TIP IN TURKEY: MEDIA ATTENTION, OCTOBER 14-31, 2004

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 06 ANKARA 006150

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR G/TIP, G, INL, DRL, EUR/PGI, EUR/SE

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREL KCRM PHUM KWMN SMIG KFRD PREF TU TIP IN TURKEY
SUBJECT: TIP IN TURKEY: MEDIA ATTENTION, OCTOBER 14-31, 2004



1. (U) In response to G/TIP inquiries, national and
international media sources published the following news
articles about TIP in Turkey. Text of articles originally
published in Turkish is provided through unofficial local
FSN translation.


2. (U) Published October 31, 2004 by the Turkish Language
Cumhuriyet News:

TITLE: NO VISA REQUIREMENT FOR GEORGIANS

BEGIN TEXT: A decision by the Artvin Governor now
allows Georgian citizens to stay in Turkey for 72 hours
without a visa if they submit their passports to the
police upon arriving in the port city of Hopa.

This implementation aims at increasing tourist and
commercial trips (to Turkey).

Artvin Governor Orhan Kirli said that after the
Georgian Government grants permission, Turkish
citizens, too, would be able to travel to Georgia for
short-term trips without a visa. END TEXT.


3. (U) Published October 31, 2004 by the Turkish Language
Cumhuriyet News:

BEGIN TEXT: Jandarma captured 37 Bengalis on the road
to Bolu. The 37 people had been in a truck for three
days. The driver was detained. The Jandarma offered
food and water to the starving Bengalis. An
investigation is going on. END TEXT.


4. (U) Broadcast October 28, 2004 by Pakistan-based GEO News
Service in Urdu and English:

TITLE: 530 deportees reach home from Oman

TEXT: KARACHI: 530 Pakistanis arrested in Oman due to
illegal entry arrived in Karachi after deportation from
Muscat.

They belonged to various parts of the country and were
arrested during last two weeks while trying to enter
illegally via sea route in the Gulf state to seek
lucrative jobs.

People involved in the human trafficking racket fetched
thousands of rupees from these poor people and later
disappeared leaving them in quandary. Some of them were
caught while on their way because of strict security
whereas majority were arrested after illegal entry.

These Pakistani nationals were sent back through Al
Fajr-II boat. Ansar Burney welfare trust arranged food,
clothing and shoes for them at Ghas Bandar port. They
will be allowed to leave for home after Immigration
clearance.

Some of the deportees told that Mand area of
Balochistan became the international market of human
trafficking where different rates have been fixed for
Muscat, Dubai, Turkey, London and other countries. They
were also complained about inhuman treatment and
torture in jails. END TEXT.


5. (U) Published October 26, 2004 by the Turkish Language
Anatolian News Agency:

BEGIN TEXT: Sixteen of 23 defendants on trial for
holding 17 people including minors by force for
domestic and agricultural labor were released from
prison with charges pending in Kozan's heavy penal
court. Their trial will continue though. One suspect
(Omer Binici) is still at large. An arrest warrant has
been issued for him.

Names of the defendants under arrest and released were
(16): Ahmet, Recai, Abdurrahman, Husamettin, Mustafa,
Feyzullah, Ibrahim, Ihsan, Sacit, Osman, Fatih, Isa,
Lutfi Topaloglu, Halis Ozkal, Asaf Mercan, Mustafa
Kutlu

Defendants who are not under arrest:

Ercan, Suleyman, Ibrahim, Cetin Topaloglu, Cumali
Mercan, Mumtaz Dil. END TEXT.


6. (U) Published October 24, 2004 by the Detroit Free Press:

TITLE: MARTA SALIJ: Sex on the auction block
BY MARTA SALIJ, FREE PRESS BOOKS WRITER
BEGIN TEXT: "Every 10 minutes, a woman or child is
trafficked into the United States for forced labor,'"
begins Gilbert King's incendiary book, "Woman, Child
for Sale: The New Slave Trade in the 21st Century."
Yes, into the United States. Every 10 minutes.

About 50,000 slaves are brought into the United States
each year, the CIA estimated in 1999. Worldwide, about
27 million people are enslaved -- twice the number that
were victimized by the African slave trade.

