Astana, Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan Tightens Laws to Combat Human Trafficking Kulpash Konyrova Peace and Security
In early July, Kazakhstan adopted the Law on Combating Human Trafficking, which provides for criminal prosecution for crimes such as kidnapping, illegal deprivation of liberty, human trafficking, including minors, involvement in prostitution, and others. The report from Kazakhstan is timed to coincide with the World Day Against Human Trafficking, which is celebrated on July 30.
According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan, last year 19 cases of trafficking in newborns were registered in the country, for which more than 15 people were brought to justice. This year, six cases of trafficking in newborns have been registered. According to the department, the amounts vary from 100 thousand tenge to 2 million tenge per child (from 200 dollars to 4.5 thousand dollars).
The true scale of the problem Gulnaz Kelekeyeva, head of the project “Actions of Kazakhstan in the fight against child trafficking” of the non-governmental organization Winrock International, believes that official statistics do not reflect the real state of affairs. “Unfortunately, in Kazakhstan, a nationwide study of socially vulnerable children and the vulnerability of children to trafficking and exploitation has not actually been conducted. There are no precise statistics to assess the true scale of the problem,” she told UN News Service.
The only study on vulnerable Kazakhstani children who have been victims of human trafficking in the country and abroad, as well as sexual exploitation, was conducted by UNICEF Kazakhstan back in 2012.
Human and child trafficking is now increasingly taking place in cyberspace
“But much has changed over the past 12 years, in particular, human and child trafficking is now increasingly taking place in cyberspace. It is necessary to conduct a new analysis of the current situation in the country on the protection of children from trafficking and exploitation,” Kelekeyeva emphasized.
Today, there is only isolated information about cases of child trafficking that gets into the media from crime reports, the interviewee emphasized. Thus, last fall, a high-profile case was the sale of an abandoned baby by obstetricians at one of the Kazakhstani maternity hospitals. The doctors were found guilty of selling a newborn for one and a half million tenge (three thousand dollars) and sentenced to eight years in prison.
Another case that received wide publicity in the media: a 23-year-old mother decided to sell her two children. The eldest was about a year old, the second was not even a month old. Now the children are under the protection of the state.
IIN at birth as a means of protection against child trafficking
“Unfortunately, currently, health and education authorities, meaning maternity hospitals and schools, children’s homes and guardianship and trusteeship institutions, visiting nurses, pediatricians at polyclinics, casualty departments and emergency departments, as well as private medical centers in Kazakhstan, are often unaware of the role they play in preventing and combating child trafficking. They mistakenly believe that this issue falls within the purview of law enforcement agencies only. Although it is precisely in this issue that there should be interaction between all interested services,” noted Gulnaz Kelekeeva.
She recalled that child trafficking is not only the adoption of children, but also sexual exploitation, forced labor and sale for organs.
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A new Kazakh law on toughening penalties for human trafficking requires employees of medical institutions to report abandoned newborns – otherwise they face administrative liability.
Digital technologies help to identify such cases. Since last year, a pilot project has been tested in one of the maternity hospitals in the capital of Kazakhstan, when each newborn child was immediately given an individual identification number (IIN), which eliminates the possibility of concluding criminal transactions. This year, this service will be implemented throughout the country.
The story of a Kazakhstani sold to foreigners
If on the domestic market of Kazakhstan, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the cost of newborns varies from 200 to four thousand dollars, then for foreigners on the black market the price reaches 50 thousand dollars, member of the Kazakh parliament Sergei Ponomarev, who took part in the development of the new law, said in an interview with the News Service.
For the second year, the story of 21-year-old Eddy Zhan (born Zhanibek), adopted by a single Belgian woman, has remained in the spotlight of the Kazakh public. In 2022, he came to Kazakhstan in search of his biological mother.
“I don’t need anything, I just want to see my mother’s face, hug her at least once and calm my heart. I still worry, especially when I talk about my mother,” the young man said, speaking on national television in a popular talk show. Famous journalist Kymbat Doszhan was so moved by Eddy Zhan’s story that she became his official representative in Kazakhstan in search of his biological mother.
In an interview with the UN News Service, Kymbat Doszhan said that Eddie’s mother Zhana (Zhanibeka) asked to leave the maternity hospital with a receipt in 2002, but never returned. And in those years, according to the journalist, when the republic’s economy was recovering after the collapse of the USSR, a lot of Kazakh children were adopted by foreigners and taken abroad.
“Find Eddie Jean’s biological mother ( Zhanibek) is still very difficult. Archival documents from the orphanage have either disappeared or do not contain accurate information. This may have been done intentionally. There were two meetings with Eddie Jean’s alleged mothers, but DNA results did not confirm the relationship. When we contacted his adoptive mother from Belgium, it turned out that she then paid the employees of the orphanage 12 thousand euros,” said Kymbat Doszhan.
The search for the biological mother is still continue
“Zhanibek’s fate touched me deeply. I am trying to understand where he got such a strong desire to find the woman who, twenty years ago, gave him life, but left him with strangers. What is this? The call of blood?! The desire to find your roots? You know, when he was in Astana, we took him to the hippodrome. Seeing the horses, he easily saddled the horse. He sat as if he were a real resident of the village,” the journalist added.
Today, in Kazakhstan, issues of child adoption are regulated by law. If a crime is detected, in particular an act of purchase and sale or other transactions with respect to a minor, the fact is registered under Article 135 of the Criminal Code (trafficking in minors).
“Having received information from Eddy Jean’s Belgian mother that he was sold to her for 12 thousand euros, we were faced with the fact that we had no one to even file claims against. Those who sold children in those years have long since left Kazakhstan,” said Kymbat Doszhan.
Comprehensive assistance
According to Gulnaz Kelekeyeva, after the law on combating human trafficking, Kazakhstan will have to develop and implement additional documents that will clearly define the functions of various government agencies in matters of identifying cases of crime, as well as identifying and protecting victims and providing them with comprehensive assistance.
“A similar mechanism was approved, for example, in Kyrgyzstan, five years ago, in 2019. Let’s hope that this year or next year, following the updated law, a new mechanism will be adopted that will take into account the special needs of children at all stages of work with them,” the expert noted.
Legal support Sensational scientific achievements at the time, such as the possibility of artificial insemination, today cause many difficulties in developing a law aimed at preventing the sale of newborns. “Today we are faced with cases where women from Kazakhstan, especially from the southern regions of the country, are used as incubators to carry other people’s children. Then the child’s DNA is taken to determine kinship with a man who is a citizen of another country. When determining kinship, the biological father has every right to take the child abroad. “In this matter, we are open to studying the experience of countries,” said member of parliament Sergei Ponomarev.