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Azerbaijan to open rehabilitation centers for human trafficking victims

22 August 2014 08:58 (UTC+04:00)
Azerbaijan to open rehabilitation centers for human trafficking victims

By Victoria Moiseyeva

Human trafficking is a crime against us as a human beings which may dramatically changes our fate.

This awful crime affects thousands of men, women and children every year in their own countries and abroad. Human trafficking affects almost every country in the world, whether as a country of origin, transit or destination for the victims.

Azerbaijani Ministry of Labor and Social Protection plans to take an action plan to create several centers of rehabilitation, social services and assistance, including shelters for trafficking victims.

Appropriate measures will be taken to help these individuals in legal, medical, psychological fields.

Also the Ministry plans to develop proposals to reduce the cases of human trafficking in an effort to enhance social and legal protection of children and women belonging to vulnerable groups.

These activities are reflected in "The National Action Plan on Combating Human Trafficking in Azerbaijan in 2014-2018", approved by a presidential decree on July 24.

The action plan is aimed at ensuring adoption of measures to combat human trafficking, improving normative framework and institutional mechanisms, increasing the efficiency of mutual activity of state bodies and ensuring implementation of Azerbaijan's international obligations in this sphere.

Recently, the U.S. Department of State has published its annual report on the fight against human trafficking. The report analyzes the situation in 187 countries divided into four groups.

Azerbaijan was included into the second group.

Along with Azerbaijan, the second group included such countries as Georgia, Estonia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkey.

The U.S. State Department also said that Azerbaijan's government has made some progress to protect and assist the victims of trafficking.

"Azerbaijan's 2005 Law on the Fight against Trafficking in Persons and Article 144 of the criminal code prohibit sex trafficking and forced labor, and prescribe penalties of five to 15 years' imprisonment, punishments which are sufficiently stringent and commensurate with those prescribed for other serious crimes, such as raping," the report said.

In April and May 2013, the government amended Article 144 of the criminal code to bring it in line with international laws, by removing cross-86 border transport as a necessary element of the crime, increasing penalties for forced labor, clarifying that means of force, fraud, or coercion need not be demonstrated to prove the crime of sex trafficking of children, and establishing criminal liability for identity document fraud if committed for the purpose of trafficking in persons.

Azerbaijani Center for Assistance to Victims of Human Trafficking provided assistance to 21 victims and 12 potential victims of human trafficking between January and May, according to Azerbaijani Interior Ministry.

The number of human trafficking cases in Azerbaijan was rising prior to 2009, but it has been decreasing since then.

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