The slaves are usually young women and children. They
come from Asia, Africa, Central America -- and in a
fourth wave that began about a decade ago -- from the
former republics of the Soviet Union. Some are enslaved
to work in factories or as domestics.

But a large and growing number are sex slaves, forced
to work as prostitutes in Europe, the Middle East, the
Far East -- and in the United States.

They are young women trapped in nations devastated by
economic collapse or war. Some are orphans. Then a
seeming godsend appears: A job in a foreign country as
a nanny, maid or waitress. Maybe the job is offered by
a neighbor or an administrator at the orphanage. The
girls sign up, sure that they can save themselves and
their families.

But once they are past their borders, they discover
that they have been sold into the sex industry. They
are taken to apartments in Germany, Israel and
elsewhere. They are raped, beaten, burned, starved.
They are locked in cellars or attics and warned that
they will be killed if they try to escape.

Then they are turned out to work bars and brothels and
roadsides. Some are forced to service UN peacekeeping
forces or U.S. contractors in various hotspots. Some
are bought and sold yet again.

If they try to go to the police, they are not believed.
The police are often their clients or chums of the
thugs who hold them.

If they somehow escape, they are chased down and
murdered -- sometimes even months after, when they've
made it home.

Some die of disease or of abortions or in childbirth.
Some, of course, kill themselves.


In this day and age

This is all very hard to believe, I know. We are
civilized people. Aren't we? This is the 21st Century.
Isn't it?

That is what I believed, until I read King's book and
the even more furious work by Canadian journalist
Victor Malarek, "The Natashas: Inside the New Global
Sex Trade."

No other books that I've read in my five years as a
critic have demoralized me so much or have given me so
little hope for humankind. The victimization is so
complete that I despair at what can be done.

But it is precisely books like King's and Malarek's
that we civilized and free people must read and act
upon because the evil is so great.

Begin with Malarek's book, "The Natashas" because it is
more visceral. Malarek concentrates on the trafficking
of women from the former Soviet Union, particularly
Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova. His title comes
from what the Israeli johns call the new prostitutes:
Natasha the Russian.
What makes Malarek's book a first must-read is the
heartbreaking detail he gives. He has traveled
throughout the Middle East and Europe, talking to the
women, as well as to officials who are trying to stop
the traffic -- and sometimes to officials who are not
trying.
In a chapter that will turn your stomach, Malarek
describes his October 2001 visit to Pristina, the
capital of Kosovo. He accompanied members of the UN
Trafficking in Prostitution Investigation Unit on raids
through the U.S.-controlled sector.

Malarek meets a Texas lawman, John Randolph, who works
for DynCorp, the U.S. firm that recruits American
police officers to work as international cops for the
United Nations. Randolph tells Malarek about a raid the
week before that rescued seven teenage sex slaves in a
nearby town, all of whom told him that Americans had
been their customers.

Then Randolph's bosses at DynCorp learn about Malarek
and things turn strange. A series of secret UN raids on
other bars is suddenly scrapped by the U.S. military
commander. Then, a UN internal affairs investigation
into the aborted raids goes nowhere. Coincidence?
Malarek can find out no more.

Lucrative commodities

Humans are now the third most lucrative commodity
traded illegally, after drugs and guns, international
law enforcement officials estimate. King's book,
"Woman, Child for Sale,"' includes all the statistics
and background you could wish to have, including a
catalog of what the world has tried, with little
success, to do about it.

How does the trade flourish? The basic fuel is the
essential wickedness of people to persist in seeing
other people as not human.

Sexism and racism factor in, too. Malarek interviews
the pimps and customers who argue that men cannot be
expected to control their sex drives, so prostitution -
- even using slaves -- is a social good. Others argue
that if it weren't for the foreign slaves -- who are,
by definition, subhuman -- men would brutalize their
own women. Better theirs than ours, in other words.

And -- I can barely type this -- some argue that they
are helping the slaves by giving them food and shelter
they couldn't get at home.

