US Department of State: Human trafficking is still a problem in Belarus

The United States Department of State issued a Trafficking in Persons Report 2009.

The annual report expresses serious concern over 28 countries of Europe and Central Asia.

Nine countries are included in Tier 2 Watch List either due to numerous victims or due a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat trafficking.

The countries placed on this list are: Azerbaijan, Latvia, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, and Montenegro.

Countries of Europe and Central Asia Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Estonia are placed on Tier 2 List - Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the US minimum standards in combating trafficking in persons, but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards.

The Department of State’s report says “Belarus is a source and transit country for women, men, and children trafficked from Belarus and neighboring countries to Russia, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia, Austria, the Netherlands, Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Turkey, Egypt, Ukraine, and the Republic of Togo for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor.”

According to the report, authorities registered 591 trafficking victims of whom 458 were trafficked for sexual exploitation (including 96 minors) and 133 for forced labor.

366 of the victim were female (including 42 minors) and 225 were male (including 61 minors). Authorities identified 246 victims trafficked within Belarus.

“A 2008 IOM study on the trafficking of men found that more than 60 percent of assisted Belarusian trafficked men from 2004 to 2006 had some job training or college education. There was one ongoing case against residents of Belarus for trafficking Russian homeless persons into servitude in Belarus,” the report of the US Department of State says.

The authors of the report conclude: “The Government of Belarus does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. The government demonstrated sustained efforts to prosecute and punish trafficking offenders, though support for victim assistance programs remained lacking, and the government did not refer the majority of identified trafficking victims to service providers for assistance.”