ARMENIAN PARLIAMENT PASSES ACT ON HUMAN TRAFFICKING

HULIQ, NC

Oct 15 2007

Armenia’s parliament adopted a bill on Thursday aiming at identifying
and saving human trafficking victims on airplanes before take off

The National Assembly of Armenia passed the Anti-Human Trafficking on
Air Act on Thursday requiring notification to all air passengers about
the threatening high number of women and children being transported
from/through Armenia by traffickers for sexual exploitation purposes
without the passengers’ knowledge or consent before airplanes take off.

The notification process will include distribution of brochures in
three languages (Armenian, Russian and English) to all passengers
shortly describing human trafficking and asking passengers to let
the attendant know they are in danger at any time during/before the
flight and they will be guaranteed safe evacuation and persecution
of their traffickers.

Before the airplane takes off, a video-recording or an attendant
will announce in three languages (Armenian, Russian and English)
that if there are any children on the airplane who are traveling
with somebody else’s passport they are at high risk of being raped
and abused in the countries of their destination. They will be also
given additional two-minutes of presentation about how to identify
human trafficking. The passengers will be told if they have a slight
doubt they may be a victim of human trafficking they will be in safe
protection after notifying an attendant. Two unidentified enforcement
agents, trained to combat human trafficking, will be on the flight
to help the victims before the plane takes off or after it arrives
or to interfere during the flight if absolutely needed.

"Even if this Act saves one life it will serve its purpose," said Raffi
Hovhannisyan, an American-born Armenian legislator who sponsored the
bill. "It is time to fight the horrible abuse of already oppressed
women and children from poor and unprotected families who are treated
like animals after being tricked into human trafficking."

Armenia is not only a resource for human traffickers, experts say,
but also a transit country for other victims of eastern European and
central Asian origin. The victims, often from single-mother families,
are told they will be working in restaurants and cafes in rich Middle
Eastern or European countries. Once they get to their destinations,
they are beaten and forced into prostitution serving dozens of men
every day against their wills.

A handful legislators who voted against the bill expressed concerns
for the funding of the project. But several Armenian NGOs and
charity organizations vowed to contribute to the project. "We will
do everything in our power to support the fight against human
trafficking in Armenia," said a spokesperson for the U.S.-based
Cafesjian Foundation.

Armenia’s President Robert Kocharyan signed the bill into law
the following day, expressing his admiration for the legislature’s
readiness to combat modern day human slavery. "The Armenian leadership
can have no moral leadership in the fight for Genocide recognition
if it ignores the sexual exploitations and physical and psychological
tortures of women and children at the hands of human traffickers."

The sponsors of the Act still expressed concerns about a fabricated
news item posted on Blogian.net and republished by other websites
several months ago announcing the passage of a "bill combating human
trafficking" claiming Armenian parliament’s official website as the
source. The webmaster of Blogian.net, an Armenian-American student,
had deliberately fabricated the story with hopes that Armenia’s
leadership and parliamentarians would finally start thinking about
ways to fight human trafficking.

"I am glad Blogian.net brought the inevitability of this issue to
our attention ," Hovhannisyan said, "But I thought I was dreaming
when I read the news attributing statements to me I had never made –
not that I didn’t wish I had made them in the first place."

Several Armenian-American groups also denounced Blogian.net for
"misleading tactics" and "spreading lies in uncivilized ways."