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Azerbaijan is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically conditions of forced labor and women and children in forced prostitution. Men and boys from Azerbaijan are subjected to conditions of forced labor in Russia. Women and children from Azerbaijan are subjected to forced prostitution in the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Russia, and Iran. Men from Azerbaijan are trafficked within Azerbaijan for the purpose of forced labor and women and children are trafficked internally for forced prostitution and forced labor, including forced begging. Azerbaijan serves as a transit country for women from Moldova, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan subjected to forced prostitution in Turkey and the UAE. The Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan serves as a transit point for women trafficked to Turkey for forced prostitution. Azerbaijan is a destination country for women from Ukraine, Moldova, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Russia subjected to forced prostitution. Azerbaijan is also a destination country for men and women from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedonia, and China subjected to conditions of forced labor, primarily in the construction industry.〔"Azerbaijan". (''Trafficking in Persons Report 2010'' ). U.S. Department of State (June 14, 2010). 〕 The Government of Azerbaijan does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. Despite these overall efforts, the government demonstrated exceptionally inadequate efforts to identify and assist a significant number of victims of forced labor and did not show evidence of progress in investigating, prosecuting, convicting, and punishing complicit officials; therefore, Azerbaijan was placed on Tier 2 Watch List in the 2007 U.S. Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report for the third consecutive year. Although the government adopted a national referral mechanism for victims of trafficking in August 2009 and approved a list of trafficking indicators in September 2009 to aid in victim identification, the government did not use these tools to identify and assist the approximately 496 victims associated with a case discovered in October 2009 in which men were held in forced labor in the construction industry. The government failed to identify any victims in this case, despite evidence that led others in the international community to determine this was a labor trafficking case, warranting the allocation of emergency funding for victim assistance. Although the government reported allocating $625,000 for victim assistance in 2009, none of this money was used to assist these victims of forced labor; as a result, the international community allocated its own funding to provide emergency assistance, including food and potable water, to several hundred victims.〔 ==Prosecution== The Government of Azerbaijan’s modest law enforcement improvements were overshadowed by its lack of political will to prosecute high-level organized crime and address allegations of government complicity in trafficking, including a case that identified more than 700 victims of forced labor in the fall of 2009. Azerbaijan’s 2005 Law on the Fight Against Trafficking in Persons prohibits both forced prostitution and forced labor, and prescribes penalties of five to 15 years’ imprisonment, punishments which are sufficiently stringent and commensurate with those prescribed for other serious crimes, such as rape. In 2009, the government reported conducting 80 trafficking investigations – including three forced labor investigations, compared with 66 investigations in 2008. Authorities prosecuted 76 trafficking cases, up from 61 trafficking prosecutions in 2008. The government convicted 62 trafficking offenders though February 2010, compared with 61 individuals convicted in 2008. Twenty-eight convicted offenders were issued sentences ranging from one to five years’ imprisonment, 15 offenders were issued sentences ranging from five to ten years’ imprisonment, one trafficker was sentenced to forced labor, and 18 persons were issued a suspended sentence and served no time in prison.〔 There were some reports that government officials were complicit in trafficking cases. The Ministry of Internal Affairs stated that it investigated all allegations of complicity in human trafficking but was unable to provide any data on these investigations. During the reporting period, the government did not prosecute, convict, or criminally punish any government officials for complicity in human trafficking, including forced labor. In the case involving Bosnian and Serbian citizens subjected to conditions of forced labor, investigators did not prevent the traffickers from unilaterally sending approximately 496 victim-witnesses home during the preliminary stages of the investigation, and to date no charges have been filed by the government in this case. There were continued reports that police officers controlled many saunas, motels, and massage parlors where forced prostitution occurred; however, the government again failed to vigorously investigate, prosecute, convict, and criminally punish these officials.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Human trafficking in Azerbaijan」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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