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Trafficking in Georgia, part 2

February 19, 2004

Trafficking in Georgia

In the parlance of human trafficking, Georgia was a “tier 3” country, meaning the worst possible record, where trafficking flourishes and is not obstructed, until the middle of last year. This is not because huge numbers of people are trafficked in Georgia, but rather because the government does little or nothing to stop it. Last year, Georgia’s status was upgraded to “tier 2”, which had less to do with significant changes in the Georgian legal system or trafficking conditions in the country, and more to do with outside countries like the U.S. not wanting to make Georgia look bad.

According to Marc Hulst, representative of the IOM (International Organization for Migration) in Georgia, the Georgian government tends to react to interest in specific issues raised by other countries, especially regarding human trafficking, as the lack of coordination between government agencies and the lack of incentive to act means that legislative and/or enforcement action is driven mostly by complaints rather than by independent governmental initiative. Currently, trafficking is addressed both by the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of the Interior, which has a specific counter-trafficking department.


For obvious reasons, reliable statistics on illegal human trafficking are difficult to obtain. It is known that most people being trafficked are women, who are often forced into prostitution. However, men are also victims of trafficking. In fact, more men than women are trafficked from Georgia into Russia, primarily to work as migrant laborers. Turkey and Greece are also frequent trafficking destinations for Georgian men. Greece is especially popular as a destination for Georgians seeking employment abroad because a relatively large diaspora population already lives there.

Essentially, human traffickers are simply obeying the basic law of supply and demand. A demand in Turkey or Western Europe exists for prostitutes or cheap manual labor, which enterprising traffickers attempt to fill by luring victims with promises of legitimate employment. These victims often use the services of a company that promises to obtain a visa for them to work in a foreign country from which visas are difficult or impossible to obtain legally.
Sometimes the illegal business only involves procuring fraudulent visas, and the clients are on their own to actually find work once they arrive in the foreign country. For example, a person might pay a firm to get them a visa to Greece. The person then gets into a bus heading to Turkey or Russia and hopes they arrive safely. More often, the businesses arrange both visas and employment abroad. However, instead of being employed as an au pair or waitress as promised, women are frequently forced into prostitution or slave labor in factories. Men are often paid much less than promised, and forced to toil long hours in poor working conditions. Both men and women frequently have their passports taken by their captors immediately upon arrival in the foreign country, making it difficult for them to escape. 


In addition to being a country of origin for victims of human trafficking, Georgia is also a popular transit country, through which young women from Russia and the Ukraine often pass on their way to Turkey to work as prostitutes.
The porous border between Russia and South Ossetia is a frequent point of entry and exit for traffickers into and out of Georgia. Corruption and bribery are rampant in Georgia, which was recently ranked as the 3rd most corrupt country in the world, behind only Bangladesh and Nigeria. Bribery is theoretically even easier on the border between South Ossetia and Russia than at other borders, as the influence of a central government in the area is much weaker, and economic conditions are even worse, meaning guards are more likely to accept bribes and less likely to report illegal activity. Less is known about trafficking in Abkhazia, although Abkhazians have been known to work as very low-paid migrant labor in southern Russia.


Currently, the largest organization working to combat the problem of human trafficking in Georgia is the IOM. The IOM in Georgia maintains and updates information as it becomes available regarding specific organizations offering customers visas and employment abroad. By interviewing people who have returned to Georgia about their experiences abroad, and comparing the actual experiences with what the employment organizations had promised, legitimate organizations can be distinguished from traffickers. However, organizations that are fronts for illegal trafficking often change their names and addresses, making it more difficult to warn potential clients away from their services. The IOM operates a hotline, which offers a variety of services to interested callers, including information about specific employment organizations, when available.

Hulst warns Georgians seeking employment abroad that while some employment organizations are perfectly legitimate, most are acting illegally in some way, either by committing visa fraud or by actually engaging in human trafficking, or both.

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