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

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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.

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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.)

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HOAGLAND