Ministry of Social Labor: 18 cases of human trafficking revealed in  Armenia in the first 9 months of this year

ArmInfo. In Armenia, there have been 18 cases of human trafficking recorded in the first 9  months of this year.

This was reported on September 16 in Yerevan by Sofi Bostanjyan, the head of the department for human trafficking and women's issues at the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs of  Armenia, at a training session for journalists on labor trafficking.   According to her, the number of men and women who have been  trafficked is equally divided, when considering the gender component.

"Over the past 9 months, we have identified 18 confirmed cases of  human trafficking. Moreover, 8 cases involve a special type of  trafficking, when the victims are children or mentally ill people. In  our case, there are 7 children and one mentally ill person among the  victims. Moreover, we have documented cases where parents themselves  subjected their children to labor slavery," clarified the  representative of the Ministry of Social Labor of Armenia, noting  that 7 cases involve sexual slavery, and another 11 involve labor  slavery.  At the same time, she reported that the largest number of  human trafficking cases were recorded in the Kotayk region of Armenia  - 7, followed by Yerevan with 6 cases, and the Gegharkunik region  with 5 cases identified. Over the first 9 months of this year,  another 15 cases were studied where labor trafficking was not  confirmed, and 12 of them were Indian citizens.

Bostanjyan also informed that the state offers various types of  assistance to those have been victims of trafficking: from one-time  payments to providing asylum, where victims can stay for up to 12  months.  It should be noted that today in Yerevan, a training session  was held for journalists as part of an information campaign to raise  awareness about human trafficking and correctly cover this sensitive  issue.  The event was organized by Democracy International within the  framework of the project "Social Protection, Inclusion and  Empowerment" with financial assistance from USAID and in cooperation  with the Ministry of Labor of Armenia.