” Lusine received 10 men a night on average at a local hotel in order to wipe the slate clean and to secure her freedom.

Unfortunately, Lusine’s plight is not unique. Faced with economic collapse after independence, women and children in transitional countries such as Armenia are easy pickings for traffickers. And while the rate of poverty in the former Soviet republic fell to 44 percent of the population in 2004, the social picture is still not reassuring. Children from vulnerable families, or those deprived of parental care, are especially vulnerable.

“In the last few years, the problem of trafficking has become common throughout the former Soviet Union,” says Naira Avetisyan, UNICEF’s Child Protection Officer, “and if the victims are children, it’s even easier to transport and trade them. They’re sold for various purposes such as forced labor, prostitution, drug dealing, and begging.”

“When we talk about trafficking, people think first of all in terms of prostitution,” she continues. “However, this is only one form of trafficking. For example, in the case of trafficking in children it can also be for child labor or international adoption. Extreme poverty can even force some parents to sell their children for very little, and with no concern for their future.”

One 45 year old woman, speaking anonymously in a public awareness film financed by UNICEF, is just one example.

“In 1993, I gave up one of my kids,” she says. “In 1995, I gave up another. The first was only 8 months old and they took her to America. My son was only 4 months old and they gave me $70 for him. With that money I went to Sadakhlo [a market in Georgia] and bought sunflower seeds to sell in Yerevan. I had to care for my other children somehow.”

Yet, despite stories like this, it has only been in recent years that the Armenian Government has started to take the problem of trafficking seriously. Even so, the U.S. State Department this year placed the country on a Tier 2 Watch List. According to its 2005 report on trafficking, the U.S. State Government believes that the Armenian Government has failed to implement its January 2004 National Action Plan to combat the phenomena.

In particular, although Article 132 of the criminal code prohibits the trafficking in persons and provides for a maximum sentence of four to eight years imprisonment, the U.S. State Department’s annual report on trafficking notes that15 out of 16 convictions in 2004 were prosecuted under Article 262, a lighter pimping charge which only provides for sentences of between six months and two years.

“Indications of official collusion and complicity among government officials hampered the government’s efforts to adequately tackle Armenia’s trafficking problem,” says the report.

Recent investigations by local journalists in Dubai also suggests that many of those trafficked to the U.A.E. are under age and come from boarding schools or other state-run institutions in Armenia. In lieu of concrete government action, therefore, the responsibility for implementing preventative measures has fallen on the shoulders of international organizations such as UNICEF, and other local NGOs.

“UNICEF, along with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), were the first to fund a study into the phenomena,” says Avetisyan. “We wanted to identify whether minors were being trafficked from Armenia because anecdotal evidence suggests that children from institutions were among the victims.”

A follow-up study conducted in 2001 did indeed identify that16 and 17 year old girls were falling victim to the trade. Other allege that girls as young as 14 are involved. Later, UNICEF organized a roundtable discussion on trafficking that was attended by high level officials from the Armenian Government.

“The first reaction was shock, but gradually they began to accept the reality,” remembers Avetisyan. “However, we still face difficulties with some officials because they prefer to ignore the existence of child trafficking. In fact, so serious was the problem that we started to engage in advocacy work to raise awareness among the general public instead.”

Since 2004, UNICEF has also started to implement activities directed towards those children most likely to fall victim. “All case studies show that children from boarding schools and orphanages are generally the first victims of trafficking,” says Avetisyan. “Yet, even so, while there are many films about trafficking, none speak about child trafficking.”

UNICEF therefore funded the production of a documentary film on the problem that seeks not only to warn potential victims, but also to raise public awareness on the issue. Unfortunately, admits Avetisyan, many television stations refused to show it. The only exceptions were Shoghakat, a TV channel linked to the Armenian Church, and local television stations working in the regions of Armenia. “Maybe this was better because the majority of victims come from outside the Armenian capital,” she says.

However, as international concern regarding the trafficking of women and children from Armenia increases, there is still significant work that needs to be undertaken in order to address a problem that has reached alarming proportions. Although it is believed that approximately 1,000 women and children have been trafficked from Armenia to the UAE and Turkey, a recent investigation by local journalists put the number of victims closer to 2,000 in Dubai alone.