Slavery in modern Russia

Signed and ratified by the Russian Federation

1. “The Convention on Slavery, signed at Geneva on September 25, 1926, as amended by the Protocol of December 7, 1953”
2. “Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others” 1949
3. 1950 UN Convention Against Trafficking in Persons and the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others
4. 1950 Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms
5. The Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, 1956
6. European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters, CETS No. 30, dated May 20, 1959 ("Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance")
7. 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
8. International Labor Organization Convention 182 “On the Prohibition of the Immediate Eradication of the Worst Forms of Child Labor”. 1999 year
9. “The Protocol to Prevent, Combat and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the 2000 United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime”
10. 1999 Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
11. 2000 United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime
12. Protocol Against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, Supplementing the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime of November 15, 2000
13. “Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women” ^[4] .

Signed but not ratified by the Russian Federation

1. Agreement on cooperation in the fight against trafficking in persons, organs and human tissues of November 25, 2005 ^[4] .

Not signed or ratified by the Russian Federation

1. Statute of the International Criminal Court 1998 ^[5]
2. 2005 Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings
3. Optional Protocol No. 2 to the 2000 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child ^[4] .

The Slavery Convention of 1926 states that slavery refers to the position or condition of a person with respect to whom some or all of the powers inherent in property rights are exercised ^[6] . The 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery, signed and ratified by Russia and a number of other international agreements of the UN member states, also include forced marriage and bride kidnapping as a form of slavery ^[7] . Russian domestic legislation does not have a clearly defined definition of slavery ^[8] . Crimes against personal freedom under Russian law are punishable in accordance with articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation: 126 ( kidnapping ), 127 (illegal imprisonment), 127.1 (trafficking in persons), 127.2 (use of slave labor) ^[9] , as well as Art. 240 (involvement in prostitution or coercion to continue to engage in prostitution and Art. 241 (organization of prostitution with the use of violence or with the threat of its use or with the use of minors for prostitution) ^[10] . At present, in Russia, forced labor is withdrawn from legal spheres ^[11] .

Recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring or receiving a child for the purpose of exploitation is considered “trafficking in persons” even if they are not connected with the use of any of the means of influence mentioned above ^[12] , it is also considered a crime. Trafficking in human beings means the treatment of a living person as a thing (goods) that can be sold, bought, exchanged, donated, mortgaged, leased, and so on (“other transactions”). Regardless of who, where, and for what purpose this act is committed, treating a person as an object of a transaction is a criminal offense, even if the transaction with a person does not pursue the objectives of its exploitation. Since November 25, 2008, the definition of this crime has been tightened ^[13] .

Assessment of the Russian authorities

According to Irina Ivakhnyuk, professor at the Department of Population, Faculty of Economics, Moscow State University , every fifth migrant worker in Russia is illegally exploited ^[14] . The Russian authorities recognize the severity of the problem and the need to combat slavery and the slave trade in Russia ^[15] . According to Elena Mizulina , “today the income from trafficking in persons exceeds the income from drug trafficking. If nothing is done, then all the slave traders will gather with us ” ^[1] .

According to the head of the Moscow police trade union, Mikhail Pashkin, cases under Article 127 of the Criminal Code (“Illegal deprivation of liberty”) are rare. In his opinion, the problem with the fight against slave traders and the mafia of beggars is that they pay police officers for the "roof" ^[16] .

Assessment of Russian Human Rights Organizations

Svetlana Gannushkina stated that Russian laws from 2002 to 2007 did not actually allow Russian employers to legally hire foreign workers and as a result, relations between employers and migrant workers left the legal field during this period, which worsened the situation of migrants ^[17] .

Foreign Governments Assessment

In the annual report of the US Department of State for 2013, Russia was assigned to the third group of countries in relation to human trafficking. According to the State Department, in these countries the authorities do not seek to rectify the situation. Together with Russia, this group included, in particular, China, Uzbekistan, Eritrea ^[18] . The Russian authorities reacted extremely negatively to this document. Responding to the accusation that Russia is not struggling enough with slavery, Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich tweeted that “the United States has been and remains the world's largest“ importer of “living goods” ^[19] . Konstantin Dolgov, the RF Ministry of Foreign Affairs Commissioner for Human Rights, said the report by the US Department of State was a manifestation of an unacceptable ideological approach in which states are ranked according to American likes or dislikes. After that, the Russian side stopped providing statistics on slavery in Russia to the US State Department, but continued cooperation on this issue with other non-governmental and other organizations ^[20] .

Corruption, as a contributing factor to slavery, was pointed out by the US State Department report for 2014, where it was noted that some Russian officials encourage the trade in labor and provide bribes to illegal business workers for bribes ^[21] .

UN assessment

According to UN estimates , in the 2006 report “Trafficking in Persons: Global Patterns,” Russia was assigned to 11 states that noted a high level of activity of kidnappers ^[22] . UN consultant on slave trade issues Kevin Bales said that the penalties for drug trafficking in a number of countries, including Russia, are more severe than for trafficking in human beings, as a result of which the market for sexual slavery is booming ^[1] .

