CIS ministers approve programme to fight human trafficking at Tajiks

CIS ministers approve programme to fight human trafficking at Tajik summit

ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow
21 Apr 06

Dushanbe, 21 April: The CIS Council of Interior Ministers has approved
a programme of the CIS member states on cooperation in the fight
against human trafficking for 2007-2010. The Council meetings are
being held in Dushanbe.

“We have laid down specific legal, organizational and practical
measures in this programme,” Russian Interior Minister Rashid
Nurgaliyev has told journalists at the end of the meeting. He expressed
confidence that “the approval of this document will substantially
boost the joint work in this direction”.

[Passage omitted: he said that human trafficking was a matter of
great concern across the CIS states]

Nurgaliyev said that the Russian Interior Ministry was carrying out
a set of measures to fight these types of crimes. “These measures
include the analysis of the crime situation; ensuring required
migration control; the organization of the work to prevent the
sexual exploitation of minors; and most importantly, conducting
special operations to thwart the activities of criminal groups and
organizations that are active in this area,” he said.

As an example of successful cooperation in the fight against such
crimes with CIS partners, he cited an operation [conducted] with the
Armenian police to thwart the activities of an international criminal
group that was involved in trafficking young women from Armenia,
Russia and Moldova to Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, where they
were forced to work as prostitutes. “Six girls who had already been
prepared for trafficking abroad were freed during the operation,”
Nurgaliyev said.