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342 crimes related to human trafficking recorded in Azerbaijan this year

30 October 2008 09:19 (UTC +04:00)

This is 119 facts more compared with 2007. 68 of them were committed under the article on human trafficking of the Criminal Code. 315 perpetrators were held accountable for their actions,â€ says the report prepared for the parliament by the National Coordinator Combating Human Trafficking, APA reports. The report will be presented at the next sitting of the parliament. According to the report, 72 people were identified as the victims of human trafficking, almost all of them are women. The report says that 41 (52 percent) out of 79 wanted people were arrested, including 6 by Interpol, 38 criminal groups were rendered harmless.
The report says Azerbaijanâ€™s falling down â€œsecond groupâ€ of the control list as said in the report of the US Department of State for 2007 is unclear.
â€œThe sources cited in the report, assessment criteria are surprising. Investigations show that the items pointed out in the document based on subjective opinion, biased position of some nongovernmental organizations having little experience in preventing human trafficking do not reflect the reality.â€
More active and purposeful measures were taken for prevention and clearing of such latent crimes in 2007 and appropriate work indications had dynamic developing character, it said. â€œ27 facts of human trafficking and 86 victims were identified in 2006 and these figures were successively 74 and 101 in 2007. This year 68 facts of crime and 71 victims were identified. It shows effectiveness and improvement of measures taken against the illegal actions, improvement of professionalism of the staff and establishing purposeful and correct cooperation with the non-governmental organizations.
Identification of more victims is a result of systematic struggle against the human trafficking. It was reported that most of 48 people taken refuge reintegrated into the society later and 7 of them were provided with employment and 3 were sent to the vocational courses and 9 victims were compensated materially via the court decisions. â€œ41 people suffered from the human trafficking received compensations during the reintegration periodâ€.
The coordinator reported that it was considered to establish NGO network for combating the human trafficking and setting the new â€œTraffickingâ€ web-site. â€œConsultation over the establishing of National Directive Mechanisms for the victims of human trafficking are held now and at the same time we are working with the Azerbaijani Presidentâ€™s Office to prepare a new National Action Planâ€.