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Zahir Amanov

To Iran – to collective oral sex...

Love in slavery

By Khadija Ismayilova

"We were told that you can make a lot of money in Ganja. We came to Azerbaijan with Medina. We had three or four clients a day in Ganja, but did not get paid."
Two girls who had fallen victim to trafficking, which is also called "white slavery", were sent to Kyrgyzstan on Thursday night. Asel, 16, and Maria, 14, were brought to Baku by Medina Aliyeva on 28 January and then sent to Ganja, where they were used as prostitutes.
Family business
The girls spent two months in the house of Medina Aliyeva's sister, Ziyafat. According to the girls themselves, Nasib, the husband of Medina Aliyeva's other sister, Afag Jabbarova, used to take them to the clients. Some of the clients were young and others old. Asel once returned home having turned down a client who, she said, was over 60. The manager of the brothel reproached her for that. After that, the girls did not dare to do that. "We spent all nights with clients at the hotel and came 'home' to take a sleep in the morning. If there was a morning client, we were woken up for a 'five-minute job'. This is how the girls call short services in the mornings," the girls say. The price of the services depended on the client and varied from 100,000 manats to 100 dollars. There was a case when a client paid 300 US dollars. But the girls did not get the money. The sum was divided between Medina's older sisters, Ziyafat and Afag. Medina herself was given 500 US dollars for every girl.
The right to choose? Not in slavery.
On one of the evenings, the girls met four men from Baku at the hotel. Then they were told that the police were waiting for them at "home". It became clear afterwards that the visitors were employees of the Ministry of National Security who had traced the victims. The Baku office of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) had appealed to them. The office had taken action at the request of their colleagues from Bishkek. The girls' parents who knew about their contacts with the Ganja resident appealed to the IOM which sounded the alarm. In fact, this is the first case of international cooperation between the IOM and the law-enforcement agencies.
"The police would never arrest us. We often saw policemen at "home", but they did not react to the situation," the girls say.
After their salvation, the girls had a medical examination in Ganja. The Ganja policemen questioned them for 10 days. The girls who were liberated from slavery were brought to Baku where the Baku office of the IOM asked the centre for legal assistance to migrants to take care of them. In the capital, they were provided with a psychologist and given moral support.
Love in slavery
It is interesting that one of the girls, Asel, is not keen on returning to Bishkek. However, she does not want to go back "home" either. But in Ganja she liked a Turkish guy called B. who often used her services. She immediately notified the Turk of her whereabouts. And now the guy often calls her. Asel is sure that B. will marry her when she goes back to Ganja and will even buy her a flat in that city. But the girl's parents demand that she come back home, and the law-enforcement agencies and the IOM decided to send her back to Kyrgyzstan.
Maria wants to get back home as soon as she can because her parents will help her forget the whole horror of what she experienced.

The criminals are still at large
The Ganja City Police Department told Now! that Medina Aliyeva and her accomplices have not been arrested because they have little children. Only Medina Aliyeva and Afag Jabbarova have been brought to criminal accountability, but the investigation is continuing and the case is supplemented with new details all the time, the detective pointed out, requesting anonymity. According to the girls, traders and the hotel staff were related to this criminal network as well.
It must be noted that the women will not be brought to account for trafficking. They will be charged with involving women in prostitution through an organized network and with running a brothel (Article 243.2.2 and 244.2.1 of the Criminal Code). In any case, the Azerbaijani Criminal Code does not contain articles on trafficking. The only article - 106 - implies a punishment for slavery. However, the detective said, Medina Aliyeva and her accomplices will not be charged with that because the girls knew that they would be working as prostitutes. It emerges that the fact that the girls were sold (the victims said) for 500 US dollars and that they were forced to work as prostitutes does not count, although the Palermo protocol of 1951 joined by Azerbaijan and the convention on the fight against human trafficking and their sexual exploitation by third people (1949) give a clear description of the crime of trafficking. According to these documents, if a third person makes a profit from someone else's prostitution, this is regarded as trafficking.
According to the detective, cloths were bought for the girls with the money they had made, although the victims themselves deny this. It is notable that the victims themselves have to be present in Azerbaijan to clarify the details of the criminal case. But they were supposed to be sent to Bishkek on the night to Friday because, the investigator said, the girls' parents insist on their return home.
It remains to hope that the criminals will get the punishment they deserve. Taking account of the transnational nature of the crime and the increased attention of international organizations in this connection, the hopes for a swift punishment are increasing.
On the other hand, the case of Asel and Maria will hardly be able to change the situation when traffickers go unpunished. There are gaps in Azerbaijani legislation, which allow traffickers to avoid the punishment they deserve. However, it seems that the situation will change soon.
In the near future, the president is expected to sign a national action programme to fight human trafficking. Fuad Alasgarov, a department head at the presidential administration, said that a draft programme has already been prepared. It was presented last Wednesday and Thursday in Baku at a conference on cooperation in the sphere of fighting human trafficking, which is taking place under the slogan "No to modern slavery". Alasgarov stressed that the programme will become a "serious base" for fighting human trafficking. The programme also includes certain tasks to change legislation in order to bring it in line with international conventions.
"The transformation of world human trafficking into an uncontrollable industry necessitates international cooperation. It is necessary to develop preventive measures to prevent human trafficking from taking on a large scale," Alasgarov said. On the last day of the conference, MP Malahat Hasanova stated that the Milli Majlis will discuss changes to the Criminal Code in the spring session. The conference was also attended by representatives of the presidential administration, the Border Service, the Cabinet of Ministers, the Interior Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, NGOs, foreign diplomatic missions, the OSCE, the International Organization for Migration, the Council of Europe and the UN.