US embassy cable - 04ANKARA6843

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 ANKARA 006843 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR G/TIP, G. INL, INL/CTR, DRL, EUR/PGI, EUR/SE 
DEPARTMENT FOR VALERIE KWOK USAID E&E/ECA 
ISTANBUL PLS PASS ADANA 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/09/2014 
TAGS: KCRM, PHUM, PGOV, SMIG, PREF, KWMN, TU, TIP IN TURKEY 
SUBJECT: TIP IN TURKEY: VICTIMS' STORIES 
 
 
(U) Classified by Polcounselor John Kunstadter; reasons: E.O. 
12958 1.4 (b,d). 
 
1. (U) SUMMARY: International Organization on Migration (IOM) 
Chief of Mission Marielle Lindstrom provided para 4 report on 
a Russian citizen victim admitted to the Istanbul TIP shelter 
November 13.  The victim's story largely repeats other 
accounts we have heard about typical trafficking schemes to 
lure victims of all nationalities to Turkey.  Since February 
2004, IOM has repatriated almost 60 victims (para 5), 
including victims from Azerbaijan, Belarus, Columbia, 
Kazakhstan, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, and 
Uzbekistan. END SUMMARY. 
 
2. (U) Istanbul shelter administrator and Human Resources 
Development Foundation (HRDF) Executive Director Demet Gural 
said that a Russian citizen victim brought to the shelter by 
police on November 13 cooperated with Turkish investigators, 
providing testimony and evidence against her traffickers. 
Police later arrested members of the trafficking network in 
Sivas, Turkey where the victim was forced into prostitution. 
The victim is currently residing in the Istanbul TIP shelter 
until Russian Consular officials issue her a new passport to 
return to Dagistan. 
 
3. (C) IOM Chief of Mission Marielle Lindstrom, who is 
handling the victim's repatriation, said that foot-dragging, 
uncooperative Russian Embassy consular officers are 
needlessly delaying the victim's return.  Her impression, she 
said, is that Russian consular officers are neither sensitive 
to Russian citizen trafficking victims nor concerned with TIP 
issues in general.  Fearful of compromising already-shaky 
relations with the Russian Embassy in Ankara, Lindstrom 
requested we keep this information confidential. 
 
4. (U) BEGIN TEXT OF IOM DRAFT REPORT: This report concerns 
AA who is a 22-year-old divorced female from Dagistan.  AA 
states that she came to Turkey four months ago with a girl 
friend from Dagistan named L, who promised to find her a job 
in Antalya. 
 
AA states that she knew this friend and her family from 
Dagistan for about a year and a half.  Since she knew her and 
her family, she didn't suspect anything about her intentions, 
she trusted her.  She knew that her friend was coming back 
and forth to Turkey, but she didn't know that she had been 
working here as a prostitute. 
 
AA is the daughter of a family of four.  Her parents were 
divorced when AA was 13 years old.  Her father is an 
electrical technician, who provides some financial assistance 
for the family, but not enough.  Her mother is a surgeon. 
She hasn't been practicing medicine in recent years, due to 
economical difficulties in the country and inability to 
obtain employment in her field.  She has a 26 years old 
brother in Dagistan who works as a technician. 
 
AA has studied law, but dropped out of school when she got 
married at the age of 19.  She had a religious wedding.  She 
is Muslim.  Her husband had a 4 year old daughter from a 
previous marriage when they got married and AA stopped going 
to college in order to find work and help raise her husband's 
daughter.   They were divorced two years ago, when AA was 20 
years old.  She completed a computer course during this time 
as well. 
 
