Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06ANKARA989
2006-02-28 13:37:00
UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Embassy Ankara
Cable title:  

TURKEY: SIXTH ANNUAL TIP REPORT: OVERVIEW AND

Tags:  KCRM PHUM KWMN ELAB SMIG ASEC KFRD PREF TU 
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FM AMEMBASSY ANKARA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 3556
INFO RUEHTA/AMEMBASSY ALMATY PRIORITY 2133
RUEHAH/AMEMBASSY ASHGABAT PRIORITY 1838
RUEHKB/AMEMBASSY BAKU PRIORITY 1327
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UNCLAS ANKARA 000989 

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR G/TIP (JENNIFER DONNELLY),G, INL, DRL, PRM
DEPARTMENT FOR IWI, EUR/SE, EUR/PGI
DEPARTMENT FOR USAID

E.O. 12958:N/A
TAGS: KCRM PHUM KWMN ELAB SMIG ASEC KFRD PREF TU
SUBJECT: TURKEY: SIXTH ANNUAL TIP REPORT: OVERVIEW AND
PREVENTION

REF: SECSTATE 03836

UNCLAS ANKARA 000989

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR G/TIP (JENNIFER DONNELLY),G, INL, DRL, PRM
DEPARTMENT FOR IWI, EUR/SE, EUR/PGI
DEPARTMENT FOR USAID

E.O. 12958:N/A
TAGS: KCRM PHUM KWMN ELAB SMIG ASEC KFRD PREF TU
SUBJECT: TURKEY: SIXTH ANNUAL TIP REPORT: OVERVIEW AND
PREVENTION

REF: SECSTATE 03836


1. (U) Sensitive but unclassified. Please protect
accordingly.


2. (U) Post's responses are keyed to questions in Reftel A.
This is part 1 of 3 (septel). Embassy point of contact is
Linda Fenton, telephone number 90-312-455-5555 X 2513, fax
number 90-312-468-4775. Fenton (FS-04) spent approximately
100 hours in preparation of this TIP report. Political
Counselor Janice G. Weiner (rank: FS-01) spent approximately
one hour in preparation of this report.

--------------
Overview
--------------


A. (SBU) Turkey remains a destination and transit country
for women and children trafficked for the purposes of sexual
exploitation and some forced labor. Though no territory
within the country is outside government control, porous
borders and a liberal visa regime provide a comfortable
environment for traffickers smuggling victims to, within, and
through Turkey.

There are no reliable estimates of the number of internally
or internationally trafficked victims. The Istanbul Shelter
NGO, Human Resources Development Foundation (HRDF),the
Ankara Shelter NGO, Foundation for Women's Solidarity (FWS),
and the International Organization for Migration (IOM)
combined to repatriate 220 foreign victims in 2005, up from
62 in 2004. IOM reports that 23 of the victims the Turkish
National Police identified refused assistance from IOM.
According to HRDF, one victim is still in country on a
humanitarian visa; one got married and stayed in Turkey; and
one, after obtaining refugee status from UNHCR, was
repatriated to a third country.

The Ministry of Interior reports 256 identified victims in
2005 and 28 from January through mid-February 2006. The
source countries were distributed as follows: Ukraine (90),
Moldova (73),Russia (29),Kyrgyzstan (26),Romania (11),
Uzbekistan (10),Kazakhstan (9),Belarus (6),Georgia (7),
Turkmenistan (6),Azerbaijan (14),Bulgaria (1),Armenia

(1),Uganda (1).

According to IOM statistics, the most vulnerable group of
persons to be trafficked are women between the ages of 18 and

24.


B. (SBU) The GoT continues to take the issue of trafficking
in persons seriously and has taken significant measures
within the rating period to prevent and combat trafficking.

The GoT signed protocols for cross-border and
anti-trafficking cooperation in the rating period with
Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova, and is expected to sign a
similar protocol with Kyrgyzstan in March 2006.

The GoT continued to strengthen its efforts to actively
pursue a focused public awareness campaign reaching out to
victims, law enforcement, and customers. A toll-free 24-hour
hotline for victims of trafficking began operation in May

2005. Since then, the hotline has handled nearly 1,000
trafficking-related calls. Seventy-four percent of the
callers to the hotline are clients concerned that the women
they have been with are actually victims of trafficking. The
interest of these clients was piqued by the two public
awareness campaigns that IOM implemented and the GoT endorsed

and supported: one advertising the hotline, and the other
appealing to the strong sense of family in Turkey by
revealing that one-third of the women trafficked to Turkey
are mothers. The Ankara municipality completely refurbished
and furnished a shelter, which opened in October 2005. This
FWS-run shelter is the second such shelter in Turkey.

