Tajik law enforcement authorities say they have arrested the 24-year-old woman from Dushanbe who trafficked a local woman to Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to the Interior Ministry’s website.
The woman in July 2016 promised the 23-year-old woman from Dushanbe in Dubai, but the woman she recruited was actually intended for practicing prostitution in Dubai.
Criminal proceedings have been instituted against the alleged human trafficker and an investigation is under way.
According to the Agency for Statistics under the President of Tajikistan, eight criminal proceedings were instituted over human trafficking in Tajikistan last year, which was six cases fewer compared to 2015.
The 2016 Trafficking in Persons Report by the U.S. Department of State notes that Tajikistan is a source and, to a lesser extent, destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor, and a source country for women and children subjected to sex trafficking. Women are increasingly vulnerable to trafficking after they are informally divorced from their absent migrant husbands and need to provide for their families. Some women who traveled to Syria or Iraq with promises of marriage were instead sold into sexual slavery. Tajik women and girls are transported to Afghanistan for the purpose of forced marriage, which can lead to sex trafficking and debt bondage, according to the report.
The Government of Tajikistan reportedly does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. The government made increased law enforcement efforts, initiating prosecution of 24 suspected traffickers and convicting 10, the report says.
