US embassy cable - 05YEREVAN1387

UNCLAS YEREVAN 001387 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPT FOR G/TIP, EUR/CACEN 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM, PREL, AM, KTIP 
SUBJECT: ARMENIA: ANTI-TIP ACTION PLAN PRESENTED 
 
REF: STATE 139065 
 
Sensitive but Unclassified.  Please treat accordingly. 
 
1. (SBU) On August 1, CDA delivered reftel points to Deputy 
Foreign Minister Arman Kirakossian, underscoring the USG's 
judgment that Armenia has not shown increasing efforts to 
combat trafficking.  We presented the proposed action plan, 
urging concrete steps forward, noting that the Department of 
State is required to present an interim report on Armenia's 
actions against trafficking. 
 
2.  (SBU) Kirakossian was joined in the meeting by Tigran 
Seiranian, MFA Director of the Consular Department, who had 
recently returned from a USG-funded trip to the United Arab 
Emirates, one of the primary destinations of women trafficked 
from Armenia.  He said that while there was as yet no 
official agreement with the UAE on victim repatriation, a 
recent working visit to Dubai and Abu Dhabi had resulted in 
"some practical solutions."  He reported that the MFA had 
successfully repatriated two Armenian trafficking victims 
from the UAE in May.  Previous efforts at repatriation had 
been hampered by the victims' lack of legitimate travel 
documents. 
 
3.  (SBU) Seiranian called into question statistics cited in 
the USG's TIP report.  He alleged that UAE data showed that 
there were only 87 Armenian victims of trafficking in 2003, 
and 84 in 2004.  While we acknowledged that it is difficult 
to obtain statistics of trafficked women, the problem is 
serious and should not be dismissed in the absence of harder 
numbers of victims. 
 
4.  (SBU) Noting the GOAM's interest in working to improve 
its record on trafficking, Kirakossian appeared generally 
receptive to the reftel points, and the MFA will disseminate 
them at the next meeting of the intergovernmental 
anti-trafficking working group scheduled for mid-August.  We 
stressed our eagerness to continue working with the GOAM to 
fight trafficking and told Kirakossian that our 
anti-trafficking assistance programs will be further focused 
to concentrate on the points in the action plan we presented. 
GODFREY