TIP IN TURKEY: VICTIMS' STORIES

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 ANKARA 006843 SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR G/TIP, G. INL, INL/CTR, DRL, EUR/PGI, EUR/SE DEPARTMENT FOR VALERIE KWOK USAID E&E/ECA ISTANBUL PLS PASS ADANA E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/09/2014 TAGS: KCRM PHUM PGOV SMIG PREF KWMN TU TIP IN TURKEY SUBJECT: TIP IN TURKEY: VICTIMS' STORIES (U) Classified by Polcounselor John Kunstadter; reasons: E.O. 12958 1.4 (b,d). ¶1. (U) SUMMARY: International Organization on Migration (IOM) Chief of Mission Marielle Lindstrom provided para 4 report on a Russian citizen victim admitted to the Istanbul TIP shelter November 13. The victim's story largely repeats other accounts we have heard about typical trafficking schemes to lure victims of all nationalities to Turkey. Since February 2004, IOM has repatriated almost 60 victims (para 5), including victims from Azerbaijan, Belarus, Columbia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (U) Istanbul shelter administrator and Human Resources Development Foundation (HRDF) Executive Director Demet Gural said that a Russian citizen victim brought to the shelter by police on November 13 cooperated with Turkish investigators, providing testimony and evidence against her traffickers. Police later arrested members of the trafficking network in Sivas, Turkey where the victim was forced into prostitution. The victim is currently residing in the Istanbul TIP shelter until Russian Consular officials issue her a new passport to return to Dagistan. ¶3. (C) IOM Chief of Mission Marielle Lindstrom, who is handling the victim's repatriation, said that foot-dragging, uncooperative Russian Embassy consular officers are needlessly delaying the victim's return. Her impression, she said, is that Russian consular officers are neither sensitive to Russian citizen trafficking victims nor concerned with TIP issues in general. Fearful of compromising already-shaky relations with the Russian Embassy in Ankara, Lindstrom requested we keep this information confidential. ¶4. (U) BEGIN TEXT OF IOM DRAFT REPORT: This report concerns AA who is a 22-year-old divorced female from Dagistan. AA states that she came to Turkey four months ago with a girl friend from Dagistan named L, who promised to find her a job in Antalya. AA states that she knew this friend and her family from Dagistan for about a year and a half. Since she knew her and her family, she didn't suspect anything about her intentions, she trusted her. She knew that her friend was coming back and forth to Turkey, but she didn't know that she had been working here as a prostitute. AA is the daughter of a family of four. Her parents were divorced when AA was 13 years old. Her father is an electrical technician, who provides some financial assistance for the family, but not enough. Her mother is a surgeon. She hasn't been practicing medicine in recent years, due to economical difficulties in the country and inability to obtain employment in her field. She has a 26 years old brother in Dagistan who works as a technician. AA has studied law, but dropped out of school when she got married at the age of 19. She had a religious wedding. She is Muslim. Her husband had a 4 year old daughter from a previous marriage when they got married and AA stopped going to college in order to find work and help raise her husband's daughter. They were divorced two years ago, when AA was 20 years old. She completed a computer course during this time as well. AA was working in supermarkets and different stores, doing odd jobs, with a monthly salary of $70-$80. So when her friend offered to help her find a job in Turkey, she accepted the offer. She obtained her passport and her ticket herself, to travel to Turkey. AA and her friend L entered Turkey through Istanbul and went immediately to Antalya. They stayed together in Antalya for two weeks, and L sold her. AA describes the incident as follows: They went to a disco together. And after a few hours, L disappeared. AA was scared, asked one of the male friends where she was. The man told her that L was going to go to the Hotel, and he offered to give her a ride to the Hotel. As soon as AA got in the car, he locked the doors and brought her to a house. He told her that her friend L sold her to him and she would be working for him from now on, she would be working as a prostitute. When AA objected, he threatened to kill her. AA had left her suitcase and her passport in the Hotel. She asked the man to bring her belongings from the Hotel. The man told her that he looked for her but couldn't find her. Consequently, she lost her passport and all her belongings. There were seven women in the house including AA. They were from Moldova, Ukraine etc. They were going to a hotel in order to meet their clients for work. AA doesn't remember the name of the hotel or the name of the disco. She states that they were Turkish names and she couldn't memorize the names since she didn't understand what they meant. Two months after her arrival in Antalya, AA and another girl were brought to the Hotel together for work. There were two clients. The two men said they were going