Traffic

Graphic from the "Tu nu esti marfa" ("You are not chattel") ad campaign,
developed by IOM and sponsored by, among others, USAID

A friend emailed me this link to a rather moving slideshow with audio about women who have been trafficked into prostitution from Moldova. This made me think about doing a more comprehensive post on the subject, but what I've wound up with is more like just a collection of links.

Natalia Antonova had a post recently dealing with some of the issues surrounding trafficking and prostitution in the former Soviet space.

The movie Lilya 4-ever does not deal specifically with Moldova but is about the trafficking of women from post-Soviet countries and is so good that it's even been screened by NGOs in an effort to deter young women from naively going abroad with perfect strangers. I've seen it and can recommend it.

This page appears to summarize much of the information about trafficking and anti-trafficking activity in Moldova, though it doesn't appear to have been updated for a couple of years. In 2003, this BBC article described Moldova as "Europe's human trafficking hub," and in 2004 RFE/RL wrote about young rural women being "vulnerable to human trafficking." Organizations that work on this issue (among others) are the Polaris Project and La Strada.

The OSCE Mission to Moldova's website has a page which includes pdfs of major anti-trafficking legislation and other reports on the issue. Jonathan at The Head Heeb has also blogged about some of the legal efforts to combat trafficking. The OSCE's page on trafficking also links to the Moldovan anti-trafficking and gender network, which has a page with a number of reports on the subject and has a profile of the problem in Moldova:

Poverty, inadequate public services, high levels of unemployment, discrimination against women, and domestic violence are among the main factors making Moldova a major country of origin for trafficking in human beings. According to recent data, around 420,000 Moldovans are currently abroad, primarily prompted to leave the country due to economic decline. However, of the Moldovans living abroad, no reliable data on the total number of trafficked persons is available given the multi-faceted nature of the crime and the absence of a standard identification procedure. None the less, information from countries of destination confirms a prominent number of Moldovan citizens among the identified trafficked persons.

From January 2000 to 31 December 2004, the total number of Moldovan nationals assisted as victims of trafficking by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) was 1633. Most Moldovan victims are women and children trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation, although a number of men have also been trafficked for forced labour and begging. Children are trafficked for sexual exploitation and begging.

The IOM reports that Moldovan victims have been trafficked to some 32 destination countries in Western Europe, South Eastern Europe, the Middle East, the former Soviet Union, including primarily Russia, and the United States. In 2004, the destination countries included Turkey (45%), South Eastern Europe (18%), the Middle East (15%), Russia (11%), and Western Europe (8%). Thus, the number of trafficked persons returning to Moldova, especially from the Western Balkans, is slowly declining, whilst the number of trafficked women returning from Turkey and Russia is increasing. There is also more information about trafficking from Moldova to Israel and the Middle East, as well as more evidence of children being trafficked to Russia.

Here's another older article from a Moldovan newspaper (in Russian), which purports to be based on an interview with a woman who was trafficked to Israel - the story is interesting because it goes into some detail about the long and winding path that groups of women often take to get to their destination abroad.

Blogger Mihai Moscovici wrote about the "Tu Nu Esti Marfa" anti-trafficking ad campaign in section 4.1 of his university thesis (in Romanian); the campaign was also covered by Newsweek at its peak back in 2002.

Russia-Georgia and the WTO - the view from cyxymu

I've translated a post by cyxymu, apropos of Russia easing some of the visa restrictions on Georgians (possibly related to Georgia's role in Russia's WTO accession). Having a visa regime is an unusual situation between Russia and a former Soviet republic; however, it's been the situation - with occasional talk of easing the requirement - for Georgians and Russians since around 2000, and has been an element of Russia's support for the secessionist areas of Georgia as well as - more recently - a representation of increased tensions between the two countries. Now it looks like Russia will allow certain categories of Georgians to receive visas:

Only a naive person could believe that the Russian authorities decided to loosen the visa blockade of Georgia just out of kindness. No, with this action the they wanted to sweeten the arrival of the delegation from Russia to negotiate Russia's WTO accession. The blockade is the stick, and the issuance of visas to certain groups of Georgian citizens is a small carrot.

However, Georgia, I think, will continue to insist on the legalization of all border checkpoints on the Russo-Georgian border. Recently Russia has illegally opened checkpoints on the [River] Psou and at the Roksk tunnel, which Georgia has declared closed some time ago. And Georgia demands that Georgian customs officers occupy these checkpoints.

One other disagreement is the Russian ban on the import of Georgian Borzhomi [mineral water] and Georgian wines, based on trumped-up reasons. How can Georgia agree to Russia's WTO accession without the resolution of these problems? I don't think Georgia will agree.

I of course do not intend to suggest that WTO membership is so necessary to the Russian people, but it is necessary for the oligarchs, and therefore for Putin, and he pressures Georgia to admit Russia to the WTO because his oligarchs are losing nearly a billion dollars a year.

Cyxymu is probably the most-read and most commented on blog about Abkhazia. It's written,
I believe, by a refugee (or, rather, internally displaced person) from the conflict. The blog's full title is "Memories of Sukhumi, the war, and pain," which gives you some idea of its focus, although recently the author has written a bit about the conflict in South Ossetia as well. It often has photos of Sukhumi and other places in Abkhazia, along with reminiscences from the blog's author or others in the comments section, and it has a consistent community of readers/commenters who guarantee a lively dialogue and often add their own very interesting information about goings-on in Abkhazia.

One of the topics raised in the comments to the post I translated above - and sure to have been discussed in the WTO accession talks - is the Russian ban on Georgian wine and mineral water imports.

Tbilisi, Georgia, August 13, 2006