AA was working in supermarkets and different stores, doing 
odd jobs, with a monthly salary of $70-$80.  So when her 
friend offered to help her find a job in Turkey, she accepted 
the offer.  She obtained her passport and her ticket herself, 
to travel to Turkey. 
AA and her friend L entered Turkey through Istanbul and went 
immediately to Antalya.  They stayed together in Antalya for 
two weeks, and L sold her.  AA describes the incident as 
follows: 
 
They went to a disco together.  And after a few hours, L 
disappeared.  AA was scared, asked one of the male friends 
where she was.  The man told her that L was going to go to 
the Hotel, and he offered to give her a ride to the Hotel. 
As soon as AA got in the car, he locked the doors and brought 
her to a house.  He told her that her friend L sold her to 
him and she would be working for him from now on, she would 
be working as a prostitute.  When AA objected, he threatened 
to kill her. 
 
AA had left her suitcase and her passport in the Hotel.  She 
asked the man to bring her belongings from the Hotel.  The 
man told her that he looked for her but couldn't find her. 
Consequently, she lost her passport and all her belongings. 
 
There were seven women in the house including AA.  They were 
from Moldova, Ukraine etc.  They were going to a hotel in 
order to meet their clients for work. 
 
AA doesn't remember the name of the hotel or the name of the 
disco.  She states that they were Turkish names and she 
couldn't memorize the names since she didn't understand what 
they meant. 
 
Two months after her arrival in Antalya, AA and another girl 
were brought to the Hotel together for work.  There were two 
clients.  The two men said they were going to take them to 
the disco.  They put them in a car.  There was another man in 
the car.  The three men started driving them out of Antalya 
and brought them to Sivas.  They told them that they were 
kidnapped and not to panic and not to escape.  They brought 
them to a house.  There were three women from Georgia and a 
Turkish woman in the house.  The pimp was the Turkish woman's 
lover.  The Turkish woman knew the pimp for four years. 
Apparently, he was a friend of her husband's.  Her husband 
had left her one day at that house to work as a prostitute. 
 
About twenty days after she arrived in Sivas, one of the 
girls managed to escape, with the money she received from a 
client.  AA tried to do the same, but unfortunately, the 
client called the pimp and told on her, and the pimp came and 
picked her up from the Hotel and beat her up very harshly 
when they came back to the house. He stepped on her face with 
his shoes and she lost her hair as she was fighting him.  She 
has short hair now. 
 
Apparently the pimp beat AA up on many occasions.  He beat 
her up with a belt many times.  She showed big bruises on her 
arms and stated that the bruises looked much better now than 
before.  AA stated that he beat her up only so much to hurt 
her, but not enough to take her to a hospital and pay for her 
medical expenses as he wanted her to continue to work. 
 
There was the pimp and a bodyguard in the house who were 
watching all their moves in the house - sleeping in the same 
room, following her from room to room, even the bathroom. 
They beat her up if she wanted to stay alone in her room and 
not watch TV for example.  AA states that either the pimp or 
the bodyguard would wait in the Hotel when she went to rooms 
with the clients, and the hotel personnel were also tipped to 
watch the girls closely and make sure that she wouldn't 
escape.  They were also locked in the house where they were 
staying. 
The Turkish woman also tried to escape, but was stopped by 
the pimp once.  On November 11th, the Turkish woman jumped 
out of the balcony of the second floor of the building where 
they were staying, and called the police.  The police came at 
night, when everybody was sleeping, including the pimp and 
the bodyguard.  The police arrested them both. 
 
AA states that she was horrified by this experience and was 
deadly afraid of the men - the pimp and the bodyguard.  The 
pimp carried a gun and a knife at all times.  AA states that 
she fought with the men frequently and pleaded with them to 
let her free.   One day, the bodyguard told her that the pimp 
had killed somebody in the past and she'd better watch her 
words.  AA states that she also heard them one night, talking 
amongst themselves about killing her (?) about a month ago. 
 
AA states that her clients sometimes used condoms, sometimes 
they didn't.  But, she insisted on getting an antibiotic, 
Rosephin, from the pimp.  He finally bought her the 
medication from the pharmacy and she gave herself an 
injection in order to prevent infections.  She had learned 
how to give an injection from her mother. END TEXT OF IOM 
REPORT. 
 
