RFE/RL covers news that the General Prosecutor’s Office has investigated claims that its workers were involved in the trafficking of women from Armenia. The investigation followed allegations from the publication I work for in Armenia, Hetq Online, that they are, and concerns recently voiced by the U.S. Government that Armenian officials are not doing enough to tackle the problem.

In a worldwide “interim assessment” of the problem released on February 1, the U.S. State Department deplored “modest” progress in the implementation of an anti-trafficking program launched by the Armenian government three years ago. “Regrettably, the government did not take any proactive steps to address allegations of trafficking-related governmental complicity and corruption,” it said in a written statement. The State Department specifically noted that “a government official, who has been frequently criticized by victims and NGOs for trafficking complacency, remains in his position within the Prosecutor General’s anti-trafficking task force.”

It was an apparent reference to Aristakes Yeremian, a senior official at Armenia’s Office of the Prosecutor-General. A series of reports that appeared in the Hetq.am online publication last year charged that Yeremian and other law-enforcement officials are maintaining close ties with prostitution rings operating in the United Arab Emirates, the prime destination of hundreds of women who have been trafficked from Armenia. Hetq.am editor Edik Baghdasarian, who repeatedly visited Dubai in 2004 and 2005, cited unnamed Armenian prostitutes there as telling him that they were blackmailed into paying bribes to those officials.

Yeremian strongly denied the allegations in an RFE/RL interview in April last year. He said he met Armenian pimps in Dubai in September 2004 only to “question” and warn them against continuing their illegal activities.

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Most readers of this blog will be aware that last year Hetq Online published a series of articles on the trafficking of women from Armenia to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). What many of you might not know, however, is that Hetq Online also produced a 49 minute documentary on the same subject matter that was broadcast on Yerkir Media TV.

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By Onnik Krikorian

Lusine was just 16 years old when she was trafficked from Armenia to the United Arab Emirates. A year earlier she had married against the wishes of her parents, but found herself on the streets when she could no longer tolerate the beatings she received from her husband. When she left her native Gyumri for the Armenian capital, Yerevan, it wasn’t long before she was approached by a man interested in exploiting her predicament.

“He said he could help me find work as a waitress in Germany,” says Lusine. “I jumped at the chance. I thought I could make some money abroad and get my life back on track.”

But because she was technically still a minor, Lusine didn’t have a passport. Her new ‘friend,” however, said he could supply her with one for $1,000. Then, in possession of travel documents stating that she was older than she actually was, she traveled to Tbilisi, capital of the neighboring Republic of Georgia, with seven other girls. From there, the girls traveled to Moscow, but rather than end up in Germany, they were instead was put on a plane to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Upon their arrival, the girls were then deprived of their passports and presented to an Arab who had paid $5,000 for Lusine and her companions, and who now had to work as sex workers servicing clients in Dubai, capital of the UAE. Now effectively in “debt” to her new “owner,” Lusine received 10 men a night on average at a local hotel in order to wipe the slate clean and to secure her freedom.

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Hetq Online has published the english version of last week’s statement condeming the blocking of the publication’s web site in the United Arab Emirates. According to Hetq’s Editor-in-Chief, the UAE government has resorted to such a drastic measure as a result of the articles he wrote, and the documentary film he made, on the trafficking of women and children from Armenia to Dubai.

The ban on our journal in the UAE proves once again that the government of that country does not allow freedom of speech and prefers to hide the reality of what goes on from its own people. Our journalists have discussed the issue of human trafficking with many residents of Dubai, Sharjah, and Abu Dhabi. They all unanimously criticized their country’s policy on the matter, and noted that their religion forbids “human trade”, and sexual exploitation. We believe that the people of the UAE should know about women who are forced into sexual slavery, even more so as there are numerous cases in which locals have helped these women to return home.

We call on the government of the UAE to remove the ban and restore access to the Hetq website. We also ask international organizations to pressure the government of the UAE to stop filtering the Internet of any criticism of their country.

A1 Plus says that Hetq Online, one of the publications I work for in Armenia, has been blocked by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government. According to the news agency, when someone attempts to access the site which has been prolific in reporting on the trafficking of Armenian women and children to Dubai, the following message is instead displayed.

“We bring our apologies but the site you are going to open has been blocked, as its contents conflicts with the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the UAE.”

In actual fact, it has been Hetq Online’s investigation into trafficking that is the real reason for the site being blocked.

[…] journalists found out that Dubai policemen and members of the migration services are involved in these criminal activities.”

[…]

We appeal to the UAE authorities to raise the taboo off the Hetq website and appeal to international organizations to urge the UAE leadership not to “clear” internet from critical articles about their country’, the statement issued by Hetq staff says.

Hetq Online’s full series of articles investigating the trafficking of women and children from Armenia to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) can be read online here. A documentary film by Edik Baghdasarian, Hetq’s Editor in Chief, and Ara Manoogian over at Martuni or Bust was also shown on Yerkir Media TV in Armenia.

Ara Manoogian from Martuni or Bust has just forwarded me this message which states that access to Hetq Online has been blocked in the United Arab Emirates. If true, this is obviously because of Edik Baghdasarian and Ara Manoogian’s investigation into the trafficking of women and children from Armenia to Dubai.

Dear Ara, I’m writing from the U.A.E. Just wanted to inform you that Etisalat the government internet services provider here has blocked people from accessing the website www.hetq.am. This is indicative of the depth of government involvement in this operation.

If there are any readers of this blog in the UAE, please can you confirm whether Hetq Online is available or not. It’s worth pointing out that in July, Hetq Online was taken down by a hacker and there was some specualtion that this was also because of the investigation.

If the email is genuine and access to Hetq Online is now restricted in the UAE, most of the articles on trafficking can also be found on Ara Manoogian’s site. There’s also an interview with Ara here.

Ara Manoogian over at Martuni or Bust has not only chosed a new template for his blog but also reports that Edik Baghdasarian’s documentary on the trafficking of women and children from Armenia to Dubai was screened in Southern California’s Armenian-American Community.

Dozens of Armenian Diaspora community leaders and activists packed the ANCA Western regional office in Glendale to watch the 48 minute film that exposes the phenomenon of human trafficking of Armenian girls and women from their homeland to the United Arab Emirates by a dangerous and highly organized Armenian/Arab crime ring.

Members of HETQ’s original investigative team were present to discuss their activities and role in combating this heinous human rights violation.

Most of the written investigative work, of which Ara Manoogian was part of, that went into the making of the film is available on the Hetq Online site. Incidently, Martuni or Bust, a Wake-Up Call for the Global Armenian Community, looks a lot nicer and cleaner with the redesign, Ara.

Business Travellers Against Human Trafficking refers to Hetq Online’s ongoing investigation into the trafficking of women and children from Armenia to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Some of the women go voluntarily to work in the sex trade, but are later caught in slave like conditions and forced to pay off huge debts. One of the hotels named in the report is the St George Hotel which it claims has been using Armenian prostitutes, some of whom may have been trafficked, for the last five years. Hetq claims that women from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Armenia, and Azerbaijan all meet their clients at this business hotel. It is very likely that some of these women will have been trafficked.

Meanwhile, yesterday Hetq Online published two stories, No Payback for the Pimp and Another Pimp in Court, that seem to imply that the Armenian government and the General Prosecutor’s Office are not taking the problem as seriously as they should.