Most victims enter Turkey willingly and some arrive with the
knowledge that they will work illegally in the sex industry.
Most, however, initially expected to work as models,
waitresses, dancers, domestic servants, or in other regular
employment. Once in Turkey, traffickers typically confiscate
the victims' personal documents and passports and force
victims into confinement where they are raped, beaten into
submission, and intimidated by threats of retaliation against
the victims' family members.


C. (SBU) There are credible reportsthat some law
enforcement officials received ribes either to smuggle
aliens or turn a blind eye to illegal prostitution. Salaries
for poice officers are relatively low. The GoT does ot
lack the resources to aid victims. The GoT in October 2005
granted HRDF 150,000 YTL (approximately USD 114,000) to
offset some of the cost of running the Istanbul shelter. The
Ministry of Health provides free medical and psychiatric
services to victims of trafficking.


D. (SBU) The MFA, which chairs the National Taskforce,
updates its counter-trafficking website periodically, at
least every six months after a taskforce meeting. The GoT,
however, has had limited success in implementing a
government-wide system for reliably monitoring and assessing
its anti-trafficking efforts, particularly regarding arrests,
prosecutions, convictions, and sentencing of traffickers.

--------------
Prevention
--------------


A. (U) The Government of Turkey acknowledges that
trafficking is a problem in this country.


B. (U) Government agencies involved in anti-trafficking
efforts include the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Health,
Interior (which includes the Turkish National Police and the
Jandarma (paramilitary rural police)),Justice, and Labor;
the Directorate General for Social Services and Child
Protection; and the Directorate General on the Status and
Problems of Women. The MFA serves as national coordinator
for the government's task force on human trafficking.


C. (U) Turk Telecom and the GoT began operation in May 2005
of a new toll-free hotline number, 157, for victims of
trafficking. Operators who speak Russian, Romanian, English
and Turkish man the hotline 24 hours a day, seven days a
week. Interestingly, 74 percent of the calls that have come
into the hotline are from friends and clients of trafficked
women.

In conjunction with the hotline, the IOM launched an
international trafficking campaign in June 2005 which
promoted prevention of TIP across the Black Sea region. In
addition to the USD 600,000 funding from the USG, the GoT
contributed USD 100,000.

In Turkey, authorities distributed small passport inserts to
travelers entering the country at key border crossings.
Turkish consulates also handed out the inserts to visa
applicants in source countries. The passport inserts

publicized the hotline and included warning signs of
trafficking. Billboards in major sea ports and regional
airports in Turkey, Moldova and Ukraine also advertised the
hotline. Television commercials publicizing the number ran
on channels in all three countries. The campaign also
included stepped up training for law enforcement, and
medical, psychological and direct assistance to trafficked
individuals.

Using the balance of the USD 700,000, the IOM launched a
second trafficking awareness campaign entitled "Have You Seen
My Mother?" in February 2006. At the heart of the campaign
is a 30-second commercial, filmed in Moldova with four
Moldovan children, asking where their mothers are because the
children miss them. It appeals to the Turkish strong sense
of family and especially to potential clients. Poster space
was donated by the Istanbul, Ankara, Trabzon, Antalya, and
Izmir municipalities, as well as by airport authorities in
Istanbul, Trabzon and Antalya.

The Turkish Jandarma printed an extra 150,000 copies of their
TIP brochures entitled, "The Struggle Against Human
Trafficking," which they distributed to police precincts and
citizens nationwide. Fifty thousand were published in
English, 50,000 in Russian and the balance in Turkish. In
2004, the Jandarma had printed and distributed 9,000
brochures. The brochures outline what trafficking is, how to
recognize a trafficked person, and what to do if someone is
trafficked. They are targeted to potential victims, as well
as potential clients and the general public.


D. (U) While there are no specific programs to prevent
trafficking in Turkey, the GoT does support programming to
keep children in school. UNICEF and the Ministry of
Education teamed up for the "Haydi Kizlar Okula" (Let's go to
school, girls) campaign across the country. The goal of the
campaign was to close the gender-gap in primary school
enrollment.