There is plenty of money to be made, so greed is
another fuel. And whatever greed cannot sustain, the
well-machined brutality of the purveyors can. And who
are these purveyors? The Russian mob, the Italian
Mafia, Colombian drug cartels, the Chinese Triads and
the Japanese Yakuza -- as well as gangs from the United
States, Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic,
Turkey, Serbia, Israel and Albania.

Another fuel is the persistent belief by otherwise
enlightened people that prostitution and other sex
industries involve consenting adults. This is the fuel
that proves most dangerous to the enslaved women.

"To the casual observer," Malarek writes, "they blend
in seamlessly with the women who have chosen to
exchange money for sex. In their cheap makeup, sleazy
outfits and stiletto heels, they walk the same walk and
talk the same talk. They smile, they wink, they pose
and they strut, but they do it because they know what
will happen if they don't."

And now, we civilized and free people have no excuse
for not knowing, too. END TEXT.


7. (U) Published October 22, 2004 by the London Telegraph:

It's OK for men to hit us, says wives' poll in Turkey
More than a third of Turkish women believe they deserve
to be beaten if they argue with their husbands, deny
them sex, neglect children or burn a meal, according to
a survey reported by the Anatolia news agency
yesterday. The survey found that 39 per cent of women
said their husbands were right to beat them. In rural
areas, the figure rose to 57 per cent.

As many as half of all Turkish women are estimated to
be victims of physical violence in their families.

The survey and report come at a crucial moment as the
European Union, which Turkey is seeking to join, has
put pressure on the government to protect women.

In the Anatolia poll, arguing with one's husband topped
the list of justified reasons for domestic violence,
followed by spending too much and neglecting children.

The poll of 8,075 married women by Hacettepe
University, Ankara, was funded by the EU and the
Turkish government.

"A culture of violence in Turkey is putting women in
double jeopardy. Not only are many not safe in their
own homes, but they also are denied access to justice,"
said William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty
International USA.

Some acts of violence involve traditional practices,
including so-called honour crimes and forced marriage.
A study in east and southeast Turkey found that 45.7
per cent of women were not consulted about the choice
of husband and 50.8 per cent were married without their
consent. Women who refuse their family's choice are at
risk of violence and even death. END TEXT.


8. (U) Published October 21, 2004 by the Turkish-language
Anatolian News Agency:

TITLE: SECURITY FORCES ARREST 16 ILLEGAL MIGRANTS IN
AYVALIK

BEGIN TEXT: BALIKESIR (A.A) - Security forces arrested
16 migrants in Ayvalik town of northwestern city of
Balikesir on Thursday as they were about to set sail
for Greek island of Lesbos.

The migrants of Somalian and Mauritanian origin were
taken into custody for violating Turkish borders and
passport law.

Security forces also arrested five persons for aiding
and abetting to the illegal migrants.

The migrants will be deported once the legal
proceedings are completed. END TEXT.


9. (U) Published October 21, 2004 by the Turkish-language
Anatolian News Agency:

BEGIN TEXT: A Turkish citizen was sentenced by a Sisam
Island court in Greece to 6 years and 9 months
imprisonment and fined 29 thousand Euros for
involvement in human trafficking.

According to the Greek ANA news agency Vural Yavuz
Selim was captured yesterday by the Coast Guard in
Sisam after he took 13 Afghan citizens to that island.

He will be sent to jail on Sakiz Island.

He can apply to the appeals court but because of the
type of crime he committed, he would still remain in
jail until the appeals court reaches a decision. END
TEXT.


10. (U) Published by the Scotsman News on October 17, 2004
with excerpts published in the Turkish-language Cumhuriyet
News and Turkish-language Sabah News.

TITLE: The tough battle against Europe's sex traffic
shame

BY CHRIS STEPHEN IN MOLDOVA
BEGIN TEXT: ANNA'S nose is red from the cold. She has
decided to tell her great secret while standing outside
her farmhouse in a bleak part of southern Moldova,
while her family eat dinner inside.
Braced against the wind, she tells of when she realised
she had become a sex slave.
Last year, with her small farm bankrupt and her husband
laid-off, she joined the huge stream of migrants
leaving Moldova, heading for what she thought was
domestic work in a family house in Turkey.

