Trafficking in human beings in Georgia and the CIS

Demokratizatsiya, Summer 2001 by Glonti, Georgi

* difficulties of economic development of the region; Georgia is one of the poorest countries in the world;

* interethnic wars and increased levels of violence and criminality; there were three regional and more that fifteen local ethnic conflicts in Georgia in the last ten years;

* unprecedented waves of emigration that have rapidly increased during the last ten years; Georgia, with a population of five million, has lost between 650,000 and one million citizens; there are up to 250,000 refugees in Georgia;4

* lack of social institutions and low legal literacy of the population.

The government of post-Soviet Georgia has been unable to control or regulate complicated social and demographic problems. That has created the basis for the appearance of criminal syndicates, an industry of illegal emigration, trade of human beings, and pornography.

My research, and that of the Institute of Legal Reforms of Georgia, shows that the following types of criminal exploitation of human beings, which can be considered trafficking, took place in Georgia: involvement in prostitution (buying and selling young women for brothels and strip clubs) and pornographic materials; forced or fictitious "mail-order" marriages; illegal exploitation of people in forced labor and slavery-like practices; trade of human organs, biological components, and blood; illegal trade of children.

Georgia's role in the massive exportation of women and children to the Near East, Greece, and other countries is anything but small. At the present time, legislators in many of the CIS countries, including Georgia, have begun modest attempts at realizing a legislative base with which to fight human trafficking. There are problems in Georgian legislation pertaining to the definition of human trafficking. The term "human trafficking" cannot be directly translated into Georgian; therefore, the term adamianit vachroba has been chosen. This term has a much broader meaning and is translated as "the selling of people." It can mean any illegal activity connected to the buying and selling of people with the goal of obtaining a profit. It includes more than the exporting of people abroad; for example, crimes connected with kidnapping, demanding ransom for a bride, "the kidnapping of the bride," and others. To synchronize the meaning of adamianit vachroba and human trafficking for the sake of international documents, it is necessary to look at the terms in a narrower legal sense.

Scholars at the Georgian Institute for State and Law Academy of Science recommended defining the term in criminal/legal practice as "the kidnapping, force or deceit of victims with the aim of exporting and selling them abroad for use of sexual services, pornography and/or for hard or dangerous labor." This definition coincides with the accepted definition used in international practice.5 In Georgia's Criminal Code, crimes connected with human trafficking are included under the article "Involvement in Prostitution," which includes forcing or inducing women to systematically market their bodies.