US State Department published annual report on trafficking: Armenian government demonstrated progress in its law enforcement efforts

US State Department has published the annual report on trafficking in world. Report presents human slavery index in the world.
”Over the coming months we will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, which Abraham Lincoln announced on September 22, 1862 and issued by Executive Order on January 1, 1863. In 1865, as the guns of the Civil War fell silent, the Congress passed and the states ratified as the 13th Amendment to the Constitution President Lincoln’s commitment that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist in the United States.”

Like the United States, countries around the world have enacted laws and adopted international instruments to end slavery as a legal institution and to eliminate it as a criminal practice. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude. More recently, the UN Palermo Protocol has made the abolition of modern-day slavery a part of international law and a policy-making priority. Governments across the globe are united in this struggle.

Yet, despite the adoption of treaties and laws prohibiting slavery, the evidence nevertheless shows that many men, women, and children continue to live in modern-day slavery through the scourge of trafficking in persons.

Trafficking in persons deprives victims of their most basic freedom: to determine their own future. Our work in fulfilling the promise of freedom should be not only the pursuit of justice, but also a restoring of what was taken away. We should aim not only to put an end to this crime, but also to ensure that survivors can move beyond their exploitation and live the lives they choose for themselves.

This Report is a guide for our work. In the past decade, a global community of governments, non-governmental organizations, and countless other institutions and individuals have brought attention to this often-hidden crime. Through the work of many, this Report provides a clear and sobering analysis of the state of modern slavery. It tells us which governments are making progress, which innovations are working best, and how we can strengthen our efforts to bring an end to this crime” US State Secretary Hilary Clinton writes as a welcoming speech of the .

Referring to the situation in Armenia, the report especially says:

”Armenia is a source country for women and girls subjected to sex trafficking, as well as a source country for women and men subjected to forced labor. To a lesser extent it has been a destination country for women subjected to forced labor. Women and girls from Armenia are subjected to sex trafficking in the United Arab Emirates and Turkey, and within the country. Armenian men and women are subjected to forced labor in Russia. Armenian boys have been subjected to forced labor within the country. An NGO reported a new trend of labor migrants withdrawing their children from school and taking them abroad as helpers; these children are vulnerable to conditions of forced labor.

The Government of Armenia does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. In 2011, the government convicted more trafficking offenders than during the previous year, continued to train hundreds of officials in partnership with NGOs and international organizations, and strengthened anti-trafficking public awareness campaigns. The number of victims identified by the government during the year continued to drop”.
”The Armenian government demonstrated progress in its law enforcement efforts against human trafficking during the reporting period. Armenia prohibits both sex trafficking and labor trafficking through articles 132 and 132-2 of its criminal code, which prescribe penalties of five to 15 years’ imprisonment – penalties that are sufficiently stringent and commensurate with those prescribed for other serious crimes such as rape. The government investigated 16 sex trafficking cases and one labor trafficking case in 2011, compared with 15 sex trafficking and no labor trafficking cases in 2010. During 2011, the Armenian government prosecuted eight new cases against 15 individuals for sex trafficking offenses and no individuals for labor trafficking offenses, compared with prosecutions against six alleged sex traffickers and no alleged labor traffickers newly prosecuted in 2010. During the year, the government continued to prosecute an additional 11 defendants whose cases had begun in previous years; nine were charged with sex trafficking and two with labor trafficking. The government convicted 13 trafficking offenders in 2011 – including 11 individuals for sex trafficking and two for labor trafficking – up from a total of five convictions in 2010. All 13 convicted offenders in 2011 were given sentences ranging from four to nine years’ imprisonment. Based on a request made by Armenian law enforcement agencies in 2010, in September 2011 Turkey extradited an alleged Armenian trafficker to Armenia; the alleged trafficker was escorted by Armenian law enforcement officers from Istanbul to Yerevan. The Armenian government sustained partnerships with anti-trafficking NGOs, international organizations, and foreign governments to provide anti-trafficking training to hundreds of government officials including prosecutors, police, border guards, members of the judicial system, and labor inspectors. Human trafficking continued to be included in the curriculum of all education facilities of law enforcement bodies. There were no reports of government officials’ complicity in trafficking during 2011”.

”The Armenian government undertook strong trafficking prevention efforts during the reporting period. The government spent the equivalent of almost all of the $23,000 devoted in the budgets of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and Ministry of Youth and Sport Affairs to further increase public awareness of human trafficking. Many of these public awareness activities involved broadcasting anti-trafficking public service announcements and other programs on national and regional stations during peak viewing periods. Various government agencies undertook prevention activities. The Ministerial Council to Combat Trafficking in Persons and the Inter-Agency Working Group against Trafficking in Persons continued to meet regularly and coordinate the implementation of the 2010-2012 National Plan of Action addressing human trafficking, in collaboration with NGOs and international organizations, and began to work on the 2013-2015 National Plan of Action. The government regularly published reports on its anti-trafficking activities during the reporting period. During the year, the government took measures to identify and record the unregistered births of children. In an effort to reduce the demand for commercial sex, the government publicized its efforts to combat prostitution. The government provided anti-trafficking training to Armenian troops before their deployment overseas on international peacekeeping missions”, the report concludes.