Human Trafficking in Russia - Human Trafficking

Human Trafficking

In 2009, the International Labor Organization reported that forced labor is the most predominant form of trafficking in Russia. Men, women and children from Russia and from other countries - such as Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, and Moldova - are subjected to conditions of debt bondage and forced labor, including in the construction industry, in textile shops, and in the agricultural and fishing sectors. An estimated 40,000 men and women from North Korea are subjected to conditions of forced labor in Russia. Women and children from Nigeria, Central Asia, Ukraine, and Moldova are subjected to forced prostitution and forced begging in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Men from Western Europe and the United States travel to Western Russia, specifically St. Petersburg, for the purpose of child sex tourism. The number of child trafficking victims in these cities is decreasing; experts credit this to aggressive police investigations and Russian cooperation with foreign law enforcement.

The North Korean regime provides contract labor for logging camps operated by North Korean companies in the Russian Far East. There are allegations that this labor is exploitative, specifically that the North Korean government and North Korean companies keep up to 85 percent of the wages paid to the workers and that workers’ movement is controlled. Although there have been instances in which government officials were investigated, prosecuted, and convicted for trafficking in recent years, allegations of widespread complicity persist.