The project for tighter international cooperation in fighting slave trade as part of the observance of human rights has been prepared by the Interior Ministry Academy in association with the representative office of the United Nations Development Program in Belarus. Funding to the tune of nearly $285,000 has been provided by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. The Belarusian Foreign Ministry and the Interior Ministry are partners and co-executors of the project.
The project will last for 16 months. It represents a logical continuation of the international technical aid project on new challenges and threats in counteracting slave trade that the Interior Ministry Academy implemented in 2013-2014 with the financial assistance of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Just like the previous project the new one is primarily designed to support the operation of the international center that trains and provides career enhancement services to the personnel specializing in migration and the counteraction of trafficking in persons. The international educational center was created in 2007 as part of the implementation of the Belarus president's initiative to step up international efforts to counteract slave trade. In 2008 the Interior Ministry Academy was chosen to be the basic CIS institution for training, retraining, and career enhancement of the personnel specializing in migration affairs and the counteraction of trafficking in persons. Since 2007 the education center has trained over 1,600 Belarusian and foreign specialists.
The purpose of the new project is to facilitate the exchange of international experience and cutting-edge practices in counteracting slave trade, optimize the observance of various aspects of human rights during operations in the sphere of slave trade counteraction. There are plans to arrange and carry out five career enhancement courses in the international education center for representatives of Belarus, member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and bordering countries. The courses will focus on the counteraction of slave trade and related crimes, including the counteraction of child pornography. Two international seminars will be held. One will gather representatives of the relevant government agencies of Belarus, Russia, Lithuania, Estonia, Moldova, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan for the sake of sharing cutting-edge practices in the sphere of the counteraction of slave trade and related unlawful acts committed against women and children. The other seminar will gather representatives of the relevant government agencies of the member states of the Group of Friends United Against Trafficking in Persons as well as representatives of international organizations concerned.
The project's implementation will improve the qualification of Belarusian and foreign specialists in fighting slave trade. Apart from that, the project will contribute to stronger international cooperation in the counteraction of trafficking in persons, the encouragement and protection of human rights. The project will also expand cooperation with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and will allow Belarus to honor international commitments and recommendations of the main international human rights mechanisms.
Slave trade is one of the most dangerous global challenges of the modern times and is the most blatant violation of human rights. It is an urgent problem that causes justified concerns of the international community. Concerted measures are taken at the global and national levels to fight this phenomenon. About 140 countries have outlawed all kinds of slave trade.
According to the latest global report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the number of identified victims is falling while the number of court sentences on slave trade is rising. The report mentions a new alarming trend: the number of cases of trade in children rises. More crimes connected with the production and distribution of child pornography, particularly via the Internet, were registered in the last few years. Children spend more and more time in the World Wide Web and criminals actively exploit the fact. They win the trust of children and pervert them by relying on blackmail and threats while staying undetected. Specialists estimate that up to 100,000 children are victims of pedophiles on the Internet. Every day over 200 new pornographic photos depicting children are published on the Internet. The annual turnover of the global child pornography market is estimated in billions of euros.
Such transboundary crimes have been registered in Belarus, too. Since 2002 over 5,000 slave trade victims, including 559 underage ones, have been detected. The police have shut down 22 criminal organizations, including 21 transnational ones, as well as 83 organized crime groups. As many as 2,152 people have been sentenced for slave trade and related crimes. In 2009-2010 as many as 41 crimes relating to child pornography and pedophilia were detected. In 2011-2012 the number was 51. The figures for 2013 and 2014 were 137 and 163 respectively.
For the last ten years Belarus has been taking an active part in the international dialogue in the sphere of slave trade counteraction and has been the initiator of key international initiatives against slave trade within the framework of the United Nations Organization. Upon Belarus' initiatives the Group of Friends United Against Trafficking in Persons has been created. It is a voluntary association of UN member states that represents the consolidating element in the global system of measures designed to combat slave trade.
A national action plan to fight slave trade is being implemented in Belarus. In 2013 Belarus launched a program on fighting crime and corruption in 2013-2015. One third of the measures the program outlines are designed to combat slave trade. Taking into account the latest international experience effective national laws have been worked out to combat slave trade. A large-scale set of measures to increase the effectiveness of efforts against trafficking in persons is being implemented. On 10 November 2008 the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus was expanded with Article 343-1, which specifies prosecution for manufacturing and distributing pornographic materials or articles of pornographic nature that depict underage persons. The article specifies prosecution for committing such crimes using the Internet. In July 2012 the law on counteracting slave trade was enacted. The law systematized the norms of all the legal acts that had been adopted previously. Although Belarus is not a member of the Council of Europe, in 2013 the country legalized its participation in the Council of Europe Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings. The Belarusian Interior Ministry and the Foreign Ministry have come up with an initiative for the Republic of Belarus to accede to the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children Against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse of 25 October 2007.
The emergence of new ways to commit these crimes require regular improvement of the operation of law enforcement agencies, the introduction of cutting-edge methods to detect and investigate slave trade facts and related crimes. The new international technical aid project is designed to solidify and secure the stability of the results achieved during the implementation of a number of projects meant to support international and national efforts in the sphere of combating trafficking in persons.
According to Alexander Kravchenko, head of the international center for training, retraining and career enhancement of the personnel specializing in migration affairs and the counteraction of slave trade, since the center was established, it has received consultative and expert aid from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations Population Fund, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. For instance, in 2014 the international education center offered two courses on counteracting child pornography on the Internet to representatives of Belarusian and Moldovan law enforcement agencies as part of a joint project on building up the national potential of the Republic of Belarus in counteracting slave trade with assistance of the International Organization for Migration. There are plans to continue this work this year.
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