The "Kardelenler" (snowdrop flower) scholarship campaign
received heavy support from PM Erdogan's wife, Emine.
Turkcell and the Association to Support Contemporary Life
provided 5,000 scholarships to girls in 41 provinces last
year to allow them to attend school.

With a USD 6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor,
in September 2005 the Turkish Ministries of Labor and
Education, the International Labor Organization and IMPAQ
International launched a project combating exploitive child
labor through education in Turkey. Objectives of the project
include raising awareness of the importance of education for
all children and improving and mobilizing a wide array of
actors to improve and expand educational infrastructures;
strengthening formal and transitional education systems that
encourage working children and those at risk of working to
attend school; strengthen national institutions and policies
on education and child labor; and ensuring the long-term
sustainability of these efforts.

The GoT played host to a conference in February 2006
organized within the framework of the Democracy Assistance
Dialogue (DAD) to develop an action platform to increase the
role of women in public life in the region. This was a
follow-on to a June 2005 DAD symposium also held in Turkey.


F. (SBU) According to IOM Turkey Chief of Mission
Lindstrom, relations between IOM and government officials are
limited by design; it is not the same relationship as NGOs
have with source country officials. She lamented, as did

HRDF and FWS members, that there was not more financial
support. But, she added, both the Ankara and Istanbul
municipalities have provided shelters and even paid many of
the utilities. In addition, municipalities around the
country have posted advertisements for the "Have You Seen My
Mother?" public awareness campaign.

HRDF and FWS are pleased with the cooperation of law
enforcement contacts. Gulsen Ak of FWS was also impressed
with the medical care victims receive, though she wished
doctors would send a larger batch of medicine back with
victims, instead of making them return frequently to the
health care facility. She is confident that the Ministry of
Health will remedy the situation.


G. (SBU) According to the MFA's Ozlem Kural, the GoT does
not monitor immigration and emigration patterns for evidence
of trafficking. Kural indicated, however, that a border
management action plan will be written in 2006. Passport
inserts advertising the 157 hotline continue to be
distributed at points of entry, including the Istanbul,
Trabzon and Antalya airports and the Istanbul and Trabzon
seaports.


H. (U) Ambassador Derya Kanbay, Director General for
Consular Affairs at the Turkish MFA, spearheads the GoT's
anti-trafficking initiatives, and is the National Coordinator
for the GoT's Counter Trafficking Task Force. Akif Ayhan is
Taskforce Deputy Director. The Taskforce, chaired by the MFA
since its establishment in 2002, is composed of
representatives from the Ministries of Health, Interior,
Justice, and Labor, plus the Directorate General for Social
Services and Child Protection, and the Directorate General on
the Status and Problems of Women, State Planning
Organization, Office of the Prime Minister-Human Rights
Presidency, IOM, HRDF, FWS, as well as Ankara and
Metropolitan Municipalities.

The Government also participates in anti-trafficking
initiatives through the OSCE, the Southeast European
Cooperative Initiative (SECI),the Council on Europe, NATO,

the International Center for Migration Policy Development,
Interpol, Europol, the Berne Initiative, the Budapest
Process, the Global Commission on International Migration and
Core Group of States, the Issyk-Kul Dialogue, the European
Committee on Migration, CIREFI, MEDA, and the Stability Pact
Task Force on Trafficking in Human Beings. During the past
year, the Government expanded bilateral and multilateral
protocols with neighboring countries and regional groups to
encompass anti-trafficking law enforcement agreements,
including cooperation protocols with Georgia in March 2005
and Ukraine in June 2005, Moldova in February 2006, as well
as signing a Readmission Agreement with Ukraine in June 2005.
A similar protocol will be signed with Kyrgyzstan in March

2006.

The Prime Ministry Public Employees Ethics Board, established
in 2004, monitors all public employees, with the exception of
the President, parliamentarians, ministers, armed forces
members, the judiciary and university employees.


J. (U) The Taskforce recommended and the government adopted
a National Action Plan for TIP in March 2003. All members
(including NGOs) of the Taskforce were involved in developing
the action plan. The 2003 action plan has been disseminated.
A new action plan will be formulated with the conclusion of
a Twinning Project with Germany and Austria on "Strengthening
Institutions in the Fight Against Trafficking in Human
Beings."

WILSON