Myatanyat Azizova: statistics on fighting trafficking is always falsified in Azerbaijan

The problem of trafficking in humans remains unaddressed in Azerbaijan, as stated by Myatanyat Azizova, leader of the Women's Crisis Centre.

"Rather often the Department for Fighting Trafficking in Humans is shifting the accents, to put it softly, showing their work of revealing prostitutes in bawdy places for their fight on trafficking in humans," Myatanyat Azizova said in her interview to the Day.Az Internet portal.

According to her story, this year an obvious deficit of educational programmes on fighting the trafficking in humans was felt, and the interest of international organizations has also dropped a little in comparison with 2006.

The head of the Women's Crisis Centre has also marked that in comparison with previous years, in 2007 it has become more difficult for public activists to reveal trafficking victims. "Most likely, it is a result of growing mistrust of trafficking victims both to the law enforcement bodies and NGOs that deal with the issue," she believes. "Quite often we hear that trafficking victims are scared to address NGOs since they suspect that NGO members can deliver the data about the victims to law enforcement bodies."

"The Ministry of Education should have educated schoolchildren and higher school students about the existence of this problem how to counteract it, the Ministry of Health should have trained the doctors, capable to work with victims of trafficking in humans. Alas, this was not done. The Fund has not been established aimed to accumulate the money confiscated from the criminals engaged selling people. These funds should be used for support of trafficking victims, for their integration into the society," Ms Azizova said.