ILO assessment

In 2003, ILO experts conducted surveys among migrants in several Russian cities. The number of migrant workers in Russia has been estimated from 3.5 to 5 million. Surveys showed that 24% of them were forced to work for free, 20% had limited freedom of movement, 21% were subjected to threats and blackmail by the employer. Most experts (93%) came to the conclusion that at least 30% of migrants were subjected to some degree of forced labor ^[23] .

Assessment of Foreign Human Rights Organizations

According to estimates by the Australian human rights organization The Walk Free Foundation ^[24], in 2014 in Russia there were about half a million slaves who worked in factories and farms ^[24] . According to The Walk Free Foundation, by 2016 the number of bonded workers in Russia doubled, reaching 1 million 48.5 thousand people compared to the last three years ^{[2] [3]} .

Labor slavery

According to ILO experts, labor slavery is the most common form of slavery in Russia. In the Far East of Russia, male labor is used in a number of industries, including agriculture and fisheries, under conditions of debt bondage and coercion. Slaves, including men, women, and children from Russia and other countries, are forced into slave labor in Russia, including work in the construction industry, in textile stores, as well as in agriculture. The ILO estimates that about 40,000 men and women from North Korea work under slave conditions in Russia, particularly in the forestry industry. It is also known that Russian women are forced into slave labor in Armenia ^[25] .

Many prisoners receive virtually no pay for their labor. After a public complaint by Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova , who wrote about inhuman working conditions in Mordovian Correctional Colony (EC) No. 14, a check was made of the wages of prisoners in Russian prisons. As a result, it was found that the remuneration of convicts in the Russian penal institutions was in gross violation of Russian law, which provided for a minimum wage of at least 4,600 rubles per month ^[26] . In 2017, the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation revealed the facts of illegal attraction of convicts to work without remuneration in 36 subjects of the federation. The press service of the Prosecutor General’s Office also indicated that none of the inspected entities fully complied with the requirements for the obligation of each convicted person to work in places and at jobs determined by the administration ^[27] .

Large companies, usually created by high-ranking officials, benefit from the exploitation of the slave labor of prisoners. According to the Izvestia newspaper, the annual turnover of the Vostok-Service group of companies that profit from prison labor in 2013 amounted to 18 billion rubles ^[28] . About 30% of prisoners leave prison every year on parole, which, according to researchers of the prison economy, is a real incentive for free work with prisoners. At the same time, experts note, the exploitation of the labor of prisoners is so beneficial that a system is created that contributes not to their correction, but to their return after being released back to colonies and prisons ^[29] .

Sex slavery

Russian women were forced into prostitution in Russia ^{[30] [31]} or transported to other countries for this purpose . Due to the large scale of the sex industry in Russia, pedophiles from Western Europe and the United States travel to Western Russia for sex with children ^{[32] [33]} , especially to St. Petersburg ^[34] . At the same time, international experts noted a decrease in the number of victims of child prostitution in these cities due to aggressive police investigations and Russia's cooperation with foreign law enforcement agencies ^[34] .

Human trafficking in the Russian Federation and cross-border traffic

Leading researcher at the Academy of the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation Sergey Vinokurov believes that “human trafficking is one of the most profitable types of transnational organized crime” ^[35] .

Forced marriages and bride abduction

In accordance with the international obligations of the Russian Federation, forced marriages are prohibited in Russia and the conclusion of a marriage requires the mutual voluntary consent of the man and woman who marry (article 12 of the Family Code of the Russian Federation). In modern Russia, cases of bride kidnapping , especially in the Caucasian republics and surrounding regions, were recorded in 2007 inclusively ^[36] .

In 2008, Ingush lawmakers proposed amendments to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, providing for a punishment of imprisonment of up to three years for the abduction of women for the purpose of marriage. However, the State Duma of the Russian Federation rejected these amendments ^[37] . In 2017, the amendments were proposed again, this time in the form of subparagraph in article 126 on kidnapping, which would not apply to the rule on exemption from liability of those who release the abducted voluntarily ^{[38] [39]} .

Slavery in the Krasnodar Territory

In 2012, the US State Department expressed the view that forced labor was used in the construction of Olympic facilities in Russian Sochi . His report said that “the main construction sites related to the APEC summit and the Olympics in Sochi are closed to public access and there is only unconfirmed evidence, but according to them, the conditions at these construction sites are generally severe and there are signs of forced labor, such as confiscation travel documents and non-payment of wages ” ^[40] .

In early February 2013, experts at Human Rights Watch published a report entitled Olympic Anti-Records, which refers to the exploitation of labor migrants in the construction of Olympic facilities in Sochi. According to the author of the report, Human Rights Watch ’s deputy director for Europe and Central Asia, Jane Buchanan, many workers from Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Serbia, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan were deceived with salaries, selected documents and forced to work 12 hours a day ^[41] .

In an official response to a request from the BBC on the working conditions of builders, Olimpstroy Corporation refutes these allegations and denies the use of “forced labor” in the construction of Olympic facilities ^[40] .