5. (U) Repatriated victims listed by IOM CASE NUMBER, 
TRACKING NUMBER, NATIONALITY, TOTAL VICTIMS IN GROUP, AGE, 
LOCATION IN TURKEY, DEPARTURE DESTINATION, DATE OF DEPARTURE: 
 
      TR42023, C96-CSE, MD, 1 female, 19, Istanbul, MOLDOVA, 
23-Feb-04 
      TR42036, C72-CSE, MD, 2 female, 21/26, Adana, MOLDOVA, 
3-Apr-04 
      TR42039, C72-CSE, MD, 2 female, 19/23, Istanbul, 
MOLDOVA, 8-Apr-04 
      TR42040, C72-CSE, MD, 2 female, 28/23, Istanbul, 
MOLDOVA, 11-Apr-04 
      TR42042, FB3-243, UA, 2 female, 32/29, Istanbul, 
UKRAINE, 22-Apr-04 
      TR42044, F73-CSE, UA, 1 female, 20, Istanbul, UKRAINE, 
28-Apr-04 
      TR42045, C72-CSE, MD, 1 female, 27, Istanbul, MOLDOVA, 
28-Apr-04 
      TR42051, F73-CSE, UA, 1 female, 32, Adana, UKRAINE, 
19-May-04 
      TR42060, C72-CSE, MD, 6 female, 19-26, Ankara, MOLDOVA, 
10-Jun-04 
      TR42061, F15-CUS, AZ, 2 female, 33/38, Ankara, 
AZERBAIJAN, 10-Jun-04 
      TR42063, F62-CUS, RO, 6 female, 16-24, Istanbul, 
ROMANIA, 16-Jun-04 
      TR42064, F15-CUS, RU, 1 female, 18, Erzurum, RUSSIA, 
20-Jun-04 
      TR42067, C72-CSE, MD, 2 female, 20/25, Ankara, MOLDOVA, 
7-Jul-04 
      TR42073, C72-CSE, MD, 1 female, 19, Antalya, MOLDOVA, 
15-Jul-04 
      TR42077, C72-CSE, MD, 2 female, 19/25, Istanbul, 
MOLDOVA, 24-Jul-04 
      TR42078, C72-CSE, MD, 2 female, 17/26, Ankara, MOLDOVA, 
28-Jul-04 
      TR42079, C72-CSE, MD, 3 female, 19/20/30, Ankara, 
MOLDOVA, 5-Aug-04 
      TR42080, C72-CSE, MD, 1 female, 19, Ankara, MOLDOVA, 
16-Aug-04 
      TR42081, C82-800, KZ, 1 female, 18, Ankara, KAZAKHSTAN, 
16-Aug-04 
      TR42090, C72-CSE, MD, 1 female, 25, Ankara, MOLDOVA, 
25-Aug-04 
      TR42092, F73-CSE, UA, 1 female, 21, Izmir, UKRAINE, 
26-Aug-04 
      TR42096, F73-CSE, UA, 1 female, 28, Izmir, UKRAINE, 
9-Sep-04 
      TR42103, F73-CSE, UA, 1 female, 28, Ankara, UKRAINE, 
27-Sep-04 
      TR42106, F72-CSE, MD, 2 female, 28/18, ANK/IST, 
MOLDOVA, 30-Sep-04 
      TR42109, C82-800, UZ, 1 female, 29, Izmir, UZBEKISTAN, 
06-Oct-04 
      TR42113, C72-CSE, MD, 1 female, 18, Istanbul, MOLDOVA, 
11-Oct-04 
      TR42114, F63-CUS, BY, 1 female, 21, Izmir, BELARUS, 
19-Oct-04 
      TR42116, F15-CUS, CO, 1 female and 2 infants, 29, 
Istanbul, COLOMBIA, 20-Oct-04 
      TR42119, C72-CSE, UA, 3 female, 20/22/24, Istanbul, 
UKRAINE, 3-Nov-04 
      TR42122, C72-CSE, MD, 3 female, 18/18/20, 
Izmir/Istanbul, MOLDOVA, 12-Nov-04 
EDELMAN