The US State Department 5th Annual Report on fighting trafficking included Armenia in the second group of states in a special list of control of struggle against trafficking, as the country did not manage to provide enough proof of efficiency of fight against human trafficking. It was stated by Ambassador John Miller, the Director of the US State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons in the course of an interactive press conference organized at the US Embassy in Yerevan. In his words, Armenia adopted a national program of actions for fighting trafficking, however there is no sufficient proof that the program is being implemented. Specifically, there is no evidence that the law on trafficking was applied to those guilty. Moreover, all sanctions were either conditional or much milder than those provided for the crime. As noted by the report, only 1 out of the 16 accused was sentenced in compliance with the article 132 (anti-trafficking), the remaining 15 were indicted for pimping, which provides for milder punishment. Mr. Miller said there are reports that representatives of the Office of Public Prosecutor of Armenia and frontier guards are involved in human trafficking. «We hope the Government of Armenia will make every effort to prove the contrary,» he said. As noted by Jennifer Strong Tamli, the person responsible for the report on Armenia, there is no concrete evidence that representatives of law-enforcement bodies are also involved. In his turn J. Miller said, «I would be surprised if any of the persons present here had not known about it.» In his words, another report (a current one) will be published in 2006. However, he hoped that when the final report is ready next June Armenia will move from the special control list to the second group that includes countries with progress in combating human trafficking. «Otherwise, the consequences will tell on the US-Armenia relations,» Miller said. «The US is ready to work with Armenia, where a serious problem of trafficking is available, as it is a source country,» he said. In Miller’s words, the UAE and Turkey are the basic destination countries of Armenian women and children. «The phenomenon is present in any country irrespective of the degree of development, however the US pays much attention to trafficking, as slavery has left its trace in the US history,» Miller emphasized.
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