KAZAKHSTAN: MEDIA REPORTS ON HUMAN TRAFFICKING CASES FOR

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 ASTANA 000165 SIPDIS STATE FOR INL/AAE, G/TIP, SCA/CEN (O'MARA) E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV SOCI KCRM RU UZ KZ SUBJECT: KAZAKHSTAN: MEDIA REPORTS ON HUMAN TRAFFICKING CASES FOR THE SECOND HALF OF 2008 ASTANA 00000165 001.2 OF 003 ¶1. SUMMARY: The following is a summary of local media reports on human trafficking cases in Kazakhstan from July to December 2008. END SUMMARY. LABOR EXPLOITATION ¶2. December 2, Kazakhstanskaya Pravda: In October, an oblast-level court in Karaganda increased a lower court's sentence from a one-year, suspended sentence to 10 years in prison. The defendant was convicted of kidnapping a resident of Abai in 2000 and, for almost eight years, forcing him to work on a farm and tend cattle. The victim escaped and reported his imprisonment to police. During the course of the investigation, the victim received assistance from the police as part of the national program on the protection of participants in criminal trials. The defendant's two brothers threatened the victim. The police provided him with an apartment during the investigation. ¶3. November 13, Interfax: Police officers in Kulsary, Atyrau oblast in western Kazakhstan, freed a family of Uzbek migrant workers held on a farm for one and a half years. The workers were sold to a local farmer for approximately $80. After two members of the family, the 47-year-old father and a 10-year-old son, escaped, police found them at a railway station. The family reported that they had been beaten and that a 16-year-old son was still being held on the farm. A criminal case has been opened against the farmer. ¶4. August 27, Liter: A judge in Karaganda dismissed a labor exploitation case after the 36-year victim and his captors "reconciled their differences." The victim was reportedly chained in a backyard, severely beaten, fed bread once a day, and forced to work chopping wood for an outdoor cafe. The court did not question the reconciliation, despite the fact that the victim still bears the scars of the beatings he received at the hands of the two defendants. Though the police expressed frustration with the dismissal, the court was unable to proceed without the testimony of the victim. ¶5. August 16, Express-K: An operation conducted in the South Kazakhstan oblast targeting businesses employing teenagers in physically difficult or harmful conditions resulted in the filing of criminal cases against the owners of bakeries, cafes, and gas stations. Prosecutors reported that the worst conditions were in car washes, where minors worked up to 10 hours in water during cold weather for very low salaries. In bakeries, teenagers worked in a variety of jobs while breathing in natural gas used to heat clay ovens. Inspectors found that all the teenagers working in the bakeries were from Uzbekistan. SEXUAL EXPLOITATION ¶6. November 17, Liter and Interfax: Eight women from Uzbekistan forced to work as prostitutes were released from a brothel in Zhibek-Zholy, South Kazakhstan oblast. The brothel in which the women were held was discovered during an inspection by prosecutors and police during a joint operation. The women are being housed by the police until they testify at trial. ¶7. September 26, Karavan: In Karaganda, a woman was arrested for a second time for forcing young girls (the ages were not reported) into prostitution. After her first conviction, she received a two-year suspended sentence, after which she continued doing business. She recruited girls at the railway station, offering housing and employment. When girls arrived at the brothel, their passports were taken away for "registration." At the time of the woman's arrest, police found three girls in her brothel. Each girl had been working in the brothel, on average, for a month and a half and reported receiving 10 of the $70 paid by customers. ¶8. August 25, Megapolis: A 19-year-old from Petropavlovsk in North Kazakhstan oblast offered two under-aged girls jobs as waitresses and baby sitters and brought them to an apartment where she lived with her boyfriend. The couple then forced the girls to work as prostitutes. In June 2008, the woman was arrested after receiving $50 from a client at a sauna where she delivered one of the girls. She had been in business since March 2007. Criminal charges were filed against the woman for pimping and trafficking in minors; the boyfriend disappeared and is being sought by police. ASTANA 00000165 002.4 OF 003 ¶9. August 13, Interfax, Megapolis, Vremya, Express-K: Police in Almaty arrested two women on suspicion of pimping and organizing a brothel. According to police, a 23-year-old resident of Ust-Kamenogorsk, the administrative centre of East Kazakhstan oblast, called police to report that she and six other girls were being held in an apartment and being forced to work as prostitutes. During the search, police discovered a cellar where the girls were kept for a year. One of the freed girls said that she had been promised a job as a waitress for $500 a month. Other girls told similar stories. Only three agreed to file criminal charges. The madam insisted that she was only the cook and did not know why the girls were kept in the cellar. Police detained the actual cook, who had worked in the brothel for five years feeding the girls once a day. ¶10. August 13, Liter: Police arrested members of a Kazakhstani-Uzbek criminal group that trafficked 15 women, including one minor, from Uzbekistan to Kazakhstan for purposes of sexual exploitation. The victims were held in an apartment in Almaty after being offered jobs as waitresses. Police arrested a 23-year-old woman from Uzbekistan, who was a cashier, and two Kazakhstani pimps. Police are still searching for a Kazakhstani woman who worked as a recruiter. ¶11. August 7, Interfax, Express-K: Brothels in which twenty-three women and three minors from Uzbekistan had been working were closed by police in Almaty. The brothels were owned by a 29-year-old woman from South Kazakhstan oblast who was under surveillance for approximately one month until police found the two one-room apartments used as brothels. Thirteen women from Uzbekistan were found in each apartment and none had identification documents. The madam started doing business in 2006 and recruited only women from Uzbekistan. A criminal case was initiated. ¶12. August 6, BBC Monitoring Central Asia: On March 26, police in Uzbekistan arrested a criminal group trafficking women from Uzbekistan to Kazakhstan. The head of the group worked with two accomplices to drug five women and sell them to two Kazakhstanis for $250 each. Once in Kazakhstan, the women were forced to work as prostitutes. An investigation is on-going. ¶13. July 4, Karavan: Police in Almaty discovered an injured 16-year-old girl on the sidewalk outside of an apartment building. She reported that she had been held against her will, forced to work as a prostitute, and tortured for several months. The girl had come to Almaty from a small village in East Kazakhstan oblast looking for work. Her mother had died three years earlier and she had no other family. She took a job in a small, local canteen but was soon fired. A fellow villager promised her a good job in Almaty and brought her to stay with friends, a married couple with a three-year-old child. The girl was then informed that she had been purchased for $500. She was forced to work as a prostitute, receiving seven clients a day for $100 each. She was also made to clean the house, do laundry, cook, and care for the child. One night when she failed to hear the child cry, the mother poured boiling water on the girl's back, resulting in third-degree burns. When the girl tried to escape, she was shown video of a previous girl's fingers being chopped off for trying to escape. The girl jumped from the fifth floor and broke her back. A criminal case was opened and an investigation was conducted haphazardly. The girl was later moved out of Almaty by an NGO and police closed the investigation for insufficient evidence. CHILD PORNOGRAPHY ¶14. November 12, Interfax: A Kazakhstani woman, arrested on theft charges in Rudnyi, was discovered to be subject of a Russian warrant for using her children to produce pornographic films. In 1998, the woman, her boyfriend, and two children went to Moscow for work, where she gave birth to three more children. Russian police uncovered evidence that she, her boyfriend, and other friends produced pornographic films with her five children, ranging in age from two to ten. The woman is currently in a Kazakhstani jail and police are searching for her boyfriend. (NOTE: Because this is an ongoing case, the police are unable to release information to Post. Press reports include no information on whether or when the woman will be extradited to Russia. END NOTE.) ASTANA 00000165 003.4 OF 003 HOAGLAND