About three years ago the Tajik government recognized the problem of human trafficking in the region by enacting legislation to address the problem. The US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report says about the law:

The Government of Tajikistan does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. Over the past year, the government adopted a comprehensive trafficking in persons law, established a specialized anti-trafficking police unit, and created an interagency commission to coordinate anti-trafficking activities and draft a national action plan. While victim assistance and protection remained inadequate, in large part due to a lack of resources, Tajikistan’s new law provides a useful framework for the protection of victims.

Because of the lack of adequate laws or a will to enforce the existing criminal laws, traffickers would frequently take advantage of those desperately in need of money, especially women, by transporting them to countries such as Russia, Kazakhstan, the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.), Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran with promises of some quick cash.

Today, according to the Middle East Times, Tajikistan seems to be demonstrating that it is taking steps to enforce those laws. Today eleven people (seven of them women) got six years in the slammer (and in Tajikistan jail is no picnic) for trafficking at least thirty women to the United Arab Emirates, ostensibly to become “governesses,” but really to become prostitutes.

It is a common perception that all trafficking victims end up in the sex industry (as is the case in this article). A recent article in Foreign Policy discusses the issue in some details, and states that this is in fact false, and the focus on the sex industry takes the attention away from other more trafficking victims that are equally abused. So far, the news seems to suggest that most Tajik victims are farmed out to the sex industry, but the reality could be a bit different. It would be interesting to see some statistics, if any reliable figures exist…