A 21-year0old woman from Bobojon-Ghafourov district in Sughd province have been jailed for trafficking to local young woman to Turkiye.
A court in the city of Khujand sentenced Manizha Nematova to 8½ years in prison. The sentence followed her conviction on the charges of “kidnapping committed by a group of individuals.”
The woman will serve her sentenced in a low-penal colony.
The Interior Ministry’s program “Policed Inform” reports that Manizha Nematova in collusion with other people trafficked two local young women to Turkiye where they were forced into prostitution.
The investigation reportedly established that she promised the women good jobs and good salaries, but the women they recruited were actually intended for Turkiye brothels.
Meanwhile, the 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report by the U.S. Department of State says the Government of Tajikistan does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so. The government reportedly demonstrated overall increasing efforts compared with the previous reporting period. These efforts included identifying more trafficking victims than the previous reporting period and increasing the number of prosecutions. The government continued to conduct trainings on human trafficking for law enforcement and collaborate with civil society in awareness-raising campaigns.
The government maintained law enforcement efforts, according to the report. Article 130.1 and Article 167 of the criminal code criminalized labor trafficking and sex trafficking and prescribed penalties of five to eight years’ imprisonment, which were sufficiently stringent and, with regard to sex trafficking, commensurate with penalties prescribed for other serious crimes, such as rape. Article 167 defined child trafficking broadly to include illegal adoption without the purpose of exploitation; as such, it was difficult to ascertain how many cases investigated under Article 167 featured elements consistent with the standard definition of trafficking.
