US embassy cable - 05YEREVAN2001

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 YEREVAN 002001 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPT FOR EUR/CACEN, G/TIP 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KWMN, PGOV, PHUM, PREL, SMIG, AM 
SUBJECT:  EUR/TIP: INTERIM ASSESSMENT FOR ARMENIA 
 
REF:  STATE 188750 
 
Sensitive but unclassified.  Please protect 
accordingly. 
 
1. (SBU) Since January 2005, the GOAM has made 
progress on fighting trafficking in persons, 
especially in promoting the National Action Plan and 
increasing prosecutions under the anti-trafficking 
statute, but still has a significant way to go on 
some crucial areas.  The following responses are 
geared to reftel questions. 
 
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A) PROMOTING/IMPLEMENTING THE NATIONAL ACTION PLAN 
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2. (SBU) The Government of Armenia has made good 
progress in officially distributing, publicly 
promoting and implementing its 2004 National Action 
Plan. 
 
-- In order to deliver the message on the dangers of 
trafficking and to prevent it, staff from the 
Prosecutor General's Office frequently appeared on 
TV and provided interviews to other mass media 
outlets. 
 
-- The Deputy Head of the Department of Migration 
and Refugees, Lyalya Aslanyan, provided a number of 
interviews throughout the year.  In particular, 
during a 50-minute program that aired in September 
on Public Radio she discussed trafficking, the 
National Plan of Action and the difference between 
trafficking and prostitution. 
 
-- Government-controlled media have increased both 
the frequency and usefulness of programming warning 
of the dangers of trafficking. 
 
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B) ASSISTING VICTIMS, INCREASING POLICE REFERRALS 
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3. (SBU) The Government of Armenia has made some 
progress in increasing the number of victims 
assisted and referred to shelters. 
 
-- During 2004 a total of 12 victims were referred 
to shelters (run by UMCOR and Hope and Help) by 
Armenian law enforcement bodies.  In contrast, 
during 2005 UMCOR worked with 9 victims, 4 of whom 
were referred by the National Security Service, 4 by 
the Police and 1 was identified by their 
subcontractor, Democracy Today NGO.  These 9 victims 
were hosted in their shelter.  The police also 
invited UMCOR to interview 4 TIP victims in order to 
convince them to go to the shelter, but the victims 
chose to not take advantage of the shelter.  UMCOR 
also worked with one TIP victim without placing him 
in the shelter.  Hope and Help NGO did not have a 
shelter for most of 2005, because their funding was 
interrupted.  They are currently restarting the 
program and they received their first victim on 
November 2, 2005, referred to them by the National 
Security Service.  Overall during 2005, Armenian law 
enforcement bodies have already referred 9 victims 
to TIP shelters and tried to refer an additional 4 
victims, a slight increase over 2004. 
 
-- The MFA repatriated 5 women in 2004 from Dubai. 
One of these women was the trafficker of two of the 
victims that the MFA returned, and was tried and 
convicted in 2004 under charges of pimping. 
(Although the MFA did not have information on what 
happened to these girls after their return, none of 
these women were referred to a shelter.)  Already in 
2005, the MFA has repatriated 9 victims from Dubai. 
UMCOR was involved in two of the cases, and bought 
the ticket for one of the girls, who stayed in the 
shelter for only two days, then left.  The MFA also 
noted that over the past six months the GOAM had 
paid significant attention to improving conditions 
in the border check points.  Within the framework of 
the "Export Control and Border Security" agreement 
signed between Armenia and the USA, a new border 
checkpoint in Bagratashen was built that includes a 
special room with a small kitchen for refugees, 
asylum seekers and trafficking victims, where they 
can stay for one or two days until they are 
transferred to the appropriate agency or 
organization. 
 
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C) CHARGING TRAFFICKERS WITH TRAFFICKING 
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4. (SBU) The Government of Armenia has made 
significant progress in applying Article 132 of the 
criminal code to prosecute traffickers to the full 
extent of the law. 
 
-- While in 2004 there was only one case brought on 
charges of Article 132, during the first 10 months 
of 2005 there have already been 9 criminal cases 
brought against 14 defendants on charges of Article 
132 (6 of the 9 cases are still working their way 
through the courts). 
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D) TRAINING PROSECUTORS AND JUDGES 
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5. (SBU) The Government of Armenia has made good 
progress in educating and training prosecutors and 
limited progress in educating and training judges 
about the new statute. 
 
-- The International Organization for Migration 
(IOM) Yerevan Office trained 15 police and Ministry 
of Justice representatives in Yerevan September 25- 
26.  According to the IOM post-action report, 
"Participants discussed and confronted modus 
operandi of traffickers and trends observed in 
Armenia.  The training also focused on anti- 
trafficking national legislation conformity with UN 
standards, in particular with respect to the Palermo 
Protocol, and on operational problem areas. 
Participants exchanged information on existing 
regulation and on the methodologies applied to 
counteract the phenomenon in Armenia.  The training 
module comprises things to do and things to avoid, 
providing a comprehensive range of hints on human 
trafficking law enforcement issues, in addition to a 
specific and concise set of information and 
realistic instructions for the best practice on 
interviewing." 
 
-- The Special Unit on Combating TIP and Illegal 
Migration of the Prosecutor General's Office has 
prepared instructions on how to investigate TIP 
cases and sent it to all regional and community 
prosecutors for them to examine the instructions and 
organize training in the regions based on the 
instructions. 
 
-- In the second half of 2005, the Prosecutor 
General's Educational and Research Center published 
500 copies of a 151-page book on "Methods of 
Investigation of Cases on TIP, Prostitution and 
other forms of Sexual Exploitation."  The book also 
includes the international conventions and protocols 
specific to TIP, and has been distributed in the 
regions.  The Center also organized a series of 
trainings for the Prosecutor General's investigators 
on the specifics of crimes of this nature. 
 
-- In addition, during 2005 the Prosecutor General's 
Office worked in close cooperation with UNDP, ABA- 
CEELI, OSCE and other international organizations, 
participating in numerous seminars, roundtables and 
conferences, serving to raise the Prosecutor 
General's staff's awareness about international 
practices on fighting trafficking. 
 
-- UMCOR organized a number of training seminars 
with border guards from Zvartnots airport and the 
Bagrateshen (Armenian/Georgian) border crossing on 
identifying and assisting trafficking victims. 
 
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E) INVESTIGATING AND PROSECUTING GOAM COMPLICITY 
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6. (SBU) The Government of Armenia has unfortunately 
made no progress in vigorously investigating 
allegations of prosecutors and border guards, 
complicity in trafficking and prosecuting and 
convicting law enforcement officials who facilitate 
trafficking.  Although the MFA noted that the 
President, in response to the concerns identified in 
the annual U.S. TIP report, instructed the Chief 
Prosecutor's office to instruct the appropriate law 
enforcement agencies to prevent, identify and 
strongly prosecute those responsible, the Prosecutor 
General's office contended that there were no cases 
of assistance or complicity of the workers of the 
law-enforcement bodies, including the Prosecutor 
system as well as the border guards, in trafficking 
in persons, organization of prostitution or 
involvement into prostitution and that no such 
information was obtained during the investigation 
and prosecution of criminal cases.  The subject of 
one of the most consistent victim and NGO 
allegations of complicity remains in his position 
within the Prosecutor General's office's anti- 
trafficking task force. 
EVANS