Conditions “ideal” for female trafficking

Acute poverty and economic hardship are fuelling a growing illegal business in the trafficking of Tajik women. Last year, an estimated 1,000 Tajik women, mainly young girls, were deceived, duped or blackmailed into prostitution and bonded labour and sent mainly to Russia and the United Arab Emirates.

“The situation in Tajikistan is ideal for trafficking, UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) Coordinator for Tajikistan Nouchine Yavari-D’Hellencourt told IRIN. “Everything is there to draw young females into prostitution rings or drug trafficking,” she said. Given the harsh conditions at home, Tajik women are increasingly ready to accept work in foreign countries and take the risk. “They are never completely naïve, but many hope that they won’t end up in prostitution,” she said, adding that others had become resigned to prostitution in Dushanbe and reasoned that they might as well do it somewhere else and earn more money. “But they don’t know how exploited and used they are going to be,” she said.

Many Tajik women were so poor they were “ready to do anything in order to find a solution to survive”, Yavari-D’Hellencourt said. According to UNDP, 80 percent of Tajiks live under the poverty line, earning less than US $12 a month. In such economic distress, women are extremely vulnerable to those offering lucrative salaries as domestic helpers or shop attendants abroad. Female orphans, who had to leave state institutions at 17, were particularly vulnerable and an obvious target for traffickers, she said.

Used to relying on large extended family support networks, Tajiks were especially susceptible to being duped by traffickers posing as friendly acquaintances. “It doesn’t seem strange to them when someone who they’ve met a few times comes to them and says they will help their daughter - usually by offering to help her pursue studies outside of the country,” said Yavari-D’Hellencourt.

Recent surveys had uncovered numerous inventive methods of deception and blackmail used to entrap unsuspecting women.

UNIFEM and local women’s NGOs are doing what they can. Yavari-D’Hellencourt said that once they had grasped the gravity of the problem through ongoing seminars with local women, they embarked on an awareness raising campaign. A jointly produced pamphlet entitled “Sincere Talk” became the first public document on the subject. Published in Russian and Tajik, it warned women of the dangers posed by traffickers. “Before this, not only were people scared to talk about it, but they were afraid of [reprisals from] the trafficking networks,” she said.

As in other Central Asian republics, illegal trafficking has spawned an entire support industry, involving soliciting new victims, newspaper advertising, and organising fake passport and travel arrangements.
Conscious of the vested interests, UNIFEM and NGO partners have opted to take a low-key approach. Instead of a mass-media campaign, they advocate directly with Tajik parliamentarians, police and judicial officials, local journalists and at-risk women.

So far 3,000 copies of “Sincere Talk” have been distributed, providing women with frank information they otherwise would not have access to. Yavari-D’Hellencourt maintained it had brought the subject into the public domain. “Once the topic was out in the open, we had a sudden surge of interest, especially from international groups such as the International Organisation of Migration (IOM), the Organisation for Security in Central Europe (OSCE) and the US embassy,” she said. Last year, IOM initiated a detailed study of illegal trafficking from Tajikistan. Due to be released in the coming weeks, the report will contribute to a better understanding of the phenomenon and explore options as to how it can be countered.