A 25-year-old woman from one of the regional centers of Minsk voblast was sentenced to five years imprisonment with confiscation of property for recruitment and trafficking of women from Belarus to Turkey for forced labor. According to investigators, the defendant received from accomplices in a crime more than $1.6 thousand for the recruitment and trafficking of Belarusians to Turkey.
According to the Belarusian prosecutor, the accused has got married to a Turkish citizen and has left for her husband’s home place. There she has arranged the supply of Belarusian girls. From November 2009 to March 2010, she was picking up low-income girls in Minsk and one of the regional centers and under various pretexts, including deception, was trying to convince them to go to Turkey for employment in high-paying jobs, BelTA informs.
With the girls’ consent, women sent them in Istanbul, paid expenses, including the purchase of tickets. Upon arrival in Turkey, the defendant handed the girls to the accomplices’ gang — the owners and employees of the nightclub, who subjected the victims to forced labor exploitation. Women were continuously supervised, not allowed going out and taking clients’ money, threatened and beaten, forced to consummation, while all the money was taken away.
In mid-April 2010 two victims, driven to desperation, appealed to the Belarusian embassy in Turkey, after which they were helped to return home. The remaining victims have returned to Belarus on their own at the end of tourist visas, or were expelled from Turkey after being detained by police in connection with illegal labor activities in Turkey.
The court proved seven episodes of recruitment by the convicted. She is charged with attempted trafficking human beings in respect of six other women, as they did not agree to her proposal and for this reason the crime was not brought to the very end.