to take them to the disco. They put them in a car. There was another man in the car. The three men started driving them out of Antalya and brought them to Sivas. They told them that they were kidnapped and not to panic and not to escape. They brought them to a house. There were three women from Georgia and a Turkish woman in the house. The pimp was the Turkish woman's lover. The Turkish woman knew the pimp for four years. Apparently, he was a friend of her husband's. Her husband had left her one day at that house to work as a prostitute. About twenty days after she arrived in Sivas, one of the girls managed to escape, with the money she received from a client. AA tried to do the same, but unfortunately, the client called the pimp and told on her, and the pimp came and picked her up from the Hotel and beat her up very harshly when they came back to the house. He stepped on her face with his shoes and she lost her hair as she was fighting him. She has short hair now. Apparently the pimp beat AA up on many occasions. He beat her up with a belt many times. She showed big bruises on her arms and stated that the bruises looked much better now than before. AA stated that he beat her up only so much to hurt her, but not enough to take her to a hospital and pay for her medical expenses as he wanted her to continue to work. There was the pimp and a bodyguard in the house who were watching all their moves in the house - sleeping in the same room, following her from room to room, even the bathroom. They beat her up if she wanted to stay alone in her room and not watch TV for example. AA states that either the pimp or the bodyguard would wait in the Hotel when she went to rooms with the clients, and the hotel personnel were also tipped to watch the girls closely and make sure that she wouldn't escape. They were also locked in the house where they were staying. The Turkish woman also tried to escape, but was stopped by the pimp once. On November 11th, the Turkish woman jumped out of the balcony of the second floor of the building where they were staying, and called the police. The police came at night, when everybody was sleeping, including the pimp and the bodyguard. The police arrested them both. AA states that she was horrified by this experience and was deadly afraid of the men - the pimp and the bodyguard. The pimp carried a gun and a knife at all times. AA states that she fought with the men frequently and pleaded with them to let her free. One day, the bodyguard told her that the pimp had killed somebody in the past and she'd better watch her words. AA states that she also heard them one night, talking amongst themselves about killing her (?) about a month ago. AA states that her clients sometimes used condoms, sometimes they didn't. But, she insisted on getting an antibiotic, Rosephin, from the pimp. He finally bought her the medication from the pharmacy and she gave herself an injection in order to prevent infections. She had learned how to give an injection from her mother. END TEXT OF IOM REPORT. ¶5. (U) Repatriated victims listed by IOM CASE NUMBER, TRACKING NUMBER, NATIONALITY, TOTAL VICTIMS IN GROUP, AGE, LOCATION IN TURKEY, DEPARTURE DESTINATION, DATE OF DEPARTURE: TR42023, C96-CSE, MD, 1 female, 19, Istanbul, MOLDOVA, 23-Feb-04 TR42036, C72-CSE, MD, 2 female, 21/26, Adana, MOLDOVA, 3-Apr-04 TR42039, C72-CSE, MD, 2 female, 19/23, Istanbul, MOLDOVA, 8-Apr-04 TR42040, C72-CSE, MD, 2 female, 28/23, Istanbul, MOLDOVA, 11-Apr-04 TR42042, FB3-243, UA, 2 female, 32/29, Istanbul, UKRAINE, 22-Apr-04 TR42044, F73-CSE, UA, 1 female, 20, Istanbul, UKRAINE, 28-Apr-04 TR42045, C72-CSE, MD, 1 female, 27, Istanbul, MOLDOVA, 28-Apr-04 TR42051, F73-CSE, UA, 1 female, 32, Adana, UKRAINE, 19-May-04 TR42060, C72-CSE, MD, 6 female, 19-26, Ankara, MOLDOVA, 10-Jun-04 TR42061, F15-CUS, AZ, 2 female, 33/38, Ankara, AZERBAIJAN, 10-Jun-04 TR42063, F62-CUS, RO, 6 female, 16-24, Istanbul, ROMANIA, 16-Jun-04 TR42064, F15-CUS, RU, 1 female, 18, Erzurum, RUSSIA, 20-Jun-04 TR42067, C72-CSE, MD, 2 female, 20/25, Ankara, MOLDOVA, 7-Jul-04 TR42073, C72-CSE, MD, 1 female, 19, Antalya, MOLDOVA, 15-Jul-04 TR42077, C72-CSE, MD, 2 female, 19/25, Istanbul, MOLDOVA, 24-Jul-04 TR42078, C72-CSE, MD, 2 female, 17/26, Ankara, MOLDOVA, 28-Jul-04 TR42079, C72-CSE, MD, 3 female, 19/20/30, Ankara, MOLDOVA, 5-Aug-04 TR42080, C72-CSE, MD, 1 female, 19, Ankara, MOLDOVA, 16-Aug-04 TR42081, C82-800, KZ, 1 female, 18, Ankara, KAZAKHSTAN, 16-Aug-04 TR42090, C72-CSE, MD, 1 female, 25, Ankara, MOLDOVA, 25-Aug-04 TR42092, F73-CSE, UA, 1 female, 21, Izmir, UKRAINE, 26-Aug-04 TR42096, F73-CSE, UA, 1 female, 28, Izmir, UKRAINE, 9-Sep-04 TR42103, F73-CSE, UA, 1 female, 28, Ankara, UKRAINE, 27-Sep-04 TR42106, F72-CSE, MD, 2 female, 28/18, ANK/IST, MOLDOVA, 30-Sep-04 TR42109, C82-800, UZ, 1 female, 29, Izmir, UZBEKISTAN, 06-Oct-04 TR42113, C72-CSE, MD, 1 female, 18, Istanbul, MOLDOVA, 11-Oct-04 TR42114, F63-CUS, BY, 1 female, 21, Izmir, BELARUS, 19-Oct-04 TR42116, F15-CUS, CO, 1 female and 2 infants, 29, Istanbul, COLOMBIA, 20-Oct-04 TR42119, C72-CSE, UA, 3 female, 20/22/24, Istanbul, UKRAINE, 3-Nov-04 TR42122, C72-CSE, MD, 3 female, 18/18/20, Izmir/Istanbul, MOLDOVA, 12-Nov-04 EDELMAN