Slavery in Chechnya

During the period of control of the region’s territory, slave markets worked in Chechnya , for example, in Urus-Martan , where they sold people, including those abducted from other Russian regions ^[42] . In Grozny, until 1999, the largest slave market in the North Caucasus was operating near the Three Heroes Square ^[43] .

In the documentary film “ The Slave Market ” of the television company “VID” , filmed on the basis of the evidence of the hostages, it was stated ^{[44] [45] [46]} that the hostages were abducted from the North Caucasus, Rostov , Volgograd, Moscow. The places where the slaves were kept, or the Zindans were equipped with grates , chains, bunks and windows for serving food. According to the authors of the film, more than 6 thousand people were kept in the zindans of Grozny and Urus-Martan ^[47] . The reason for the filming of the film was the abduction in Chechnya of journalists Ilyas Bogatyrev and Vladislav Chernyaev ^[48] .

По оценкам Валерия Тишкова , в Чечне за 1990-е годы более 46 тысяч человек было обращено в рабство или использовалось на принудительных работах ^[49] .

Рабство на Дальнем Востоке России

Власти КНДР поставляют рабочую силу для работы на лесозаготовках и строительстве на российском Дальнем Востоке . Поставки рабочей силы полностью контролируются северокорейским властями, которые забирают себе от 70 % до 85 % заработка рабочих, вынужденных работать в крайне тяжелых условиях. Их численность в России южнокорейские правозащитные организации ^{[ what? ]} оценивают в 15-20 тысяч человек. Северокорейские рабочие должны работать под стражей в специальных трудовых лагерях, выходить за пределы которых они не имеют права. Пойманных при попытке бегства рабочих под конвоем офицеров северокорейских спецслужб отправляют на родину для наказания ^[50] . По мнению профессора Владивостокского университета Александра Латкина, условия, в которых вынуждены работать северокорейские рабочие в России, есть не что иное, как форма рабства ^[51] .

В свою очередь, российские криминальные группировки вербуют женщин из регионов российского Дальнего Востока для выезда в Китай, где они оказываются в рабстве и принуждаются к занятию проституцией. По мнению российских оперативных работников, их численность превышает 30 тысяч человек .

По мнению участников дискуссии в Общественной Палате РФ, в России в зоне риска попадания в рабство в основном находятся мигранты ^[52] . По мнению лидера антирабовладельческого движения « Альтернатива » Олега Мельникова, из российских граждан наибольшему риску подвергаются одинокие люди и выходцы из регионов, приехавшие в российскую столицу за заработком, лица с невысоким образовательным уровнем, а так же молодые неопытные девушки ^[53] . По мнению петербуржского журналиста Ильнура Шарафиева, в России существует разветвленная система эксплуатации людей, оказавшихся в сложных жизненных ситуациях — нарко- и алкозависимых, бездомных, приезжих, ищущих работу в чужом городе: людей под видом оказания помощи в поиске работы вербуют и продают в рабство ^[54] . Такой же точки зрения придерживается Дмитрий Полетаев, исследователь трудовой и учебной миграции, директор Центра миграционных исследований ^[55] .

Однако риск попасть в рабство существует для каждого человека, в России среди освобожденных из рабства людей имелись и люди с высшим образованием ^[56] .

According to Oleg Melnikov, modern prices for slaves depend on the category of person. A labor slave in 2016 cost about 20 thousand rubles, and a slave for the "mafia of the poor" already cost about 50 thousand rubles. If it was a baby, then the price increased to 80-100 thousand rubles, depending on the skin color of the child. In this case, the baby used for begging, due to poor care, lives no more than a few months and dies. The highest price is given for young slaves for sexual exploitation, then the price goes from 70 to 150 thousand rubles ^[53] .

Unlike the United States and Western European countries, where there are many public organizations fighting modern slavery, at present there is only one such organization in Russia - “ Alternative ” movement (not to be confused with the youth organization of the same name ). The main region of activity is Dagestan, where the organization’s efforts are aimed at freeing slaves from numerous illegal brick factories, of which there are about 500 ^[24] . For all the years the Alternative movement has existed, the Russian government has never provided financial assistance to it ^[53], and this organization exists solely through voluntary contributions and has very little financial resources, despite the fact that finding one missing person costs about 50 thousand rubles. In view of this, the Alternative movement does not have the resources to assist in most of the requests for release from slavery, responding on average to only 1 out of 30 of them ^{[57] [58]} .

In 2011, 70 criminal cases were brought under article 127.1 of the Criminal Code (human trafficking) and in 2012, 17 cases under article 127.2 (use of slave labor). In 2013, 28 people were charged under article 127.1, of which 23 were sentenced to imprisonment from 2 to 11 years ^[59] .

In 2016, 281 people were convicted of kidnapping (Article 126 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), 344 people were convicted of illegal imprisonment (Article 127 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), 25 people were trafficked (Article 127 ^{1 of the} Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), and the use of slave labor (Art. 127 ^{2 of the} Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) - 8 people ^[60] .

• The war , director Alexey Balabanov , 2002
• Lily forever , directed by Lucas Mudisson , 2002

• Golyanovsky slaves
• Human trafficking in Ukraine

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