She had seen TV commercials warning of the dangers of
the sex trade but assumed she, as a married woman,
would not be a target and, anyway, the agent who
recruited her was a friend from the same village.

She was desperate and the 100 a month she would earn
would at least put food on the family table back home.

After a few weeks of cleaning work, the woman of the
house took the children away to visit relatives, and
her boss invited friends around for a late night game
of cards. Anna was told to stay late serving drinks.

The card session grew more boisterous, the players more
drunk, and Anna was puzzled - there seemed to be no
money changing hands in the frenzied game. Then her
boss broke the news. She was the prize. Later that
night she was raped by one of her boss's friends. In
the morning, her boss told her there would be more of
the same. "He told me if I did not do as he said he
would kill me," she said, her brown eyes watering.

"He told me who would know? I was not registered with
the police, I was not registered with anybody, I could
simply disappear."

Anna had become a victim of sexual trafficking, Eastern
Europe's most notorious growth industry.

Estimates by the United States put the number of girls
and women trafficked for sex as more than half a
million worldwide. Moldova, the poorest country in
Europe, leads the way. More than 600,000 of the three
million population are out of the country at any one
time, most employed illegally.

Belatedly, the Council of Europe is trying to stem the
flow. Work began this month on an ambitious cross-
border convention against trafficking, but many here in
Moldova doubt it will stem the tide.

"Rules will not be enough, the traffickers will always
find a way through," Anna tells me. "Look around you.
While conditions here stay as they are, women will
always run away. There is nothing here for them."

Her home village, kept secret at her request, lies in
the heart of Gagauzia, a Turkish-speaking province once
rich in agriculture.

But eastern markets have dried up and the European
Union, struggling with its Wine Lake, is not about to
start importing Moldovan wine.

The result is grinding poverty and a huge flow of
migrants. While politicians wring their hands, the
traffickers are getting smarter. In the past, they
would smuggle women and girls on forged documents. Now
they have hit on a much better idea - bribery. Women
now pass borders on legal documents, visas and permits.

"Trafficking could not exist without the complicity of
Moldovan government officials at some level," says Alan
Freedman, head of the Moldovan office of the
International Organisation for Migration (IOM). "You
cannot move this number of people across the border
without corruption."
Moldovan president Vladimir Voronin has promised tough
action, but with his bureaucrats also impoverished, it
is a tall order. And even if corruption can be tackled,
the root problem of poverty remains.

"You have a Moldovan girl of 16 in a village, her
prospects are of earning $25 a month in a canning
factory," says Mr Freedman. "Frankly, the migration
argument is extremely persuasive." He adds: "The best
way to prevent trafficking is to create healthy
communities."

Some women, even when they realise the sexual slavery
facing them, decide to stay, rather than return home to
their bleak villages.

In the West, there seems to be no shortage of men
willing to pay for what amounts to rape. "Sometimes
what they do is called prostitution, but what these
women endure is not prostitution," says Tatiana
Allamuradova of local support group, Contact. "These
women are enduring slavery."

Anna endured rape and occasional beatings in Istanbul
for several months, then had a breakdown and fled home.

Her story has a happy ending. She was given a small
grant by IOM to buy livestock for her empty farm. She
has turned the farm into a thriving business, and her
husband now works for her as the book keeper.

But she worries over whether to tell her husband, who
assumes that she returned from a regular cleaning job.

"I cannot take the chance," she says. "This place has
old rules. Some women have done this, and the husbands
have divorced them, and I don't want to be alone." END
TEXT.


11. (U) Published October 14, 2004 by the Turkish language
Sabah News:

BEGIN TEXT: 100 illegal immigrants, including 88
Pakistanis, were captured in the Bahcelievler and Fatih
districts of Istanbul.

The Pakistanis in bahcelievler reportedly were brought
to Istanbul through Dogubeyazit and Van. They
reportedly were hoping to go to Greece in return for
$7000.

Those captured in Fatih were six Afghanis, four
Iranians and two Iraqis. Some other illegal immigrants
managed to escape. END TEXT.

EDELMAN