Asia Times: Globalization leads to slavery


	August 23, 2001	atimes.com

Central Asia/Russia

Globalization leads to slavery
By Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA - Networks of traffickers in humans are increasingly exploiting women from Central Asia, subjecting them to a modern form of slavery in a dynamic that is linked to the globalization process and the transformation of local economies, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

The IOM has released a survey that estimates some 1,000 women from Tajikistan fell victim to traffickers last year, and that most of them, as has been the case for women from other Central Asian republics, ended up in sexual or domestic servitude, mainly in the Gulf states and Russia.

"Globalization trends and the radical transformation of local economies and societies over the 20th Century have forced people to abandon traditional occupations to try to meet the ever-changing demands of a new and growing labor market," says the IOM.

In countries that are suffering economic difficulties, this process inevitably leads to a rise in unemployment, lower wages and increased vulnerability of the unemployed. "In parallel, as society re-adapts in the wake of economic disparities, new opportunities arise for the exploitation of vulnerable job-seekers by employers operating outside the law," pointed out IOM spokesman Jean-Philippe Chauzy.

Trafficking in humans is a form of slavery organized by informants and recruiters seeking fast cash in the countries of origin and by international criminal groups, he said. Government and independent experts agree on estimates that more than 700,000 women and children were victims last year of human trafficking networks worldwide.

The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the association of countries that were part of the former Soviet Union, is the leading source of trafficked women in Asia, they said. Economic hard times in Central Asia following the disappearance of the Soviet production system and the subsequent rise in unemployment and in labor emigration have created a favorable environment for the recruitment of potential victims, according to the IOM.

The study Chauzy presented Friday in Geneva, home to the IOM's international headquarters, described the case of trafficking of Tajik women in particular. The report provides a socio-economic profile of the victims, showing that they are likely to be single women who have at least one child to support (88 percent) and live in urban areas (Dushanbe, the capital, or Khujand). The survey also found most victims have little education and come from ethnic minorities.

In their recruitment efforts, the traffickers, who are often Tajik women themselves, take advantage of the inexperience of victims "and the support of a series of well-connected contacts, such as travel agencies and officials, to entrap the women", according to the report.

In the period studied, 58 percent of the Tajik women were trafficked to the United Arab Emirates, 29 percent to Russia, and the rest to Pakistan, Turkey and Hungary. The women are usually brought through the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Once they reach the destination country, the traffickers confiscate the women's passports and travel documents to make sure they cannot flee.

"They are then housed in hotels or private apartments before being sold to criminal groups or to households where they are kept under sexual and/or domestic servitude," says the IOM.

The study indicates that 89 percent of the Tajik victims were sexually abused by their pimps and 27 percent suffered violent beatings. Of the women surveyed, 95 percent reported that they had been forced to engage in sexual relations without the protection of a condom and 10 percent acknowledged that they had contracted sexually transmitted diseases.

The IOM, along with the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), presented some of the study's preliminary findings to the Tajikistan government, parliament and judiciary last June. For the first time, the Tajikistan government recognized the magnitude of the trafficking problem and the need to combat it, said Chauzy.

Government officials and civil society leaders in the Central Asian country agreed on the necessity of confronting the trafficking of Tajik women by raising public awareness about it.

Participants in the IOM-UNIFEM meetings in Tajikistan drew up proposals for stricter legislation on trafficking offenses and for enhancing local law enforcement capacity.

(Inter Press Service)

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